BP warns residents to be wary of illegals

Thousands of illegal aliens cross Southern Arizona every day, and some are probably violent criminals, a high-ranking Tucson area Border Patrol agent told a Green Valley audience Friday.

Roger San Martin, chief of the Tucson station, Darcy Olmos, head of training operations, and Lisa Reed, community relations director for the Tucson Sector, outlined some of the tough jobs the Border Patrol faces daily in a talk to the Solano Homeowners’ Association meeting.

The Tucson station is one part of the Tucson Sector, which includes most of Arizona, and is headquarters for about a dozen stations.

The Tucson Sector is the busiest Border Patrol sector in the United States with up to 1,200 illegal aliens arrested a day. The Tucson station accounts for 200 to 400 arrests a day.

San Martin said many of the illegal crossers are probably poor people hoping to find work and a better life in the United States, but he said there are many criminals that also come across.

He said it’s legal to give thirsty and hungry people food and water, but the threat of criminals among the illegals is great. “The degree of desperation” of some of those is such that “these are not people you’d want to take into your home.”

He added “they have no regard for human life at all.”

The Tucson station is responsible for 28 miles of the border near Sasabe, and that’s where Project 28 is under development. The Boeing Co., is lead contractor on Project 28, to build a high-tech virtual fence consisting of surveillance towers, instruments and even pilotless drones for aerial surveillance.

San Martin said the number of illegals arrested in the Tucson Sector declined from last year, a possible result of increased Border Patrol forces that deter the illegal border crossers.

Only a small percentage of illegal aliens stopped are prosecuted here, but are voluntarily returned to the Mexican border.

Prosecuting all illegals arrested would overwhelm the justice system, he said.

There were 378,897 pounds of marijuana seized by Border Patrol agents in Arizona last year.

Across the country, there were 987 assaults on Border Patrol agents last year, said San Martin.

The Tucson is the only one of the 25 stations across the country that does not have a permanent checkpoint. A study last year proposed building a permanent checkpoint in the Arivaca Junction area on I-19.

The plan announced by the Border Patrol calls for a smaller checkpoint than some others now operating on U.S. highways.

There’s a tactical, or portable checkpoint, on I-19 near Arivaca Junction new.

Agent Olmos said she’d been in the Border Patrol for more than 20 years and on one of her first days on the job in Southern California she and other agents went looking for stragglers who’d been left behind by others.

“There were three sisters, all dead,” said Olmos.

“I wondered if I wanted a job where I’d be looking at other dead women in the desert.”

She said she decided it was important that she continue to search for illegals and hopefully help end desperate desert deaths.

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