Feds crack down on Arizona border

WASHINGTON — More than 500 additional border agents are being assigned to beef up patrols along the Arizona-Mexico border, federal officials said Tuesday.

The announcement was made just two days before about 1,000 civilian volunteers, calling themselves "the Minuteman Project," are to begin their own monthlong patrols for immigrants crossing the border.

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the so-called Minutemen people," said Christiana Halsey, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection division.

Halsey said the added patrol agents, equipment and other resources are part of Phase II of the Arizona Border Control Initiative, a program initially announced last March.

She said the initiative is designed not just to limit illegal immigration but also to reduce smuggling and other criminal border activity as well as migrant deaths.

"Obviously, Arizona border control also has an anti-terrorism mission," she added.

About 155 agents will be immediately sent to Arizona, according to department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. More than 370 additional agents — all new trainees — will be permanently assigned to the Arizona border throughout the year.

Until they are in place, another 200 agents will be temporarily stationed in Arizona during the high immigration season this spring and summer, officials said.

The 370-mile Arizona border is considered the most vulnerable stretch of the 2,000-mile Mexico border. Of the 1.1 million illegal immigrants apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol last year, 51 percent crossed into the country at the Arizona border.

Recent intelligence indicates that al-Qaida leaders are likely to enter the country through the Mexico border and "believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary James Loy said in written testimony to lawmakers last month.

The patrol agents to be assigned to Arizona will add to the estimated 2,400 agents that already patrol the border.

They also will be on top of the 210 new agents that President Bush has proposed hiring and training for all border areas in 2006.

Some lawmakers have complained that the additional agents are still far short of the 2,000 new agents authorized for next year as part of a bill Congress passed in December.