07:24 AM CDT on Thursday, August 7, 2008
The Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO – Despite efforts to add Border Patrol agents to areas where immigrant traffic is high and drug violence is flaring, officers on the 2,000-mile boundary with Mexico are bunched up near the California coast.
An Associated Press analysis of Border Patrol staffing shows that the San Diego sector, with the shortest section of border and fences covering half the boundary, has four times the number of agents per mile as West Texas and three times as many as most of Arizona.
"I think it makes us less safe," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of the way agents are posted along the border.
Border Patrol officials defend the staffing levels, saying San Diego's transportation routes and year-round balmy weather make it an attractive spot for smugglers.
They deny critics' charges that members of Congress who most embrace the agency's push are rewarded with more agents. They say agents and other assets are allocated based on the needs of individual sectors.
The Associated Press
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