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Source: The Monitor, McAllen, TexasJuly 12--EDINBURG -- As immigration and drug patterns continue to move into South Texas, authorities are taking steps to combat the new influx in traffic.迷你倉新蒲崗In previous years, most of the human and drug smuggling traffic was focused in the Arizona area.But stiffer federal enforcement in that area has shifted the flow of smuggling into the Rio Grande Valley, where apprehensions and drug seizures have dramatically increased.According to the most recent statistics, agents have apprehended more than 100,000 people suspected of illegally entering the country in the Rio Grande Valley sector since October 2012.The agency has also seen an increase in narcotics trafficking and human stash houses that have begun to pop up in residential area.Border Patrol is set to deploy up to 400 new agents across the Valley, local spokesman Enrique Mendiola said.One of the new groups is currently undergoing their field training. Starting next month, new agents fresh from Border Patrol's academy will deploy to the Rio Grande Valley weekly until mid-September, when 3,100 agents will patrol the Valley -- a nearly 15 percent increase in boots on the ground.Once the new agents are out on patrol in the area, Border Patrol's number of agents here will have grown tenfold in the past two decades. CBP statistics show that in 1993, the agency had 393 agents deployed in the Valley.The new hires come without Border Patrol expanding its payroll, as it reflects agency resources being moved from other areas of the country to South Texas, either from attrition elsewhere or vacancies being allocated here, Mendiola said.The recent addition of boots on the ground would pale in comparison to the proposed amendment to the immigration reform bill, which if passed would call for additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents nationwide as a compromise between Senate Republicans and Democrats, bolstering border security while providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.WELL TRAINED AND EQUIPPED?A local Border Patrol agents' union representative applauded the additional manpower coming to the Valley."It is a great sign. For the longest time we have 迷你倉出租een understaffed," said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent who serves as vice president of the local chapter National Border Patrol Council. "We are seeing an increase in traffic and the less manpower you have the less backup available and that is where agent safety becomes a concern for us from a union standpoint."Border Patrol agents had complained in recent months of fuel rationing across the RGV sector, limiting agents' ability to patrol in vehicles. The agency recently announced it has allocated funding to end the rations.The increase in traffic is also a subject of debate. While the Border Patrol has apprehension figures, the ones that present a scary image are the "got aways," a term used for immigrants who eluded capture, Cabrera said.The Monitor is waiting on a response from Border Patrol headquarters in Washington, D.C., regarding the number of "got aways" in the RGV sector."Got aways" are many times based on an agent's reading of ground tracks in the brush area to determine the size of the group that is out there and eluded capture, Cabrera said.The local Border Patrol agents' union estimates that agents have a 40 percent apprehension rate, which sheds some light into the high volume of human traffic that agents respond to every day.More comrades in arms is a welcome sign, but some veteran agents are weary of the new recruits' training, Cabrera said, referring to the shortening of training academy schedules within the agency from four to five months of on-the-job training to three months.In regards to the proposed immigration bill, Cabrera is highly skeptical about the funding for the 20,000 agents in light of the recent sequester cuts, which affected the pay of current agents -- by restricting agents' opportunity to work overtime -- and put many constraints on their work."I don't know where they expect to get the money," he said. "We seem to have a problem balancing the budget and we had to cut back on expenses yet somehow we are supposed to get 20,000 agents; I don't see it."iortiz@themonitor.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Monitor (McAllen, Texas) Visit The Monitor (McAllen, Texas) at www.themonitor.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存倉