Steel barriers cut drive-through smuggling in half

BY BLAKE SCHMIDT, SUN STAFF WRITER
May 8, 2006

Smugglers trying to bring loads of drugs and people into the U.S. near Yuma are being met with a response that is as cold as steel.

New six-foot-tall reinforced steel beams jutting up out of the desert floor east of Yuma for three miles and steel gate blockades on 18 canal bridges east of the Colorado River have helped cut the number of smuggling drive-throughs into the Yuma Sector in half, according to Border Patrol spokesman Rick Hays.

Despite a steady increase in the number of apprehensions Border Patrol is making in the Yuma Sector — a 15 percent increase from this time last year — just under 900 smuggling vehicles have driven across the border this year, compared to nearly 1,800 this time last year.

Hays said the vehicle traffic coming across the border illegally and trying to evade agents has come to represent a "public safety risk" for border communities like Yuma.

In Yuma, fleeing smugglers have rammed agents, flipped SUVs loaded with immigrants and collided with civilian traffic in recent months in incidents that have sent immigrants, agents and civilians to the hospital.