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A look at how things are going along the U.S. southern border

April 1, 2023

Two big stories regarding the southern border were in the news this week. One about asylum seekers, the other regarding slowing the flow of deadly drugs.

The flow of people

At least 38 people are dead and 29 are injured following a fire Monday at an immigration processing facility in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute.

The migrants started the fire in protest, lighting their sleeping mats after learning they were being deported.

The blaze broke out shortly before 10 p.m.

Sixty-eight men from Central and South America were staying at the facility, which houses migrants who are waiting on requests for asylum in the U.S. or preparing to cross the border. At least 28 Guatemalan nationals were among the dead, Guatemala’s Institute of Migration confirmed.

Here’s a look at the increasing number of people at the border trying to get to the U.S. in recent years:

Southern border Border Patrol apprehensions and inadmissables by month

The most apprehensions in years was in December and the numbers in the El Paso, Texas, region near Ciudad Juárez, Mexico tripled.

The flow of illegal drugs

The Department of Homeland Security has been looking into noninvasive technology to scan cargo and pedestrian vehicles for years. The first X-ray scanner for cargo coming through on the front lines went into action in Brownsville, Texas, last week.

Most U.S.-bound trucks and nearly all passenger vehicles are generally scanned selectively if they are pulled aside. Mexican cartels have long profited from these odds while smuggling fentanyl and other narcotics. The U.S. had a record of nearly 107,000 fatal overdoses from fentanyl in 2021, the most since numbers have been available.

Technology helping enforcement

This transmission image above is from the Customs and Border Patrol and shows a tractor-trailer carrying picture frames and 4,834.8 kilograms of marijuana and 210 kilograms of crystal meth.

The U.S. wants to increase routine scanning of vehicles arriving from Mexico. In 2019, Congress appropriated $675 million to install the technology. President Joe Biden called for more drug-detection technology in his State of the Union speech and this month’s budget proposal, which included $305 million for new inspection systems.

X-ray imaging technology has been used for years in airports to detect drugs and explosives. At the southern border, that nonintrusive scanning technology has mostly been used during secondary inspections until now.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, the majority of fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine is trafficked across the southwest border. It’s primarily smuggled into the U.S. through legal ports of entry, meaning it comes within feet of a Customs and Border Protection officer. Prior to the new scanner in Brownsville, CBP has acknowledged it could scan only 2% of all private passenger vehicles and 16% of commercial vehicles at land borders.

The U.S. aims to deploy 123 large-scale scanners along the border by fiscal year 2026, growing its ability to perform nonintrusive scans to 70% of cargo vehicles and 40% of passenger vehicles, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Drones provide Border Patrol agents with air support no matter where they are. Instead of having to launch a much larger platform, such as an Air and Marine Operations helicopter and crew, the smaller drones fit in the back of a patrol vehicle and can be put in the sky in a matter of minutes.

In 2020, the Border Patrol had more than 135 of these systems in use throughout the country, with 60 more in the procurement process. Plans are eventually to have 460 drones patrol from above. Agents fly two different types of drones: a vertical takeoff and landing quadcopter and a fixed-wing model similar to a model airplane.

Smugglers in the air

The Border Patrol in a March 1 news release said some human traffickers that were arrested were using drones. “Human smugglers using drones to surveil the Border Patrol is a growing trend that we’ve observed along the border,” San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron M. Heitke said. “This technology provides transnational criminal organizations with new capability that they are eager to exploit.”

Sources: Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Justice, NBC Montana

Orange County Register

News Details

A look at how things are going along the U.S. southern border

The flow of people

Southern border Border Patrol apprehensions and inadmissables by month

The flow of illegal drugs

Technology helping enforcement

Smugglers in the air

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