US Border Spiraling Out Of Control? Hardly, Top Border Official Says.

February 10th, 2011 (7) Posted By Grizz.

Tucson, Ariz.

The Obama administration is going on the offensive to counter public perception that the Southwest border is out of control.
By several important measures, the US-Mexico border is becoming significantly more secure, not less, said US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin at a news conference here Tuesday.

Border patrol arrests dropped from 616,000 to 212,000 between 2000 and 2010, and the number of border patrol agents on the Southwest frontier– 20,700 – is more than double what it was in 2004, he said. Moreover, Phoenix, San Diego, and El Paso, Texas, are among the safest cities in the country, he added.
The event marked an attempt to recast the narrative that dominates discussions about the border here, where fears about rampant illegal immigration and Mexico’s drug war spilling into the US loom large. The killings of a border-area rancher in March and a border patrol agent in December have only reinforced those fears, and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer made the issue a part of November’s election when she asserted that authorities had found decapitated bodies along the border – though she later said she misspoke.

“Increasingly along the border you’ve got these international criminal organizations that are operating, especially with what’s going on in Mexico – the government losing control of large sections of the country,” says Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates tougher immigration restrictions.

Generally speaking, such perceptions have been an impetus for anti-illegal immigration laws such as Arizona’s SB 1070, which would have required law-enforcement officials to check the documents of suspected illegal immigrants, but is now tied up in court.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bersin was essentially trying to offer the Obama administration’s version of setting the record straight – a difficult proposition, experts say.

“Impressions are often not founded in fact, so I’m not sure that just with facts the federal government can make change,” says David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. “I think it’s going to come down to changing the discourse on all sides of this debate.”

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  • ssgduke57

    When you no longer defend the borders because you need cheap labor and votes, you no longer have a country once called the United States!

    No Country can survive long when you do not defend the borders…. Past history has shown this over and over and over again!

  • Tyler520

    Being that we know that the average agent on the line says otherwise – beinmg that we know the only people who reach the highest offices in BP are PC yes-men…we have absolutely no reason to believe this nonsense.

    These people should all be strung up for their treasonous, seditious behavior.

  • Lock and Load

    I would guess that the 51 dead agents mentioned in another post here would tend to disagree with the pathetic, disingenuous summary given by Mr Bersin – another in the long line of obambi wrecking crew idiots whose lack of competence or honesty is absolutely frightening :shock: :roll: :evil: :???:

  • William Ayres

    Wow Arrests down to 212,000 illegals “WHEW” I,m relieved….

  • RockyMtn1776

    When traitors are elcted to office, we know they have sold their soul and their country for money, power and votes.

  • http://thecaptiansquarters.blogspot.com/ Capt-Dax

    I have never seen Bull Shit being Deployed only in Flop Formation! ..lol

  • Kentucky Jim

    1. I’d like to see some meaningful stats on what happened from January 2009 to January 2011

    2. Saying arrests went down is meaningless on its own. (Cutting the Border Patrol entirely will reduce arrests to zero but that does not mean the problem went away or even improved.) Tell me how many Americans were robbed or assaulted by illegals and how many acres of land and miles of road in this country are off limits to US Citizens because of border violence.