U.S. Border’s Top Security Officials Visit El Paso; Talk Tough About Border Security
One of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s top security officials was in El Paso Wednesday talking tough about our border.
Formerly the border czar, Alan Bersin is now the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner. And he didn’t mince any words Wednesday while answering the many questions about border security.
Bersin didn’t waste any time mixing it up with the locals, walking the line at the Paso del Norte Bridge in Downtown El Paso. Many of the locals told him the bridge wait times are rarely accurate.
“Three to four hours sometimes,” one man said when asked how long he waits, although the times posted are usually much less.
Bersin said the U.S. and Mexico are working together to come up with a better system.
“We need to get a methodology in which we have a reliable basis on which people can make statements about the wait times,” Bersin said.
When it comes to the new Southbound checkpoints for guns and cash going back into Mexico, Bersin said people can expect those lines to move quicker in the future.
“I know they’re an additional burden, but I think we can handle them as we’re handling the northbound traffic,” he said. “We get better and better at processing it.”
Bersin said the reason he thinks the border is now much safer and there’s been little spillover from Mexico into El Paso is due to the new communication between all of the law enforcement agencies in the area. He cited this year’s Sun Bowl as an example.
“This past weekend, you saw all of those agencies working together,” said Ramiro Cordero, special operation supervisor for the Border Patrol in El Paso. “We’re at the point where, if something, anything happens here in El Paso, we can talk to each other within all the other agencies.”
Bersin said El Paso is a good model for other border communities when it comes to border security.
“El Paso is an example for a lot,” Bersin said. “It’s a model in many ways of what a 21st century border city ought to look like. The safest city in America, right across the from the most dangerous in the Western Hemisphere.
He added that the Southwest border is safer and more secure than it’s ever been.
“That’s an important message the American people need to hear,” Bersin said.
Bersin said cooperation between law enforcement agencies in our area — state, federal and local — has never been better.
Cordero added that in this day and age, that’s allowed the Border Patrol to go from the typical illegal immigration enforcement agency to more of a national security agency.
