President Trump was spotted petting a large U.S. Customs and Border Protection drone during his tour of the Yuma Border Patrol Station in southern Arizona on Tuesday.
Various Homeland Security Department officials escorted Trump around the station’s hangar facility and explained how Predator’s unmanned aerial systems and other tools are used to thwart illegal immigration.
Trump was shown a table decked out with objects — a tray, empty fire extinguisher, metal canister, and car parts — that the Border Patrol had found drugs hidden inside in previous busts
The trip marks the first time Trump returned to the southern border town as president. He visited the Laredo, Texas border line in July 2015, weeks after announcing his campaign for president.
The trip out west, just hours before he rallied supporters in Phoenix, was meant to reiterate the administration’s stalwart approach to immigration and deter Central American migrants from making the trek north when they will be turned away by immigration agents.
ICE leader Homan said the new administration’s push for enhanced deterrence methods will decrease apprehensions of illegal migrants.
“Look, I think the President’s message is, we need a strong border and we need strong interior enforcement. What he’s done so far has worked, so we need the funding to make it permanent. We need funding to build a wall,” Homan told reporters at the tour. “Look, I’ve been doing this 33 years; I started in the Border Patrol. The border wall is successful. Wherever that border wall has been built, the numbers have declined. Less drugs, less bad people, less illegal aliens coming in. I mean bad people, I mean anybody who wants to come into this country and do harm.”
Among Trump’s first executive actions in January, he signed two items that instructed all immigration policies to be fully carried out and mandated a southern border wall.
While he led DHS, Kelly oversaw the enforcing of policies that the Obama administration had allowed cities and localities to ignore, including the allowance of local law enforcement not to cooperate with ICE detainer requests.
Trump also spoke with Homeland Security officials about advancing Kate’s Law, No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, border wall funding, and money for 15,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents.
If President Trump likes the Predator so much, maybe he should use them as a virtual wall. With the current estimates for the wall ($10B, Trump Apr 2017) and the 2010 price tag for Predators ($4.03M per unit in 2010, Wikipedia) we could have better than one for every 10 miles of border (Cost less than $1B) and still have a lot of money to pay for the crews and other personnel necessary to follow up on any people crossing the border .
This might be a better solution and could easily ensure the ongoing employment of more than 10,000 people (my estimate).
Niel
Niel
Not really, the wall has proven in the Yuma sector to stop illegal crossings by 98%. A virtual wall would require a ton more agents to actuall apprehend the crossers. Nothing else will stop the crossings.