Hourly Update

New border security chief says huge walls not the answer

Two weeks on the job, the new head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Tuesday he does not favor building a huge wall along the Mexican border. "I don't support, I don't believe the administration supports a wall," Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said in Tucson, where he and Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar met with patrol officials and agents before embarking on a tour across the Arizona desert. Asked about proposals in Senate- and House-approved immigration measures to build security walls 380 or 700 miles long, respectively, Basham said, "It doesn't make sense, it's not practical." He said that in a meeting Monday, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano had made "a brilliant comment. She said `You build a 50-foot wall, somebody'll find a 51-foot ladder." Basham added: "What did it take the Chinese, 300 years to build the wall? I don't think we've got that kind of time. The problem is upon us now and we've got to come up with solutions now." Fencing, including so-called smart fencing with imbedded sensors, vehicle barriers and lighting will be part of the infrastructure improvements needed, Basham said. But a layered approach is necessary to attain operational control of the border, Basham said. "I'm suggesting that fencing is a part of the overall infrastructure solution... but certainly not building a wall, a 20-foot high wall across 2,000 miles of border," he said. That mix must include more air operations for observation and responding to illegal crossings, Basham added. "And we need to build a more robust, stronger intelligence apparatus to give us advance information, to provide us with the types of intelligence that we need in order to get control of the border and stop the flow." That approach will use technology, infrastructure and the right combination of personnel, with a recognition that "there is not a silver bullet out there, that there's not one answer," the new commissioner and former director of the Secret Service said. Basham said this week's tour of the Southwest border is his second. He's getting a firsthand look at the challenges the Border Patrol faces, now with the support of National Guard troops, in trying to get control of the border. "You can sit in Washington, D.C., and you can get briefings and you can look at maps and hear from people what the challenges are out here," he said. "But until you get up there and you look and you see what kind of terrain you're dealing with and the difficulties of it, you really don't have a true appreciation." He said gaining an understanding of the border will allow him to advocate for "what Arizona needs, what the Border Patrol needs, what the National Guard is going to bring to the solution" in talks with Congress and the Department of Homeland Security as he tried to obtain the resources needed to secure the border. He also said it's hard to sit in Washington and understand the extreme measures that many people will go to in trying to enter the country to find work.