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Column 071315 Brewer

Monday, July 13, 2015

U.S. and Mexico Border Security Rhetoric Lacks
Proper Focus
By Jerry Brewer
The geographically complex border between the U.S. and
Mexico continues to befuddle lawmakers as to a sensible set
of priorities. Governments appear to have lost any ability to
apply coherent and cognitive capabilities or strategic
approaches to properly understand, assess, and manage
and control the 1,941 mile U.S. border with Mexico.
To complicate issues in this critical mutual need of
neighboring nations, to unite in a proactive and strategic
plan to accomplish the tasks at hand, there are so-called
pundits and political candidate(s) making buffoonish
comments and antics not supported by fact.
Communities along the border require coordinated regional
strategic plans that should be of paramount concern.
Although immigration enforcement is a valid topic that
requires constant attention, and enforcement operational
plans, it must be understood that a border cannot be fully
sealed and secured.
What is fact is that the laws to enforce national
immigration have failed miserably. However, immigration
alone fails to intricately define the real battlefield. There are
those that simply cant differentiate between imminent or
viable threats and benign acts, including illegal border
encroachment, thus losing the proper concept of homeland

security. Enforcement efforts and priorities can therefore

be clouded and unclear.
One presidential candidate, Donald Trump, in a blusterous
harangue about illegal immigration from Mexico into the
U.S., recently said: When Mexico sends its people, theyre
not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have a
lot of problems, and theyre bringing those problems with
us [sic]. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some,
I assume, are good people.
Trump made no distinction between legal and illegal
immigrants.
First off, Mexico is not sending anyone. Secondly, were
these allegations made against legal or illegal immigrants,
or both? Does he believe that only Mexico is the problem?
The plain truth is that, contrasted with U.S. native born
citizens, immigrants as a whole have lower rates of criminal
behavior. Proof of this is contained in a ranking by
Congressional Quarterly that shows of the top ten safest
large cities using FBI statistics, seven have large Hispanic
immigrant populations.
On the border with Mexico, El Paso, Texas has an 81
percent Hispanic population, including 26 percent who are
foreign-born, and ranked as the safest large city in the U.S.
for several years. In contrast, Juarez, Mexico, across the
border from El Paso, has been one of the most violent
places in Latin America.
Since 1990, the number of Central American immigrants in
the United States has nearly tripled. This immigrant
population grew faster than any other region-of-origin
population from Latin America between 2000 and 2010.
Since 1992, undocumented immigrants from Mexico made
up less than half of those apprehended by U.S. Customs
and Border Protection.
The complex border security problems require a
commonsense approach, devoid of prejudices,
misinformation and partisan politics. Irresponsible or
ignorant attacks against, in this case our neighboring

country of Mexico, completely distort the true rationale for

effective border security.
Crime is most certainly a concern to our southern border,
but a new Immigration Policy Center study, by Walter
Ewing, Daniel Martinez and Ruben Rumbaut, points out
that "the foreign-born population rose from 7.9 percent to
13.1 percent from 1990 to 2013, and the number of
unauthorized immigrants more than tripled, but the violent
crime rate declined by 48 percent and property crime by 41
percent. The study further reported, as for incarceration
rates, immigrant men ages 18 to 39 are less than half as
likely to be incarcerated as native-born men the same age.
To the most important issue of managing and controlling
our borders, the unfocused urgency to fix with what may be
insurmountable expectations, is to do so by diligently
working to control manageable sectors of the Mexican
border, especially those areas competently identified as
significant entry or transient locations.
Realists on the border know that it represents much more
than just a dividing line between two nations, nor is it a
boundary that can be totally secured and simply
remedied with billions of dollars of walls and fences and
be done with it.
The border represents business travelers, foreign tourists,
employers, employees, all routinely traversing in both
directions. The solutions rest in sound strategies inherent
on coordinated efforts of enforcement officials in
confronting the complexities on a daily basis along the
border. Much of this includes sound intelligence sharing
and much improved communication amongst the entire
homeland security networks.
The fact is that 1,941 miles of border, other than the more
or less manageable sectors, cities and regions, will have vast
areas of porous border in which fences and walls are scaled
or tunneled under; contraband is catapulted over; plus
ultralights fly over and now drones are being used. Yet
technical interdiction devices and aerial surveillance are
and will be important security resources to protect against
actual and potential attacks upon national sovereignty.

Politicians, apparently, are more concerned with defining

border problems and the enemy than strategical
engagement and interdiction. Border security also has a
mandate to protect and defend persons and property. In
support, local, county and state police must have a clearly
defined role, especially within border jurisdictions as a first
line of defense.
As well, still, politicians must determine what they can and
will realistically do with millions of undocumented
residents who have been crossing into the U.S. for decades.

Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International

Associates, a global threat mitigation firm headquartered
in northern Virginia. His website is located at
www.cjiausa.org. TWITTER: CJIAUSA
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