Violence against border agents up 47% in past 6 months!

April 9, 2008 - Violence against U.S. Border Patrol agents is up 47 percent for the first six months of the fiscal year, as surveillance toughens along the 2,000-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexico border, David Aguilar, the nation's top Border Patrol official, said Tuesday.

"As we continue to gain control of our borders, we fully expected the violence to go up," said Mr. Aguilar, in Dallas for a quarterly gathering of about 50 sector chiefs and other leaders.

In the past six months, there have been nearly 500 incidents against Border Patrol agents, as varied as rock-throwing, physical assaults and gunfire. Smugglers "frankly thought they owned" the border region, and could operate with impunity, Mr. Aguilar said.

Mr. Aguilar talked about the successes in apprehensions and drugs seizures and the challenges ahead in training new agents for an agency whose mission has been redefined since Sept. 11, 2001, with an increased emphasis on stopping illegal immigration.

The law enforcement agency, under U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is expected to increase staffing to about 18,300 by the end of the year, from 15,800.

But the steady increase in agents since 2000 has meant that about 43 percent have less than two years' experience.

And that is a concern, Mr. Aguilar acknowledged. Thus, the agency has deepened and toughened training, he said.

Agents are now required to complete two-year internships and are better equipped, with pistols, automatic weapons and mobile radar towers with a seven-mile surveillance radius, said Mr. Aguilar, a native of Edinburg, Texas.

The most symbolic sign of Congress' attempt to fight illegal immigration is several hundred miles of new fencing along patches of the U.S.-Mexico border. No ground has been turned in Texas – where far more real estate lies in private hands than in other parts of the country. But fencing is going up just west of El Paso in New Mexico.

Though Mr. Aguilar said "the fence is not a solution" to stopping illegal immigration, he called it a tool for agents and defended the move to build it.

"The security of this country is absolutely worth it," he said. Holding people back "for minutes" because of a patch of fence gives Border Patrol agents a tactical advantage, he said.