New aerostat to watch over deadly migrant smuggling corridor

SANTA TERESA, New Mexico (Border Report) – More than 140 migrants have died since Oct. 1 in the El Paso Sector of the Border Patrol, many unable to survive the hot southern New Mexico desert.

That’s one reason why U.S. Customs and Border Protection is about to deploy a high-tech surveillance blimp just west of the Santa Teresa (New Mexico) Port of Entry, two federal lawmakers said.

“This technology is not only meant to apprehend folks that are crossing the border illegally; it’s also meant to save lives,” said U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-New Mexico, “and we can do that effectively with various types of technology, including the aerostat which should come online next month right here at the Santa Teresa Border Patrol station.”

Vasquez and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, toured the port of entry on Monday to see federal dollars used in the acquisition of border technology at work.

They highlighted the year-old commercial truck X-ray portals — part of a $400 million federal border technology appropriation — used to detect contraband hidden in cargo and vowed to procure more funding to have enough CBP staff on site to operate them.

CBP officers “are now able to scan a lot of the vehicles that are coming through, but it’s not 100 percent,” Heinrich said. “We need to expand that; we need to make sure we have the staff to support that so that they’re scanning as big a percentage of vehicles as possible.”

Heinrich and Vasquez were scheduled to meet with members of a regional local-federal drug task force in Las Cruces, New Mexico, later in the day to see the fruits of federal appropriations in the fight against fentanyl trafficking.

It was a visit their GOP opponents in the November election denounced as a political campaign photo op eight weeks prior to the start of early voting in New Mexico.

“Martin Heinrich spent years voting against security and safety, only to start acting like he cares weeks before an election because he’s losing to someone who does care,” said Republican Senate candidate Nella Domenici.

“Heinrich has actively made our border crisis worse, with a dangerous voting record of opening our border and unleashing cartels and lethal drugs from China into our state,” she said.

Yvette Herrell, candidate for the New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, added, “Gabe’s trip to the border today is nothing more than an election season stunt. He has voted against securing the border over eight times and he has called border security a racist, environmentally destructive massive waste of money.”

Vasquez, who stripped Herrell of her House seat in the 2022 federal election, said he has introduced two bills to fight the drug cartels that move drugs and migrants across the border with the complicity of U.S. citizens on their payroll.

The No More Narcos Act calls for a public education campaign to discourage U.S. high school students to hire themselves as drug couriers or migrant “load” drivers. The Stop Coyotes Act calls for tougher penalties against the cartel members who hire them.

Heinrich said he was ready to address asylum reform to discourage migrant smuggling through a bipartisan bill former President Donald Trump allegedly told Republicans in Congress to nix.

“We had a very comprehensive border security bill that Trump asked his party to walk away from. After the electon, I’m hopeful that we can get back to the table and pass that legislation. If we have to tweak it here and there, that’s fine,” Heinrich said.

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