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Border efforts called out of sync
Border efforts called out of sync
Agencies must coordinate to control crime, federal report warns\
Billy House
Republic Washington Bureau
Jul. 12, 2004 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Federal agencies must better coordinate their efforts to battle drug smuggling and illegal crossings along the nation's remote borderland frontiers with Mexico and Canada, congressional auditors warn in a new report.
"In Arizona, there has been very little coordination or planning between the Border Patrol and land management agencies, even as border agencies' staffing levels have increased in recent years," the General Accounting Office says in its report.
The Border Patrol is responsible for protecting the borders. But the GAO report notes that 820 miles of the about 2,000 total miles of border the United States shares with Mexico are located on federal or tribal lands that encompass national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.
Much of the GAO's focus is on Arizona, where 240 of the 375 miles of border shared with Mexico are managed by the U.S. Forest Service (53 miles), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (70 miles), the Fish and Wildlife Service (65 miles), the Bureau of Land Management (17 miles) or the National Park Service (35 miles).
Because U.S. Border Patrol strategies since the mid- to late1990s have concentrated additional patrol resources in populated areas, much of the cross-border illegal traffic has shifted to these more-remote federal lands in Arizona, the GAO report says.
Evidence of these shifts as documented in the GAO report includes:
• Seizure of more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana, 144 grams of cocaine and 6,600 grams of methamphetamine on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 2003, compared with the 65,000 pounds of narcotics confiscated the year before.
• Confiscation of 19,000 pounds of marijuana by the Bureau of Land Management on BLM property in Arizona - primarily Ironwood Forest National Monument - in fiscal 2003, up from 2,600 pounds the year before.
• Rising numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended on Department of Interior lands in Arizona within 100 miles of the border, going from 51 in 1997 to 113,480 in 2000.
• The illegal entry into the United States of an estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants through the National Park Service's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in 2001.
• Estimates that as many as 1,000 undocumented immigrants cross the Fish and Wildlife Service's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge each week.
The report also refers to the rising number of undocumented immigrants who have been dying while trying to cross these remote border regions illegally.
And it points to the increased dangers that the shifting illegal activity poses to law enforcement officers, federal agency employees, residents and visitors to national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and tribal nations. The GAO mentions the August 2002 shooting death of a park ranger as he helped Border Patrol agents pursue two men suspected in a drug-related murder.
GAO auditors who paid field visits to Arizona said officials of these other agencies acknowledged "they were unprepared for the increased illegal border activity on their lands," and reported enforcement activities with the Border Patrol often continue to lack coordination.
In addition, the GAO notes that these agencies' efforts to get more federal funding and law enforcement personnel on their own tied to border projects are sometimes disregarded because they are viewed by federal budget officials "as more in keeping with the border security mission of the Border Patrol."
As of May, the Border Patrol still had not issued detailed plans to ensure that interagency coordination occurs, the GAO said.
Given these challenges and increased awareness about the threat of terrorists entering the country, the GAO concludes "it is critical that the Border Patrol and land management agencies closely coordinate their efforts . . . to respond to increased illegal border activity - in populated areas as well as rugged wilderness."
Without such a "coordinated, interagency approach along the Mexican and Canadian borders that takes into account a broader federal perspective, individual federal agencies will continue to consider and fund only their own priorities," the GAO warns.
Officials of the Department of Homeland Security, and the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Justice, and the Office of Management and Budget reviewed a draft of the report and generally agreed with the GAO's conclusions.
The various agencies are working to address the concerns, said Michael Dino, an assistant director of the GAO based in Los Angeles.
Here
Border efforts called out of sync
Agencies must coordinate to control crime, federal report warns\
Billy House
Republic Washington Bureau
Jul. 12, 2004 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Federal agencies must better coordinate their efforts to battle drug smuggling and illegal crossings along the nation's remote borderland frontiers with Mexico and Canada, congressional auditors warn in a new report.
"In Arizona, there has been very little coordination or planning between the Border Patrol and land management agencies, even as border agencies' staffing levels have increased in recent years," the General Accounting Office says in its report.
The Border Patrol is responsible for protecting the borders. But the GAO report notes that 820 miles of the about 2,000 total miles of border the United States shares with Mexico are located on federal or tribal lands that encompass national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.
Much of the GAO's focus is on Arizona, where 240 of the 375 miles of border shared with Mexico are managed by the U.S. Forest Service (53 miles), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (70 miles), the Fish and Wildlife Service (65 miles), the Bureau of Land Management (17 miles) or the National Park Service (35 miles).
Because U.S. Border Patrol strategies since the mid- to late1990s have concentrated additional patrol resources in populated areas, much of the cross-border illegal traffic has shifted to these more-remote federal lands in Arizona, the GAO report says.
Evidence of these shifts as documented in the GAO report includes:
• Seizure of more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana, 144 grams of cocaine and 6,600 grams of methamphetamine on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 2003, compared with the 65,000 pounds of narcotics confiscated the year before.
• Confiscation of 19,000 pounds of marijuana by the Bureau of Land Management on BLM property in Arizona - primarily Ironwood Forest National Monument - in fiscal 2003, up from 2,600 pounds the year before.
• Rising numbers of undocumented immigrants apprehended on Department of Interior lands in Arizona within 100 miles of the border, going from 51 in 1997 to 113,480 in 2000.
• The illegal entry into the United States of an estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants through the National Park Service's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in 2001.
• Estimates that as many as 1,000 undocumented immigrants cross the Fish and Wildlife Service's Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge each week.
The report also refers to the rising number of undocumented immigrants who have been dying while trying to cross these remote border regions illegally.
And it points to the increased dangers that the shifting illegal activity poses to law enforcement officers, federal agency employees, residents and visitors to national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and tribal nations. The GAO mentions the August 2002 shooting death of a park ranger as he helped Border Patrol agents pursue two men suspected in a drug-related murder.
GAO auditors who paid field visits to Arizona said officials of these other agencies acknowledged "they were unprepared for the increased illegal border activity on their lands," and reported enforcement activities with the Border Patrol often continue to lack coordination.
In addition, the GAO notes that these agencies' efforts to get more federal funding and law enforcement personnel on their own tied to border projects are sometimes disregarded because they are viewed by federal budget officials "as more in keeping with the border security mission of the Border Patrol."
As of May, the Border Patrol still had not issued detailed plans to ensure that interagency coordination occurs, the GAO said.
Given these challenges and increased awareness about the threat of terrorists entering the country, the GAO concludes "it is critical that the Border Patrol and land management agencies closely coordinate their efforts . . . to respond to increased illegal border activity - in populated areas as well as rugged wilderness."
Without such a "coordinated, interagency approach along the Mexican and Canadian borders that takes into account a broader federal perspective, individual federal agencies will continue to consider and fund only their own priorities," the GAO warns.
Officials of the Department of Homeland Security, and the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Justice, and the Office of Management and Budget reviewed a draft of the report and generally agreed with the GAO's conclusions.
The various agencies are working to address the concerns, said Michael Dino, an assistant director of the GAO based in Los Angeles.
Here