Colorado Springs – As the nation fortifies its Southwest land border to stop illegal immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere, the U.S. Coast Guard is bracing for diverted migrants at sea – and preparing a maritime virtual fence.
The plans call for surveillance drones that can augment radar to spot smugglers of people or drugs on the oceans, combined with patrols by helicopters equipped with mounted machine guns.
Tightening U.S. enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border “needs to extend into the water. That is the goal,” said Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, in an interview here Wednesday at the annual Homeland Defense Symposium.
“How far east and west we will go remains to be seen,” he said.
Immigrants increasingly try to enter the United States by sea as well as across the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico land border, according to government apprehension data. President Bush has said he’ll approve a massive new fence ordered by Congress along the boundary, in addition to adding new Border Patrol agents with National Guard support.
“Given what’s going on along the Southwest border, we are watching with great interest, and we will be prepared to act,” said Allen, 57, a Tucson native who has led the Coast Guard since May.
Today the Coast Guard and its fleet of 250 cutters and 144 helicopters increasingly patrols hundreds of miles out from U.S. shores.
California-based crews in recent years have targeted a booming migrant-smuggling business from Ecuador, apprehending thousands a year. These operations often are tied into military operations and the immigration enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which in 2003 took over the Coast Guard.
The number of interdictions of U.S.-bound immigrants at sea more than doubled, increasing from 4,136 in 2001 to 10,279 last year, Coast Guard data show. A majority are caught in the Caribbean Sea, including 2,067 Cubans this year, spokesman Steven Blando said.
Early Sunday, a San Diego- based Coast Guard cutter intercepted a 35-foot sailboat a few miles offshore carrying 19 suspected illegal immigrants from Mexico, including a child, said Petty Officer Brian Leshak, spokesman for the Coast Guard in California. The migrants surrendered and were handed over to border police.
A new maritime virtual fence in the works would rely on expanded radar and surveillance from drone aircraft – known as “unmanned aerial vehicles,” or UAVs – that could spot more immigrants and drug smugglers at sea, Allen said.
New arrangements with other countries require more maritime vessels to carry transponder beacons that enable easy tracking. U.S. officials say this is crucial in helping to weed out which boats U.S. agents might want to intercept and board.
Coast Guard helicopters now must be armed, as well, and retrofitting them with machine- gun mounts has begun, Allen said. Since 1979, all Coast Guard crews boarding ships have carried weapons. But helicopters generally haven’t had firepower.
“We use nonlethal force to compel compliance. That’s in keeping with the Constitution and our laws,” Allen said. “(With) disabling fire, you are not attempting to harm anybody. You are attempting to disable engines. Any boat that fails to stop, we can use warning shots and disabling fire against.”
Immigrant-rights advocates bristled at the prospect of increased enforcement at sea on top of the land-based efforts.
“That kind of enforcement is not a solution. A solution is a sensible immigration system that deals with people already here and gives a mechanism to bring people here legally in the future,” said Joan Friedland, policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center in Washington. “For people who may be fleeing for their lives or for a better life to be greeted with a machine gun strikes me as horrific.”
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-954-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
