Public affairs officers in Southern Arizona and along the Southwest border received an unusual directive from a regional spokesman on Feb. 1.

“All,” William Brooks addressed them, “We will no longer provide interviews, ride-alongs, visits etc. about the border, the state of the border and what have you.

“Should you get a request, inform the reporter that you will see what you can do and get back to them. Then send it to me.”

If that sounds like an instruction for these agency spokesmen not to do their jobs, you shouldn’t be surprised. The U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies of the Department of Homeland Security have worked steadily over recent years to centralize their image control and deflect scrutiny.

This has happened at the same time the Border Patrol has grown to become the largest law-enforcement agency in Southern Arizona by far, numbering 4,300 agents. The upshot: It’s harder and harder for the public to know how this omnipresent force is using its taxpayer funding and its police authority.

[…]

In email exchanges over weeks, [Customs and Border Protection regional spokesman William Brooks] said the Border Patrol’s use-of-force policy is not publicly available - even though other police agencies post such policies on the Internet - and denied a request to know what discipline, if any, several agents had received as a result of specific shootings.

Revealing a misunderstanding of the difference between government employees and workers for private companies, he wrote in a Nov. 30 email to me, “I would expect your personnel records are private as well, no?”

Given all this, it wasn’t surprising how the agency responded when I sent them the Feb. 1 email, which was passed on to me, and asked for an explanation. Brooks’ emailed response was one sentence: “Who sent you a copy of the email?”

[…]

I asked our local congressmen, Ron Barber and Raúl Grijalva, if they wanted to comment on the issue. Grijalva responded and pointed out what may be a key explanation.

“Sometimes I think the effort on the border happened so fast that the processes never caught up with it,” he said. “If we’re going to have a security effort of this magnitude, then there should be a corresponding attention to transparency and access.”

“Should” isn’t enough. In a democracy like ours, in a region where we encounter Homeland Security agents daily, transparency is a must.

[…]

Read the whole column, and see a copy of Brooks’s email, here: Tim Steller: Border Patrol Tries to Control Image

No doubt one of the cases the Border Patrol doesn’t want to talk about is this one: US Border Patrol Agents Shot Mexican Teen 7 Times From Behind. But there are many others. Last December, Tim Steller wrote a blog post about abuses by the Border Patrol.

Grijalva is right, there should be transparency. And Steller is right, there must be transparency.

Read the rest here.

Customs officials cited a Sunland Park resident Friday for attempting to smuggle 76 pounds of bologna into the United States by hiding it in a spare tire, according to a news release.

The eight rolls of Mexican bologna were discovered aboard a truck at an El Paso port of entry, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“This bologna is a prohibited product because it is made from pork and has the potential for introducing foreign animal diseases to the U.S. pork industry,” said Hector Mancha, El Paso port director for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “This is a highly unusual seizure because of the concealment method.”

[…]

Read the rest, or listen to the whole thing here.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has beefed up the number of border agents in the last 10 years, but not its customs inspectors – those officers in blue who check the legitimate traffic coming through the ports of entry.

That’s led to long wait times to get into the United States at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border from California to Texas. That translates into lost dollars, with one study putting the cost at millions of dollars per minute [emphasis added].

[…]

It’s all just part of a $360 billion a year cross border trade between the U.S. and Mexico. Here in Nogales, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is getting ready to double the size of the Mariposa Port of Entry, expanding the aging port’s truck lanes from three to eight, and adding four more lanes for normal vehicle traffic.

The problem is the agency doesn’t have enough inspectors to staff the newly expanded port.

[…]

They don’t even mention the need for more inspectors for the southbound traffic. That’s how the guns and drug money would be stopped.

nogalesinternational.com

A 29-year-old Mexican man is facing drug and assault charges after he crashed into a truck driven by an undercover federal agent on Wednesday, ending a multi-agency car chase that started in the Kino Springs area and ended about a mile north of the Mariposa Port of Entry.

The pursuit began after U.S. Border Patrol agents, using surveillance technology, spotted a suspected vehicular smuggling attempt east of Nogales, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman Vince Picard.

“The Border Patrol attempted to stop the vehicle, which failed to yield and fled into Nogales,” Picard said in an e-mail statement.

[…]

It was there at about 3:55 p.m., where the agent, driving an unmarked Ford F-150 with Mexican license plates, crashed into and stopped the suspect’s Chevy S-10 Blazer, Gradillas said.

[…]

A tow tuck operator prepares to haul away a Chevy S-10 Blazer that collided with a pickup truck driven by an undercover Border Patrol agent (far right) to end a miles-long pursuit through Nogales on Wednesday. The driver of the Blazer was arrested on drug and assault charges. Photo: Manuel C. Coppola

azstarnet.com

Six people are in custody who might be linked to the fatal shooting of a Border Patrol agent last month near Nogales, U.S. marshals say.

The Border Patrol arrested four illegal immigrants on Dec. 14, the night agent Brian Terry was fatally shot northwest of Nogales, including one who was hospitalized.

The next day, Border Patrol officials brought in two more men who they say might be connected to the shooting, said Ray Kondo, assistant chief of the U.S. marshals in Tucson.

“They could be involved; they could be witnesses. Who knows?” Kondo said. “We are not privy to that. They just told us they may be linked. How they are linked, I can’t tell you.”

All six men have made initial appearances in federal court, he said. They have been charged only with immigration offenses so far. The last one made his appearance on Tuesday after not being well enough to go to court until then.

[…]

A terrible loss:

A Border Patrol agent was shot and killed Tuesday night during a gunbattle with suspected bandits.

Four people, including one who suffered gunshot wounds, were taken into custody. Authorities were searching for a fifth suspect Wednesday, said Rick Barlow, deputy chief in the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector.

Agent Brian A. Terry, 40, was killed when he and fellow agents exchanged fire with a group of five people about 11 p.m. Tuesday in a remote area west of Rio Rico, said FBI spokeswoman Brenda Nath.

Bandits were responsible for the killing, said agent Brandon Judd, president of the agents’ union in Arizona, Local 2544. Bandits are criminals who try to rip off loads of drugs and people from smugglers.

Terry and his fellow agents were members of the agency’s SWAT team, known as Bortac. They were in the area where the shooting occurred because of the high levels of illegal activity involving armed bandits, Judd said.

“It wasn’t a surprise encounter,” Judd said. “They knew what they were going into.”

[…]

As a child, [Terry] was very accident prone, earning the nickname “Stitches.”

“Every time we turned around, Brian was getting stitches,” she said.

But he became a big, muscular, athletic man who stood 6-foot-4 and sometimes worked out two to three times a day. His athleticism and skills earned him a spot in the Border Patrol’s SWAT team.

“He was, by all accounts, an absolutely outstanding agent,” Judd said. “He was everything you would want on this team.”

Terry was well-liked by colleagues, said Judd, who worked with him in the Border Patrol in Naco. His sister echoed that, saying he had friends everywhere. They are expecting at least 1,000 people at his funeral in Michigan, she said.

[…]

Agent Brian A. Terry, 40, was killed as he and fellow agents exchanged gunfire with suspected bandits in a remote area west of Rio Rico, the FBI said. COURTESY OF MICHELLE TERRY-BALOGH

The Christian Science Monitor’s report seems confused about the bandits.

azstarnet.com

Authorities seized more than $2 million in undeclared cash at the Nogales port of entry last week in two separate routine stops.

On Nov. 6, Customs and Border Protection officers stopped a 24-year-old woman from Mexico leaving the U.S. and during the inspection they found bundles of cash hidden in compartments inside her van, according to a CBP news release.

The woman had approximately $937,000 and was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the release said.

Two days later CBP officers stopped a 42-year-old woman and a 49-year-old man from Mexico leaving the country in a pickup truck, and after routine questioning they found approximately $1,156,000 in undeclared cash hidden in a compartment in the roof of the truck, according to the release.

[…]

elpasotimes.com

Border security concerns arose again Thursday morning when a Juárez traffic officer was ambushed by a group of armed men near the U.S. border.

Roxana Rodríguez Monroy, 33, was shot and killed about 10:30 a.m. while she was escorting a vehicle to a lot where vehicles involved in traffic violations are kept, said Juárez city spokesman Jaime Torres.

She was riding a motorcycle near the intersection of Norzagaray Boulevard and Plomo Street at the time, according to Chihuahua state news release. That intersection is directly across from the El Paso Downtown neighborhood of Chihuahuita.

After Monroy was shot, she called for help. Another traffic officer, Jose Natividad Valdez, came to her aid but he, too, was shot, along with a civilian, Torres said.

[…]

Thirty-three transit and city police officers have been killed in Juárez this year, Torres said.

More than 2,300 people have been slain in Juárez this year, according to an El Paso Times tally.

By Thursday evening, at least six more people were killed in the city, including two unidentified men found tied up and shot to death.

The men’s heads had been covered with plastic bags wrapped with tape, Chihuahua state police said. One man wore only boxer shorts while the other wore a green jersey, possibly of the Mexican national soccer team, and a pink mini-skirt.

In some drug-related murders, victims have been dressed in women’s clothing after death as a form of humiliation.

Mexican federal police look on as an SUV is driven back from the Rio Grande onto the road after a Juarez traffic officer was ambushed and killed by a group of gunmen near the U.S. border. Another traffic officer, who arrived at the scene to assist her, was also shot. Authorities said the gunmen fled in the SUV, which was covered with bullet holes.
(Ruben R. Ramirez / El Paso Times)

elpasotimes.com

[…]

The driver of the car, Esther Dolores Sepulveda, is accused of failing to declare currency over $10,000. Sepulveda allegedly told federal agents that she was to be paid $3,000 for transporting the money from Fort Worth to Juárez. CBP officers regularly check for illegal shipments of cash, weapons and ammunition in traffic headed to Mexico as part of efforts against the drug cartels.

This is a policy that is about one year old. They should have started many years ago, and how much money they are finding is evidence of that.