It is imperative that immediate action be taken to enhance security along our nation's Southwest border. Greater control of the border can be achieved by:
---- enhancing Border Patrol resources, including expanding agent training capacity, and technical surveillance abilities:
---- constructing physical barriers in vulnerable and high-threat areas:
---- implementing state-of-the-art technology, cameras, sensors, radar. satellite. and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to ensure maximum coverage of the Nation's Southwest border;
---- making permanent the `catch and return' policy;
---- expanding the use of the expedited removal policy;
---- establishing additional detention bed space:
---- improving partnerships and information sharing among Federal State. and local law enforcement:
---- building a secure interoperable communications network for Border Patrol and state and local law enforcement; {Currently the people smugglers are breaking existing codes and monitoring law-enforcement communications}
---- mandating a comprehensive risk assessment of all southwest border Ports of Entry and international land borders to prevent the entry of terrorist [sic] and weapons of mass destruction;
---- promoting both international and domestic policies that will deter further illegal entry into the United States: and
---- Enhancing intelligence capabilities and information sharing with our Mexican counterparts {don't take this too far, our Mexican counterparts are part of the problem} and improving cooperation with the Mexican government to eradicate the Cartels.

It is especially difficult to provide the total number of Special Interest Aliens entering the U.S. illegally because they pay larger amounts of money ($15.000 to $60,000 per alien) to employ the more effective Mexican alien smuggling organizations and are less likely to be apprehended.

One thing. however, is known for certain --- hundreds of people from countries known to harbor terrorists or promote terrorism are caught trying to enter the United States illegally along the land border. and the massive flow of immigrants and our porous border create various and abundant opportunities for concealment. Given the ever-present threat posed by al-Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations --- a threat that has been underscored by the recent events in London and the vulnerability of our borders --- the need for immediate action to enforce our borders could not be more apparent.

The foreign nationals who belong to these gangs often ignore Federal immigration laws, regularly entering the United States illegally. They then travel to the nation's interior cities to join with other gang members and participate in criminal activity. A Federal investigator told Committee staff of a recent interview he conducted with an MS-13 member who described the ease with which he had routinely traversed the Southwest border. The gang member decided to return to his native country of Guatemala to spend Christmas with his mother. To save his own money, he voluntarily turned himself into authorities and was flown home at U.S. Government expense under the expedited removal program, spent the holidays with his family, and returned by illegally crossing the Southwest border. The gang member boasted this process is so easy he has repeated it several times. (53)...
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53 Interview by Subcomm. Staff with a Federal investigator (Sept. 19, 2006).

The criminal organizations are indeed extremely advanced, well-equipped, and highly adaptable to enforcement measures marshaled against them. In January 2006, ICE agents, along with ATF agents and Laredo Police Department officers seized an enormous cache of weapons in Laredo, Texas. Authorities confiscated two completed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) [sic] materials for making thirty-three more, military style grenades, twenty-six grenade triggers, large quantities of AK-47s and AR-15 assault rifles, 1,280 pounds of ammunition, silencers, machine gun assembly kits, 300 primers, bulletproof vests, police scanners, sniper scopes, narcotics and cash These seizures clearly illustrate the level of violence along the border, especially in Nuevo Laredo and Juarez area...Interview by Subcomm. Staff with Federal law enforcement personnel in Laredo, Tex. (Aug. 23, 2006).

III. Vulnerability to Terrorist Infiltration

The number of aliens other than Mexican ("OTMs") illegally crossing the border has grown at an alarming rate over the past several years.

Based on U.S. Border Patrol statistics there were 30,147 OTMs apprehended in FY2003, 44,614 in FY2004. 165,178 in FY2005, and 108,025 in FY2006. Most of them were apprehended along the U.S. Southwest border. (100) [Information provided by U. S. Border Patrol to Subcomm. Staff. (Oct. 3, 2006).]

The sheer increase of OTMs coming across the border makes it more difficult for Border Patrol agents to readily identify and process each, thereby increasing the chances that a potential terrorist could slip through the system, Moreover, there is no concrete mechanism for determining how many OTMs evade apprehensions and successfully enter the country illegally.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) pays particular attention to OTMs apprehended by the Border Patrol who originate from thirty-five nations designated as "special interest" countries.

According to Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar. special interest countries have been designated by our intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism."{101} ["Strengthening Border Security Between Ports of Entry: The Use of Technology to Protect Our Borders: Hearing Before the Subcomm. On Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship and the Subcomm. On Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security of the Senate Comm. On the Judiciary, 109th Cong. (Apr. 28, 2005) (written statement of David Aguilar, Chief, Border Patrol, U. S. Department of Homeland Security).]

Though the majority of overall apprehensions made by the Border Patrol occur in the Tucson sector of Arizona, the Texas border -- specifically the McAllen sector -- far outpaces the rest of the country in OTM and Special Interest Alien apprehensions. Since September 11, 2001, DHS has reported a 41% increase in arrests along the Texas Mexico border of Special Interest Aliens.
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