LORDSBURG – The Southwest New Mexico Border Security Task Force met at the Hidalgo County chambers last week with more than 20 in attendance. The meeting consisted mainly of updates from U.S. Customs and Border Protection stations in Deming, Lordsburg, and Santa Teresa.

There were no reports from ports of entry or local law enforcement. Field representatives for US. Sens. Martin Heinrich Tom Udall and U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce were present and made themselves available for questions and concerns.

The Santa Teresa patrol station reported that apprehensions have dropped significantly while narcotics seizures remain typically low. A patrol agent representing Santa Teresa reported 10,000 arrests so far in 2017:

“We were originally on pace to beat last year, but the new administration came in and our numbers just dropped,” he said. He compared this to 17,000 arrests last year, of which “at least 10,000” were in the Sunland Park area.

Construction of a 3-mile section of 18-foot steel bollard fencing separating Sunland Park from the Mexican town of Anapra, authorized and funded by the 2006 Secure Fence Act signed into law by President George W. Bush, is on schedule for completion in September. Among the benefits of the new fencing, the Santa Teresa officer said, was that with the previous chain-link fencing, “we were having to hospitalize aliens daily. The medical savings for the taxpayers are huge with this new fence.”

The Deming station reported that apprehensions were down 70 percent, below 3,000 so far in 2017, while marijuana interceptions were down 30 percent.

An additional 14 to 20 miles of fencing, previously in use in Santa Teresa, is planned for installation in Luna County. The fencing will feature x-shaped vehicle barricades known as Normandy barriers.

A Luna County rancher in attendance warned, “If there is not a cattle component added to that, you put it there, the barbed-wire fence will disappear and then it’s worse than it is today…The cattle component has been effective in keeping livestock from going back and forth.”

Nonetheless, he added, “It’s a good temporary fix until we get our wall.”

Lordsburg reported a 38 percent drop in apprehensions over last year, and a decrease in drive-throughs, in which smugglers cross the border by driving vehicles over ramps, through holes cut in fencing, or across areas without fencing.

“The last one we had was four months ago,” an officer said, also noting one attempted drive-through intercepted last weekend. In three months, Lordsburg reported $1.4 million in drug seizures, also a decrease compared to last year, and a decrease in applicants for asylum.

“Intelligence is telling us that Mexican fees for smuggling are going up,” the Lordsburg agent reported. “They used to charge approximately a thousand dollars per alien, and now it’s going up as much as $5,000 per alien due to the increased enforcement we’re seeing.”

While the Lordsburg station welcomed new technology and some additional horses for areas inaccessible to vehicles, they also reported a shortage of personnel: “We are supposed to be at 248 agents, but we are at 192. We are still 48 agents short. Even though we are getting trainees constantly from the academy, we’re losing more agents to other opportunities.”

The Lordsburg station also reported it has been working with the New Mexico National Guard, the state, and the Bureau of Land Management to proceed with improvements to Commodore Road in Hidalgo County.

Turning to drugs, Jose Ramirez, Deputy Director of New Mexico’s Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), said the state is confronting the opioid Fentanyl as a public health problem, and its synthetic analogue Carfentanyl, a drug so potent it can kill a human being simply from exposure to the skin.

“It’s what they use to put large animals to sleep, like elephants,” said Ramirez. “A very tiny dose can be lethal if you inhale it...There have been officers hospitalized just by handling some of these packages.” He advised the public to report any suspected package of drugs to law enforcement and avoid physical contact with it.

Marco Grajeda, a field representative for Sen. Udall, remarked that Congress will return this week with votes expected on a continuing resolution to fund government operations including USBP operations and salaries, and a debt ceiling increase to fund legislation previously signed into law. In the unlikely event of a government shutdown, officers would continue to report for duty.

The next meeting of the border security task force is planned for Deming in November.

Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-546-2611 (ext. 2608) or adammassa@demingheadlight.com.