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U.S. applies Afghan war tactics on Mexican border

By Bernard Debusmann, Special Correspondent Wed Dec 20, 12:30 PM ET

NACO, Arizona (Reuters) - The United States has begun to apply tactics perfected in the war in
Afghanistan to tighten control of the border with Mexico, using a mix of age-old hunting techniques and high-tech spy-in-the-sky surveillance.

On the ground, U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback, on foot, and in all-terrain vehicles scour the desert for the footprints of illegal border crossers so they can pursue and arrest them.

"Tracking and signcutting are essential skills for us," said Border Patrol Agent Jeffrey Smith. "They are as old as time. What we do here is a mix of the very old and the very new."

The wave of illegal crossings from Mexico has become a contentious political problem. Last year, the U.S. border patrol made more than a million arrests and by some estimates for every crossing that fails, two succeed.

Smith, on a recent patrol, slowed his truck to a crawl and hefted a large spotlight fastened to a wooden pole out of the window. He drove on slowly through the still Arizona night, holding the light inches above the dirt alongside the track. "The closer the light is to the ground, the better you can spot footprints."

In the air, a civilian version of the Predator drone that made its battlefield debut in Afghanistan, trains sophisticated electro-optical infrared cameras on the border.

Radio communications link agents on the ground with the crew flying the aircraft from a cockpit in a trailer at Fort Huachuca at the edge of an army airfield 30 miles northwest of this border town.

The low-tech, high-tech interaction of men on the ground with pilot-less aircraft is a concept developed by the military in the mid-1990s and employed extensively in Afghanistan.

There, aerial surveillance in combination with Global Satellite Positioning devices used by Special Forces soldiers on horseback played a decisive role in the war against the Taliban.

A similar interaction is now playing out along one of the most heavily-crossed -- and most hazardous stretches -- of the 2,000-mile border. In 2006, almost half the 441 people who died trying to cross between Mexico and the United States died along the border with Arizona.

Those who succeed have to evade three types of ground sensors -- vibration, magnetic and infrared. There are heat-sensing cameras atop tall poles, agents with night-vision goggles, and in the Naco area a 12-foot metal wall. Border patrol agents catch an average of 100 illegal crossers a day on this stretch of the frontier in Arizona alone.

The Border Patrol first started using an unmanned surveillance aircraft last year but the first Predator crashed in April near here.

Its $7.5 million successor began flying early in November, the first of 18 unmanned aerial vehicles the Border Patrol hopes to roll out by 2012 to tighten both the southern border with Mexico and the border with Canada, more than twice as long and thinly patrolled. No more than 300 Border Patrol agents are on duty on the northern border at any one time.

The aircraft are scheduled to form part of what
President George W. Bush has termed "the most technologically advanced border security initiative in American history."

TINFOIL MAN AND BALLOON EFFECT

Illegal crossers are beginning to adapt, and some of the attempts to outsmart technology have become legend along the border. One Mexican thought he could avoid detection by heat-sensing cameras by covering himself head-to-toe with tinfoil meant to trap his body heat. It didn't work.

A group of smugglers drove trucks close to stationary cameras to make them swivel in their direction while others sprinted across in another direction. One "coyote" (people trafficker) instructed his clients to wear black clothes and paint their water bottles black to blend into the night.

"It's the world's most expensive game of hide-and-seek," said one border agent. "We come up with something new and they adapt and try and beat us."

High-tech surveillance from the sky is hoped to help counter what border experts term "the balloon effect" -- stick your finger into a balloon in one place and it bulges out in another. According to Border Patrol statistics, that happened after the government built a 14-mile border fence between San Diego in California and Tijuana in Mexico.

Illegal crossings along that stretch dropped sharply -- but increased in Arizona. Skeptics cite the balloon effect to argue that even constructing a 700-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, a proposal Congress approved in September, would not stop clandestine cross-border traffic.

T.J. Bonner, head of the National Border Patrol Council, the union which represents most of the country's 12,000 border patrol agents, says neither a high technology virtual fence nor border walls will stop Mexicans as long as American employers give them jobs.

"You turn them back and they try again," he said. "And again, and again, and again."

"US Army Snipers...providing surgical strikes since 1776."

Perhaps the "powers that be" could've done this in reverse order some years ago. Would've made more sense to me, anyway.

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Just give me some ammo, a little water.....and some chips if you got 'em

Huh?


Talk about a PR Spin! They have been doing the same things for the past 15 years. The only Change is how they labled it. I dont see where "Afghanistan" lessons learned has came into play. Other than to say... I slept at a holiday Inn..

Talk about deflecting attention off themselves. It has always been a manpower issue and lack of Funding.

Cutting Was brought in from the 80's during the JTF6 Training and support. Now it is Taught at FLETC and internally to their Agency. They had a long standing practice of hiring Former Special Operations people, Many were Vietnam Era Special forces, Seals and Rangers. that Fraternity Continues today.

By the way Cough Cough "The Civilian Version of the Predetor" Sorry but they were the first customer of the GNAT and predetor and the Navy Fell in Love with it then the Airforce got Envious and Pushed the Funding that raised a $300K aircraft to several Million a Peice.


I really hate to say it, but the Border Patrol needs to get back to talking about what they have really brought to the table through the years and the People in their agency. Their is plenty of Kudos to go there. No Need to lean on the Military for credibility.

In 1986 I was Teaching Border Patrol Agents how to Conduct COIN type ops in the L-19, (surplus aircraft they Purchased from Fort Knox) How to Ghost Glide a Patrol area, without being detected. The Special Forces were teaching them how to clean Trails by Dragging Tires behind vehicles, to Help Detect Vehicle and foot Traffic.

We had a very Effective setup, with No Electronics. Kill the Engine over The coast of San Diego and Glide in from 15K to 4K Easily Covering 20 Miles of Patrol area, Glassing the Trails and Busting the Coyotes( drug and people smugglers)

Their experiance with the GNAT, Pred, Pioneer along side the Marine Corps has developed Tactics that was brought into Other Communities as an operational model.

I Could go on and on... Too many people bag on the Border patrol, the Truth is that unfortunately they have to lean on the fear of Post 9/11 and homeland security to get any attention from the Senators that have ignored their needs and requests.

Congress was never supportive of a Secure Border, Nor were the state level Senators, that had voting districts filled full of Buisness's that took advantage of Illegal Migrant Labor... So Congress turned their eyes.

Now Congress has to play ball becasue they dont want hajji crawling across the border with a Nuke in his backpack blowing up His Voting district.



"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see their near and dear bathed in tears, to ride their horses and sleep on the white bellies of their wives and daughters."
-Genghis Khan

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\"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. \"

George S. Patton

Whats the gouge on the US Canadian Border? I have a friend in the Border Patrol and he has shared some insight on their challenges up North. Not a pretty picture. His prior service was in New Mexico, and his length in tenure gave him a promotion up north. How are you doing Glenn?

"... I slept at a holiday Inn.."

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"US Army Snipers...providing surgical strikes since 1776."