AZMEX UPDATE2 18 APR 2018
Note: another version:
Homeland security secretary visits Calexico border construction
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen stopped for a brief visit along the U.S. Mexico border where construction for the bollard fence is currently underway along the border in Calexico. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)
Kate Morrissey Reporter
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-border-secretary-20180418-story.html
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visited Calexico's replacement border barrier project on Wednesday after holding a town hall with local Border Patrol agents and officials from other immigration-related agencies.
The new chief of the Border Patrol in El Centro, Gloria Chavez, gave Nielsen a piece of the old Vietnam War landing mats that separated Calexico from Mexicali before the construction project began in February. A 30-foot fence made of bollards — posts placed close enough together that people can't pass between them — will replace just over two miles of the landing mats.
Construction has progressed since February with well over a football field length of fence already in place.
At the town hall, Nielsen assured attendees that everyone in the department is on one team and that together they would "put employees first."
"What we see at the border is different," Nielsen said. "The flows are different. The challenges are different. As we know, the numbers are increasing."
Apprehensions at the southwest border spiked in March after a record-low year. Overall, apprehensions have decreased significantly over the last two decades.
She reiterated a concern often voiced by agency officials in the last six months about unaccompanied children, families and drugs coming across the border. She promised to continue pushing for Congress to change what she calls "legal loopholes" in the immigration system.
The Trump administration has said one of the loopholes is how long officials can hold children in immigration detention. It wants to be able to hold them in custody for longer than the 20 days currently allowed.
Just over 100 department employees joined Nielsen to discuss their needs to enforce the border. That conversation was not open to the press.
At the border fence, Nielsen did not take any questions. She was briefed by several officials including Chavez and Jennifer Roks, project manager with the Border Patrol and Air and Marine Program Management Office.
An armored tank from Border Patrol's tactical unit, the agency's version of a SWAT team, waited nearby. Construction workers used a crane to position a bar underneath a section of bollards to raise it and transfer it to the gap where the old barrier had already been taken down.
Mexican police and media stood near the gap to watch from the street that separates a residential area in Mexico from the fencing.
As Nielsen prepared to leave, about 70 protesters from the Mexican side moved into the gap with signs lambasting President Donald Trump's promised border wall.
"Trump, no somos enemigos de USA," read one sign. ("Trump, we are not enemies of the USA.")
When they appeared, an agent standing next to a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter tensed but did not move.
Construction workers quickly left the gap, and one ran towards Border Patrol, yelling for them to do something.
"They're on this side!" he shouted.
Nielsen immediately left the scene.
At first, agents on the dirt road above the construction site watched to see if the group would retreat. When they advanced, an agent moved forward between pieces of construction equipment, yelling in Spanish at the crowd to go back south.
Four other agents joined him, and an official in fatigues carrying a rifle moved forward with them.
Organizers from the protest pushed the group back across the line where they continued to wave their signs and pose for pictures.
This is not Nielsen's first time to California.
She visited regions ravaged by wildfires last year and spent time with the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego in March before inspecting the border wall prototypes built there.
Nielsen was scheduled to go next to Yuma to see the National Guard recently deployed to support border enforcement.
END
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