Border Agents Spread Out Unevenly

SAN ANTONIO | Despite efforts to add Border Patrol agents to areas where immigrant traffic is high and drug violence is flaring, officers assigned to the 2,000-mile boundary with Mexico are bunched up near the California coast. And some critics see politics at play.

An Associated Press analysis of Border Patrol staffing shows that the San Diego sector, with the shortest section of border and fences covering half the boundary, has four times the number of agents per mile that West Texas does and three times as many as most of Arizona.

That is the case even though the Tucson sector in Arizona has been the busiest spot for illegal crossings for years and El Paso sits next to a Mexican city that has seen a surge in drug-cartel violence so severe that Mexicans are pleading for asylum in the U.S.

"I think it makes us less safe," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of the way agents are posted along the border.

Border Patrol officials defend the staffing levels, saying San Diego's transportation routes and year-round balmy weather make it an attractive spot for smugglers.

Others suggest, however, that members of Congress who most embrace the agency's push are rewarded with more agents.

Borderwide, staffing has increased dramatically in the past five years as political pressure to prevent illegal immigration has mounted. On the southern border, there are roughly 15,000 agents, up from 9,500 in 2004.

And while the most dramatic growth has occurred near the Arizona-California line and around El Paso, San Diego's short section of border has, by far, the most agents per mile at 37. That compares with 11 for most of Arizona and nine for the Rio Grande Valley and West Texas, based on head counts given to the AP in July.