Border News 2011

Drug seizures rose while apprehensions of undocumented immigrants fell during the 2011 fiscal year along the U.S.-Mexico border, including in the San Diego area.

New figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection also show that San Diego and Imperial counties accounted for nearly 70 percent of all methamphetamine confiscated at ports of entry nationwide in the same period, which ended Sept. 30. For narcotics overall, the agency seized more than 158 tons along the two-county portion of the international border.

“It’s a concern to me in that the volume of hard, dangerous narcotics that are coming to us is increasing. It is also a validation of our targeting efforts,” said Chris Maston, director of field operations in San Diego for Customs and Border Protection. His office oversees five land ports, as well as sea and air routes in the area. “The cartels are stepping up their efforts to move this product in large quantities, and we are getting better, much better, at managing intelligence, using it, making sense of it and converting that intelligence into viable targeting practices,” he added.

The U.S. government has bolstered security along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past decade. The number of Border Patrol agents has nearly tripled in that time, the National Guard has deployed to the area twice in recent years — including a current assignment that has lasted 18 months — and special task forces have been formed.

Customs and Border Protection receives the largest share — 20 percent — of the Department of Homeland Security’s budget. That amounted to more than $11 billion in the 2011 fiscal year.

The increased staffing and resources may have played a role in deterring border-crossers, along with a weak economy that makes the United States less attractive to job-seekers. In the last fiscal year, the Border Patrol apprehended 42,447 people between ports of entry in the San Diego sector.

(Meanwhile, the Office of Field Operations, also part of Customs and Border Protection, caught 37,277 people at ports entry along the California-Mexico border.)

“This very large investment in border security has certainly had a big impact on the ability of people to enter the country illegally, and it has put a dent in the flow of narcotics, but it hasn’t solved the problems and we need to consider other approaches,” said Paul Ganster, director of the Institute

for Regional Studies at San Diego State University. “As long as we have a very large number of Americans providing enormous demand for illegal drugs and as long as we have people in the U.S. willing to employ undocumented workers, we are going to have these problems.”

Customs and Border Protection has encountered a growing number of tunnels and ultralight aircraft in the border zone; boats and smaller watercraft on the open seas; and concealed drugs in the drive shafts, intake manifolds and other parts of vehicles. This is all evidence that smugglers have had to change their game, border experts said.

“That tells me that we are making it harder for them, they have to adjust and change their tactics, so I consider that a successful measure,” Maston said.

Still, there are skeptics of the reported success.

“A secure border is reflected by a border where violence has stopped, cartels are not getting through and smuggled illegals are no longer destroying swaths of border lands,” said Janice Kephart, director of national security policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates limited immigration.