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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary July 25, 2006
Chief Aguilar: Good morning, everybody. Welcome. It's good to be here with you this morning. And the intent this morning is to give you an update on operations and an update on Operation Jump Start.
As you all have heard us speak before, Operation Jump Start has been tremendous, has been real and has been very positive for the United States Border Patrol, and you'll hear us talking about that as we progress through this morning.
First, let me just revisit one thing that I think is critical, and that is that as all of you have heard us speak to in the past, the approach to border security, all borders, is a comprehensive approach -- one of technology, one of personnel, and one of infrastructure. In all three facets of those components, the Guard is now playing a part.
Let me tell you that right now, since the beginning of the fiscal year, we have added 598 Border Patrol agents to the cadre of the Border Patrol. As we speak, there are approximately 654 Border Patrol agents at the United States Border Patrol Academy.
Technology. We have continued to add -- as an example, I'll give you San Diego. We've literally flipped the switch on 14 pole sites, remote video surveillance sites in San Diego approximately a month and a half ago, two months ago.
Infrastructure. We're continuing to build, as is depicted by some of the static displays that we have up here, of which the Guard and Operation Jump Start are a very critical part of.
Oasis. You have heard us speak about our binational, international prosecutions programs between Mexico and the United States -- 222 cases that have actually been prosecuted since we began that effort.
OTMs -- other than Mexicans. I am pleased to announce this morning that basically OTM apprehensions are down right now by about 24 percent. They are falling, they are falling dramatically, and they continue to fall. The Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, which was our most active OTM sector for apprehensions, is down by about 25 percent as we speak.
Deaths. Deaths are down nationally by about 7 percent. Tucson, which was our heaviest toll, if you will, in the number of border deaths, is down by 29 percent, and Yuma is down by 32 percent. The numbers for Tucson are 120 deaths versus 169; 23 for Yuma versus 34.
Now, the only other thing I will mention before I get into the actual narcotics and alien apprehension numbers is the fact that we have begun our interior repatriation program out of Arizona. We are averaging about 150 repatriations into the interior of Mexico on a daily basis.
Narcotics. We are up by 20 percent. I will tell you that I strongly believe that one of the reasons that we are up in the interdiction of narcotics is because of the expansion capability that the Guard has given us along our nation's borders, our enhanced capacity to actually take in more of the border. We are up by 20 percent in the area of narcotics apprehensions, over 1.2 million pounds of narcotics so far this year.
Alien apprehensions. Nationally, we are down by 2 percent. But this is the important number: Since the day that the President announced Operation Jump Start, if we use that date as a dividing line, we go back 69 days prior and 69 days to today, our apprehensions are down by 45 percent, 45 percent.
Now, some of you may ask, how does that compare to the seasonal downtrend? Well, last year, it was 25 percent. So the increase in the downward trend is, in fact, positive, it's real, and it's impacting. So 45 percent.
Now, Operation Jump Start. We chose these -- the General and I chose these depictions because I think they tell the story very accurately. You will see we have talked often about how Operation Jump Start was an interim bridge to getting us additional personnel hired and, very importantly, the agents that were working non-direct enforcement duty, getting those badges back to the border.
As we speak today, because of the general National Guard deployments, we have placed 250 badges back on the border, 250 Border Patrol agents that were previously doing non-direct enforcement work. How have we done that? By actually placing National Guard personnel to handle our law enforcement communications assistant work; by, in some cases, building or maintaining roadways that we used to have to do on our own; by actually placing them on entryentification teams that used to be manned by Border Patrol agents. Now they are manned by the Guard personnel and directly supported by Border Patrol agents on the ground.
In addition to that, we have at our checkpoints -- this is a checkpoint depiction of south Texas -- that is over 5,000 pounds of narcotics that were found in a semi trailer. When agents or canines detect this contraband, in the past, we would have to pull in Border Patrol agents from the field in order to offload and things of this nature. Now the Guard personnel are doing a lot of the searching, a lot of the seizing, a lot of what we used to have to be doing on our own.
And very critically, infrastructure building. Infrastructure building, this depiction right here is in San Diego, where we continue to build the fences, we continue to build the infrastructure that's necessary to assist us in bringing control to the United States border.
As we speak, we have Guard personnel forward deployed, at Joint Task Force headquarters, and in transition to getting on the ground with us.
With that said, I'm going to pass it on to my good friend and partner here, General Blum.
General.
General Blum: Thank you, Chief Aguilar. He covered it quite well. Operation Jump Start is a Customs and Border Patrol operation. It's not a military operation, it's a law enforcement operation.
The National Guard's part in this is to provide military support to civilian law enforcement, as directed by the President and the Secretary of Defense.
We, as you remember, are not doing Border Patrol law enforcement work. We're doing everything else that other badge-carrying Border Patrol people used to have to do. We are replacing them so that he can get badges back to the border. But in addition to that, as he said, we're assisting them with their tactical infrastructure so that they can be more effective; they have better roads so that they can move laterally along the border much faster and better than they can today; that they have fences and lighting and sensors put in that can detect illegal activity along our border so they can do their law enforcement work in a more focused manner.
And probably the biggest thing that we bring in terms of numbers and capability to the game are the additional eyes and ears of the initial entry teams that the National Guard will be providing to Customs and Border Patrol so that they have greater situational awareness of what is going on in places where they could not go, or could not see, or could not hear what was happening before. We are going to provide that capability.
I think the numbers speak for themselves in the deterrent effect of the early stages of the operation have already -- speaks volumes to the effectiveness of the National Guard teaming with the Customs and Border Patrol as they increase their capabilities internally and we assist them with some of their tactical infrastructure and helping them in seeing and reporting what's going on along the border so that they can take the appropriate law enforcement action.
I think it's been a magnificent team. The National Guard is on target to deliver up to 6,000 citizen soldiers and airmen from various states around the nation. They will be in these border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas on the 1st of August. We will meet the President's commitment to do that. I was briefed early this morning. We actually will exceed that by a small margin, and then we'll make an adjustment because military units are not really built to meet numbers, they're build to deliver capabilities. So we won't really have 6,000 there; we'll have slightly over 6,000 to deliver the capabilities that Chief Aguilar has requested. And then we'll make those adjustments as necessary as time goes on.
I think that's about all I'm going to say right now, and we'll wait and see what your concerns are and questions.
Question: How many Guard troops are on the border now?
General Blum: There are 4,500 National Guard soldiers -- army and air -- in the states of California and Arizona and New Mexico and Texas, the southwest border states that are -- each one, every one that's there is an essential member of this Operation Jump Start team or they would not be there. These were sent there for the purpose of supporting or performing a function or delivering a capability, a military capability that was requested by the Customs and Border Patrol. And there are some people down there that enabled that effort to be sustained over the next two years. So there are some people in there that provide command and control, administrative logistics that are necessary to sustain that effort over the next two years.
Question: Chief, about a month ago, we were told that the arrival of the Guard had allowed you to move 125 border agents back. And today you're saying the number is 250.
Chief Aguilar: Yes.
Question: Where is that going? When the full 6,000 are there, or eventually who do you -- how many do you hope to replace?
Chief Aguilar: The number that we'dentified originally when we started planning this operation that would -- the numbers of badges back to the border, if you will, was 581. So we're about at the halfway point right now. And that, in itself is a -- well, let me give you this comparison. Two hundred and fifty badges back to the border equate to five Border Patrol es through our academy, because our academy es are about 50 per . But one thing that I ask you to take into consideration is these are mature journeymen, trained officers that we immediately -- overnight put back on the border, as opposed to taking five es of trainees and putting them through the academy, and then, of course, on-the-job training and things of that nature.
So again, very, very impacting, very positive for our efforts out there.
Question: And the 581 would be sort of by what point in the -- over time?
Chief Aguilar: Time-wise?
Question: Yes.
Chief Aguilar: Well, as the General said, by August 1, he intends to have 6,000 within the theater. As we transition from theater to actual implementation, I would anticipate that that would be shortly thereafter. Now, whether that's days, weeks, it will be within that time frame, okay?
Let me go here.
Question: Chief, a couple of questions. There's a 13 percent increase in the El Paso sector. Can you address why that is happening? And secondly, is there anything being done to try to help the federal courts, which as you increase your numbers, increase your case load, the judges are all feeling stressed out dealing with lawyers, transportation costs, et cetera?
Chief Aguilar: Let me begin with the 13 percent increase in El Paso. El Paso sector, as you know, and for the rest of you who don't, takes in that little corner of Texas, which is El Paso County, literally, and then all of the entire state -- good point up here, the entire state of New Mexico. One area that we had not -- and I repeat -- we had not been able to do a very good job Border Patrol stand-alone was in the area of New Mexico -- Deming, Lordsburg, that area. We just didn't have the resources.
Now, let me go from there to what I refer to as the dynamics of illegal immigration. In order to make an impact on that flow, the first thing you have to do is resource. The General has now assisted us in resourcing. The next dynamic is that when you resource, you see an up-take in apprehensions because the flow doesn't know that you're there. Once you get that increase in apprehensions, you should have a downtrend on it shortly thereafter. That's what we're going through right now. So El Paso sector, New Mexico state is seeing an increase in apprehensions as a means to actually create the deterrence that we're looking to do.
Now, that takes me to the next part of your question about the federal judges I believe you asked. I ask this group to keep in mind that one of the most important things that we're looking to do is to create just that, that deterrence effect. Is that going to create in the initial phases an increase upon the judges, upon the U.S. Attorneys, the marshals, things of this nature? Yes. But because we are quickly going to be able to ramp up to becoming an overwhelming force to these criminal organizations, I believe that the deterrence effect is going to take hold, and it will therefore reduce the workload eventually on those other entities that you just referred to.
Up here, sir.
Question: If you could refresh my memory about how long this project was to last? And if I recall correctly, as these es graduate, they were going to replace the National Guardsmen. So what are we talking about? Is it a two-year program or --
Chief Aguilar: Well, let me begin here. It's two years, up to two years. The first year will be up to 6,000 Guard personnel. The second year will be up 3,000 Guard personnel. The one thing I have to reiterate is that it is not a one-per-one replacement. At the present time -- in fact, the General and I have talked about this in depth -- at the present time, our requirements, our need, Border Patrol, are to have a deterrent effect, to quickly ramp up our interdiction,entification, deterrence capabilities. That's what the General is supplying us with.
As we move through this continuum over a period of two years, what we both anticipate is that we will be heavy on Guard deployments towards the engineering missions -- what you see here, what you see here in this area -- because that will give what I refer to as residual value to the Guard. In that continuum we will be ramping up our Border Patrol agent deployments.
Now, it's coincidence that we will have 6,000 Border Patrol agents net by the end of calendar year '08, hired, recruited and finishing up their training.
Question: Chief, you also have a 20 percent increase in both San Diego and El Centro sectors. How do you account for that? Because those are sectors where you have had resources in the past, it's not like New Mexico where you (inaudible) devoting things to that area. Is that a sign that traffic is shifting --
Chief Aguilar: Oh, absolutely. One of the things that we've always stated is whenever we place resources in a given area of operation, the criminal organizations are going to look to adjust. The one situation that we can't lose sight of is that San Diego is now very well prepared to receive that shift, if you will. And the increase, the 20 percent that you're talking about, is because of the fact that they can detect, deter, detain,entify and bring to resolution that increased flow.
So it is that added capability that we have built up, and continue to