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Drug Situation: The El Paso Division
area-of-responsibility covers 54 counties in West Texas and New Mexico,
comprising 778 miles, which is approximately 40% of the U.S./Mexico Border. The
Division has 117 agents, who cover an area that includes 18 Ports-of-Entry
(POE) and USBP Checkpoints, 6 of which are in New Mexico, in addition to an
estimated minimum of 80 illegal crossing points. Some of these locations are
over 100 miles from our offices. This area of the Southwest is unique because
of our location on the U.S./Mexico border.
El Paso and its sister city, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
comprise the largest metropolitan area on the border between the U.S. and
Mexico. Nearly 2 million people inhabit the El Paso/Juarez borderplex. Over 1.2
million people reside in Juarez. Daily, over 100,000 people cross the POEs into
El Paso. Since the formation of NAFTA, commercial truck crossings from Mexico
into West Texas and New Mexico have risen 11.7%, from 666,225 trucks in 1999 to
744,407 in 2002. Pedestrian traffic has risen 55%, from 6.2 million in 1999 to
9.6 million in 2002. A reduction in the amount of private vehicle traffic was
seen in 2002, due to heightened security after September 11, 2001.
However, 15.3 million vehicles still crossed our
borders in 2002. During a normal day, a vehicle can wait up to one hour to
cross the border. During periods of heightened security each private vehicle is
inspected. |
