Having just crossed the US-Mexican border via Laredo, Texas recently, I am wholeheartedly in favor of anything that could potentially streamline the process of entry into the USA from Mexico. The questioning process with the initial officer was quite intrusive, considering he intentionally tried to trip me up with trick questions and interrogation tactics like you’d see during a murder investigation.
Apparently we didn’t meet the approval of the initial officer. So, we were sent for additional screening and made to empty the entire SUV, which was almost completely full of luggage and other items — not even a bottle of water was allowed to remain inside. After about 45 minutes of nonsense, including them checking every crack and crevice of the vehicle by both man and dog, we were finally allowed passage into our “home” country. Why must we view everyone with suspicion?
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.
I think the proposed unmanned US-Mexico border crossing will be helpful to people living in Boquillas del Carmen and provide efficient use of US border “protection” resources. Consequently, I think this proposal is a move in the right direction. Do you?
US proposes unmanned border crossing with Mexico
This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.
By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.
The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre national park.
If the crossing is approved, Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park’s 23 law enforcement rangers.
But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.
“We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings,” McCaul said in an email. “There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter.”
The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.
But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.
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