Mitchell Ferman

To help make his point, the evidence was laid out on tables: a big bag of cash, bundles of drugs, high-powered firearms, all confiscated by law enforcement agents working the borderlands in South Texas.

“This is just all recent. This is all very recent,” Trump said, pointing to the illicit exhibit in front of him. Trump was not shy about his disgust for the illegal goods: “It looks pretty brutal. This is not a manufactured deal, as you say. This is the real stuff.”

But the display at the president’s Jan. 10 event, it turns out, had little to do with what happens along unfortified reaches of the border. An examination of the seized items suggests that a border wall would not have stopped most of the items from entering the United States, or, in the case of several weapons displayed in front of the president, from leaving the United States for Mexico.

Many of the items on display were seized on international bridges on the Texas border, detected by canines and Customs and Border Protection officers. Some of them were found during traffic stops or, in one case, inside a South Texas home, and it’s hard to know how they entered the country.

“It’s not complex,” the president said, after various officials described the items on the table. “If we don’t have a barrier, a very substantial barrier of some kind, you’re never going to be able to solve this problem.”

But of course, the story of illegal border trafficking is complex. And one of the biggest takeaways to be gleaned from Trump’s exhibit table was that nearly all the items were intercepted by vigilant border agents — federal employees who have not been paid since the fight over a border wall led to a partial shutdown of the federal government on Dec. 22.

AK-47 and 9-Millimeter Pistols

The tableau in front of Trump included an AK-47 assault rifle and multiple 9-millimeter handguns. Though Trump seemed to take credit for the “all recent” seizures of illegal goods, these weapons were actually seized in June 2016, the month before Trump officially won the Republican nomination for president.

When a vehicle drove south from the Texas border town of Mission and onto the Anzalduas International Bridge bound for Mexico, CBP officers searched the car and found the weapons, according to an agency spokesman. There were also 20 ammunition magazines found in the vehicle, the spokesman said.

American-made guns have illegally flowed south into Mexico in large numbers for years. A 2013 study by the University of San Diego found that nearly half of American firearms dealers are dependent on Mexican sales, with an estimated 253,000 firearms purchased annually between 2010 and 2012 to be taken across the border.

A Bag of Cash

Stacks of $20 bills bundled in a plastic bag totaling $362,062 sat on one table. Just days before the president arrived in McAllen, the cash had been inside the South Texas home of Edsgardo Coss-Vallejo.

Coss-Vallejo had been living in the United States on a visa, but overstayed his allowed time in the country. When Hidalgo County authorities and federal agents showed up at his house to investigate, Coss-Vallejo allowed them inside to conduct a search of his home. Border Patrol canines alerted on a duffel bag containing the cash. Coss-Vallejo denied ownership of the money.

Coss-Vallejo was arrested on suspicion of marriage fraud and currency smuggling, and he was deported to Mexico.

Methamphetamine and Heroin

After a large X-ray scanned a tractor-trailer entering Texas from Mexico at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in September, Customs inspectors wanted a closer look. Canines did the rest and detected the drugs, according to a CBP spokesman.

Authorities found 117 kilograms of methamphetamine and 12.5 kilograms of heroin concealed in the ceiling of the truck, the spokesman said. A majority of heroin that enters the United States from Mexico crosses not through remote stretches of unfenced desert, but through legal ports of entry, such as the border crossing in Pharr, Texas.

“But there’s no way to know how much gets through,” said Fulton T. Armstrong, who has worked as a national intelligence officer at the CIA, on the National Security Council and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on Latin America.

“The biggest shipments come through legal, established ports of entry,” Armstrong said in an interview, though he added that there are also examples of drug smuggling that do not occur at official border crossings. Armstrong added: “Carrying this stuff requires sophistication. You don’t just put it in your pocket, you don’t carry large suitcases or bags when you come through non-ports of entry.”

This has raised questions about Trump’s argument that a wall would help curb drug flows.

“Would setting up a fence help? No. There’s no evidence at all,” Armstrong said.

AR-15 and .50-caliber Rifles

A .50-caliber sniper rifle took up a big part of one wooden table, with an AR-15 rifle positioned flat on its side alongside it.

In November 2017, Homeland Security Investigations agents, working on a tip from CBP, found the sniper rifle during a traffic stop in South Texas, according to a CBP spokesman. The AR-15 was found the same way — by HSI agents in South Texas, but in January 2018.

It is unclear where the weapons were headed, or whether they even originated in Mexico. Border Patrol agents infrequently encounter firearms smuggled across the Rio Grande, or into the United States between bridge crossings. Again, most seem to be heading the other way.

“The thing that’s missing from the debate is the southbound stuff,” Armstrong said. “The weapons, the cash.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/us/border-wall-mexico-usa-contraband.html" id="233dfe26-ae65-3b33-a224-a65622d435c2">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Laid Out Evidence That a Wall Is Needed. We Took a Hard Look.

McALLEN, Texas — President Donald Trump traveled to the Rio Grande Valley this month and made his case for building a wall on the southern border — needed, he said, to keep the United States safe from a variety of dangers that are continuing to make their way across the frontier from Mexico.

Except for that business about the government shutting down because of places just like this, it was a pretty normal weekend at the quarter-mile bridge separating Mexico and Texas. There were long lines Saturday, and people waited patiently for hours in the strong South Texas sun. For no apparent reason, there was hardly a wait at all Sunday, to the delight of crossers who just wanted to spend time with family for Christmas.

What did it mean? What explained the difference in traffic on the same weekend? No one really knew, just as almost no one understood the machinations that led to the partial government shutdown. Instead, the comfortable symbiosis between the two countries played out regardless of the deadlock in Washington that threatened to keep the government shut down into the new year.

Most people on the international bridge in Hidalgo this weekend said they did not know about the shutdown or that the customs officers who checked their documents were working without pay.

They also said they were unaware of the funding fight to build a border wall not far from the bridge. A wall already exists in South Texas, part of it beside this bridge. There are steel beams on top of a concrete flood levee that stretches for 20 miles in Hidalgo County. Customs and Border Protection has notified landowners nearby that President Donald Trump’s new wall will be built in most of Hidalgo County in addition to the structures that already exist.

But most crossers this weekend were not thinking about a wall. They were headed for holiday time with family.

“I’m just going home,” said Esau Garcia, who had spent the last few days with his parents in Reynosa. Garcia, unaware of the shutdown, lives in South Texas, but crosses monthly for family time. He would return to Reynosa on Christmas Eve to celebrate with his parents.

“I’ll come back tonight,” Saenz, the man carrying the diapers, said as he walked without having to stop and wait, as he normally does this time of year.

Customs officers and border guards may not be so fortunate to spend the holidays with their families, so long as the government is not open. Previously approved time off is canceled during the shutdown, according to Art Del Cueto, a Border Patrol agent in Arizona and vice president of the agency’s labor union.

“If you have family over, too bad,” Del Cueto said in an interview. “It’s a bigger deal than people realize.”

One Border Patrol agent working free Saturday escorted a big bus onto the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge to deport immigrants. Many migrants who illegally cross the Rio Grande seek asylum in immigration court.

Before the shutdown, Trump issued an executive order Tuesday that closed the nation’s immigration courts on Dec. 24, and offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as a holiday before Christmas. Both federal agencies said that appointments — and naturalization ceremonies — would be rescheduled.

Because the Citizenship and Immigration Services agency is funded by the fees that immigrants pay, and not by congressional funding, it is scheduled to reopen on Dec. 26. But immigration courts, at least, will be closed during the length of the shutdown.

To some immigration rights advocates, this was a profound paradox: shutting down the government, which operates a backlogged but effective system to deport people, over an untested physical barrier at the border.

“If you juxtapose those two facts, one that you’re closing down the government to create a wall that won’t really do much to help deal with immigration concerns, and the same time, you’re closing down the immigration courts so that people who are alleged to be deportable can’t be deported — well, that just doesn’t make sense,” said Allan Wernick, director of CUNY Citizenship Now, an immigration law clinic operated out of the City University of New York.

The deported immigrants at the bridge Saturday stepped off the bus, were freed from U.S. custody, walked to the other side of the bridge and blended into the line of bridge crossers heading south. This deportation process plays out often. But Jim Darling, mayor of the neighboring South Texas city of McAllen, does not love the attention focused on the region’s immigration issues.

“People talk about a crisis on the border, but there’s no crisis here,” said Darling, whose city operates the bridge in conjunction with federal authorities. “It’s in Central America. But until the federal government figures out its immigration policy, people are going to keep talking about a crisis on the border. But most people really have no clue about what goes on here.”

Darling was also unhappy that the government was shut down over border wall funding. He said Customs and Border Protection officials said their operations were business as usual, besides the administrative people not working.

“So I don’t know how they can actually be running at full operation if everyone isn’t coming to work,” Darling said. “But if this is anything like the administration’s done — like the family separations — no one’s thought about it.”

Customs and Border Protection officers this weekend joked and groaned at being on the clock but not being paid.

“Here all day,” one officer said Saturday, smiling and shaking his head.

Meanwhile, officers continued their daily duties Sunday. Talk about the shutdown dominated conversations within the agency, but not for bridge crossers like Garcia.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/us/border-shutdown-wall-trump.html" id="aa93aa22-bab8-39bd-a397-52f734e2abac">The New York Times</a>.

Far From Washington, the Routine Symbiosis of the Border Plays Out in Texas and Mexico

HIDALGO, Texas — A man crossing the bridge from Reynosa, Mexico, to Texas lugged a merry toddler-size Santa Claus piñata that he had bought for $10. Maritza Delgado monitored her small children hanging upside down on a tree next to the sidewalk as they waited to cross back to Texas. Rene Saenz crossing toward Mexico carried Target bags full of diapers purchased at Sam’s Club to deliver to his family in Mexico.

Except for that business about the government shutting down because of places just like this, it was a pretty normal weekend at the quarter-mile bridge separating Mexico from Texas. There were long lines Saturday, and people waited patiently for hours in the strong South Texas sun. For no apparent reason, there was hardly a wait at all Sunday, to the delight of crossers who just wanted to spend time with family for Christmas.

Customs officers and border guards might not be so fortunate to spend the holidays with their family, so long as the government is not open. Previously approved time off is canceled during the shutdown, according to Art Del Cueto, a Border Patrol agent in Arizona and vice president of the agency’s labor union.

One Border Patrol agent working for free Saturday escorted a big bus onto the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge to deport immigrants. Many migrants who illegally cross the Rio Grande seek asylum in immigration court.

Before the shutdown, on Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order that closed the nation’s immigration courts on Dec. 24, and offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as a holiday before Christmas. Both federal agencies said that appointments — and naturalization ceremonies — would be rescheduled.

Darling was also unhappy that the government was shut down over border wall funding. He said Customs and Border Protection officials said they were operating at business as usual, besides the administrative people not working.

Customs and Border Protection officers this weekend joked and groaned at being on the clock but not getting paid.

HIDALGO, Texas — A man crossing the bridge from Reynosa, Mexico, to Texas lugged a merry toddler-sized Santa Claus piñata that he had purchased for $10. Maritza Delgado monitored her small children hanging upside down on a tree next to the sidewalk as they waited to cross back to Texas. Rene Saenz crossing toward Mexico carried Target bags full of diapers purchased at Sam’s Club to deliver to his family in Mexico.

Some images have emerged over the years: A large warehouse in the South Texas city of McAllen, where migrants wait, often in frigid temperatures, in chain-link holding areas; a crowded enclosure underneath a bridge in El Paso, Texas, where immigrants for several days in March slept on gravel littered with paper cups and potato chip bags.

The Border Patrol on Thursday provided a brief public look at its latest attempt to handle the migrant influx: a 40,000 square-foot tent encampment, built over the past 13 days just east of McAllen, to house newly arriving migrants in the Rio Grande Valley.

The tent camp was opening along with a similar temporary structure in El Paso, built at a combined cost of $36.9 million.

The 500-bed Donna facility was preparing for its first arrivals, expected Friday, and was outfitted with new clothing, 36 shower stalls, 48-inch flat-screen TVs, DVD players and a stack of children’s movies.

The air-conditioned tent also includes space for medical services, with shelves of supplies already stocked.

Migrants often arrive ill and exhausted at such facilities. In late December, an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died in custody after showing signs of sickness at a Border Patrol facility. Weeks before that, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl, who had fallen ill, also died while in Border Patrol custody. Just this week, a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who had recently been placed in a Texas shelter after being in federal custody died not long after arriving.

The tent camps at Donna and El Paso are not intended for long-term detention, officials said, but to house migrants during the brief period when they are undergoing initial processing by Customs and Border Protection, usually about 48 to 72 hours.

Migrant families, unaccompanied children and single adults will all be housed at the facility, positioned in a large, open field next to the Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge. A few months ago, the spot served as a forward operating base as part of President Donald Trump’s deployment of 5,600 U.S. troops to the southern border.

The Trump administration signaled its intent this week to speed up asylum processing, and the new acting homeland security secretary, Kevin McAleenan, has said he wants to keep migrants in custody while their applications are being reviewed.

The new tent in Donna does not stand to do much for either mission. However, it will take strain off agents processing large groups of migrants at the McAllen building, officials said.

Carmen Qualia, executive officer of operational programs for the Border Patrol, was asked during Thursday’s media tour if the additional space would be enough to keep up with the flow of migrants, which is averaging about 1,200 arrests a day.

“I hope so,” Qualia said. “I hope so.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="4da4cb16-5144-328b-a087-951f134eee0d" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/us/border-tent-camp-texas.html">The New York Times</a>.

Tent Camps Set Up to Address Influx of Migrants

DONNA, Texas — Federal authorities have been struggling in recent months to accommodate the thousands of migrants arrested at the southern border, but what happens to them in the highly secure federal facilities along the border is often not known. Customs and Border Protection rarely invites outsiders in for a look.

Tent camps set up to address influx of migrants

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Mitchell Ferman

Articles written by the author

Trump Laid Out Evidence That a Wall Is Needed. We Took a Hard Look.

Far From Washington, the Routine Symbiosis of the Border Plays Out in Texas and Mexico

Far From Washington, the Routine Symbiosis of the Border Plays Out in Texas and Mexico

Tent camps set up to address influx of migrants