CBP chief assesses the border: Alan Bersin, in El Paso, assures safety, backs Mexico’s fight
Armed with statistics stating that 90 percent of those who try to enter the U.S. illegally in this region get caught, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin assured El Paso on Wednesday that the border is secure, safe and under control.
The problem, Bersin said, is that the rest of the country thinks the border is out of control.
“I’ve thought a lot about why that is,” he said. “The answer has to be that the violence in northern Mexico is real and unprecedented. Because of that violence, the threat that it will spill over is there. While we haven’t seen the spillover violence, the risk is clearly there.”
[…]
Bersin said that securing the border has to go hand in hand with moving goods through the ports of entry in a more efficient manner.
“We can have safe borders and expedite traffic at the same time,” he said.
On the national security front, Bersin said drug seizures and apprehensions of undocumented immigrants are down in California, New Mexico and Texas because of the agent buildup in those states. In 1995, there were 2,500 Border Patrol agents, and fewer than that in customs. Today, there are more than 21,000 Border Patrol agents and 22,000 customs agents.
That increase in personnel has led to a dramatic drop in arrests and seizures in places such as El Paso and San Diego, which historically were the main smuggling corridors.
[…]