![]() ![]() In nearly every case, the driver and passengers escaped and the Border Patrol agents, following agency policy, stayed with the marijuana. There were fewer than 10 such incidents along the rest of the Southwest border. Incidents like this occurrednearly 50 times along the Rio Grande in south Texas between 20, CBP use-of-force reports show. By the time the agents seize the drugs, the smugglers either already have swum back to Mexico or are on their way. ![]() Garcia said seizures and incidents of loads being dumped are rising.īut a search for the smugglers comes up empty. "We think we're seeing an increase," said Carlos Garcia, Starr County's coordinator for Operation Stonegarden, a Homeland Security-funded program that provided $55 million last fiscal year to help pay local law-enforcement border-security costs. But Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher told an audience in Phoenix during a border-security conference two weeks ago that south Texas has become the most active area along the border and is tops in terms of weight of marijuana per seizure.īorder Patrol figures showed a 10 percent drop in marijuana seizures by agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector from a year before, but south Texas drug authorities said they aren't seeing any decline. The sector covers 320 miles of the Rio Grande westward from the Gulf Coast.īorder Patrol officials in both Texas and Washington, D.C., declined to answer specific questions for this story. That trailed only the Tucson Sector's 1.2 million pounds seizures in the Rio Grande sector totaled more than in the remaining 18 Border Patrol sectors combined. Last fiscal year, the Border Patrol said it seized 797,000 pounds in the Rio Grande Valley Sector. territory nearly surrounded by Mexico, offers fertile soil for marijuana smuggling. The incident reports show that the Rio Grande Valley, where the river meanders so sinuously that it creates coils of U.S. Only two use-of-force incidents involved the smuggling of hard drugs. By contrast, drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine seem to be caught primarily at official ports of entry or at highway checkpoints. That data shows marijuana smugglers run into the Border Patrol not just at highway checkpoints, but during frequent, small-scale runs crossing the border between ports of entry. The reports covered 2010 through mid-2012. The Republic reviewed more than 12,000 pages of CBP and Border Patrol use-of-force incident reports, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Force can include using firearms, physical force, less-lethal weapons and devices to stop vehicles, like tire spike-strips. Nationwide, nearly every drug-smuggling case in which Border Patrol agents did report responding with force over a 29-month period involved marijuana, The Arizona Republic found. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |