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Page 10A NATION/WORLD East Oregonian Troop deployment creates tense atmosphere on U.S. border By NOMAAN MERCHANT Associated Press BROWNSVILLE, Texas — As the first active-duty military troops sent to the U.S. border with Mexico installed coils of razor wire on a bridge and a riverbank Friday, a sense of unease spread across Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. President Donald Trump’s portrayal of a bor- der under siege by drug smugglers and other crim- inals is at odds with what residents in towns along the 1,954-mile divide with Mexico see in their daily routines, with U.S. border towns consistently rank- ing among the safest in the country. Some residents question the need for a large military presence and fear it will tar- nish the area’s image. And some are afraid of violence if and when the caravan of Central American migrants that the troops have been sent to confront reaches the U.S. border. While the southern tip of Texas is the busiest cor- ridor for illegal crossings, border agents make many arrests far from public view, on uninhabited banks of the Rio Grande and on nearby dirt paths and roads lined by thick brush. “I feel safer here than when I go up to bigger cit- ies,” lifelong Rio Grande Valley resident Emman- uel Torres said Friday while working at a coffee shop in Brownsville, the region’s largest city, with about 200,000 people. Torres, 19, said the area feels “a lot like family,” and he worries the military pres- ence will fuel outsiders’ per- ceptions of a dysfunctional border. “People that don’t live here are just going to create Saturday, November 3, 2018 Man in Trump video was jailed, released under Joe Arpaio By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press AP Photo/Eric Gay Members of the U.S. military place razor wire along the U.S.-Mexico border on the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge on Friday in McAllen, Texas. a bigger negative image,” Torres said. When Trump pledged this week to send up to 15,000 troops to the bor- der in response to the slow-moving caravan of migrants, he unnerved the economically struggling region of 1 million people that stretches over flat, sun- drenched citrus groves and farms of cotton, sugar cane and vegetables. The Pentagon said more than 3,500 troops have been deployed to staging bases along the border, includ- ing about 1,000 Marines in California. Still, there were only about 100 troops at the border on Friday, working at and near a bridge lead- ing to McAllen, Texas, the Rio Grande Valley’s sec- ond-biggest city, with about 140,000 people. More than a dozen mil- itary members in fatigues were at the northern bank of the river, below the bridge, laying concertina wire. Other soldiers erected wire barriers on the bridge’s pedestrian paths. The largest caravan trav- eling through Mexico is still weeks away from the U.S. border, and migrants have given no indication where they might cross. The Rio Grande Valley is the shortest route from Central Amer- ica, but also one of the most dangerous. The troops are being sent in what has been described as a support role, helping border agents. But Trump said he told the military that if troops face rock-throwing migrants, they should react as though the rocks were rifles. “It’s all preparation in anticipation of the caravan,” said Manuel Padilla Jr., the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector chief. “We’re hoping that these people do not show up at the bor- der. They’re not going to be allowed in.” Conchita Padilla, a vol- unteer at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, said she believes the U.S. has the right to defend its bor- ders. But she also said she is frightened by the troops because she doesn’t know what they will do or how they will react to the caravan. “My worry is that if they fight each other, there might be innocent people in the way that are suffering con- sequences,” said Padilla, 66. “We are just praying that they go in peace.” According to an analy- sis by The Associated Press of FBI statistics, nine U.S. cities along the Mexican border had a violent crime rate of nearly 346 offenses per 100,000 residents in 2017. That’s lower than the national rate of almost 383. In Brownsville, it was 257, in McAllen, 144. Those same nine border towns and cities also had a property crime rate of 2,058 offenses per 100,000 inhab- itants. Nationwide, the esti- mated rate was just over 2,362 per 100,000. “It’s almost shocking, but it’s true,” Jack Levin, direc- tor of Northeastern Univer- sity’s Brudnick Center on Violence. “The numbers don’t lie.” PHOENIX — A politi- cal ad from President Don- ald Trump that shows a Mexican immigrant brag- ging about killing police officers has put the spot- light back on noted immi- gration hard-liner Joe Arpaio, who detained and released the man in the video years ago. The former six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix says he’s being unfairly blamed for releasing the immigrant depicted in the video that has stoked immigration anxieties in the days leading up to the midterm elections. The ad centers on Luis Bracamontes, who was convicted of murder in the 2014 shooting deaths of two sheriff’s deputies in California while he was in the United States illegally. Trump blames Democrats for weak laws that allowed the man to keep coming across the border, even though he was deported during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Bracamontes was also incarcerated four times in jails run by Arpaio, a Republican who is known for his crackdowns on ille- gal immigration and being the first person to receive a pardon from Trump. He campaigned for Trump on several occasions during the presidential campaign, but lost his bid for a sev- enth term in 2016 amid a swirl of legal troubles. Arpaio said Friday that he hasn’t seen the ad and didn’t remember the details of the cases. But he said his jail offi- cers likely acted prop- erly by contacting federal immigration authorities to pick up Bracamontes, because that was the pro- cedure in the jails at the time when inmates com- pleted their sentences. He pinned the blame on fed- eral immigration authori- ties for dropping the ball. “I would never release an illegal,” Arpaio said. “I think my reputation has shown that for many, many, many years.” Bracamontes used sev- eral aliases, making it hard to pinpoint his immi- gration record. Califor- nia authorities say Braca- montes was deported four times before he killed Sac- ramento County sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County sheriff’s Detective Michael Davis Jr. Bracamontes was deported at least once after doing time in Arpaio’s jails in drug cases from 1996 through 2001, according to court records in Arizona. Arpaio said at that time, his office had a system of notifying federal author- ities about immigrants in the jail through a teletype system. Democrats and Repub- licans have denounced the ad, which links Braca- montes’ crimes to a cara- van of Central American migrants moving through Mexico, as a racist cam- paign tactic. Bracamontes was deported in 1997, when Clinton was in office, according to court records in Arizona. He was arrested for marijuana possession in March 2001 during Bush’s administration. It’s unclear when he returned to the United States ille- gally before that arrest. Invest in Community Values: Families and Communities BEFORE Corporations AFTER 20 YEARS, NOW IS THE TIME TO PROTECT AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE RESTART ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INVEST IN EDUCATION & OUR FUTURE JAMIEFOROREGON.COM Not Authorized by Jamie McLeod- Skinner • Paid for by Abigail Spomer, 1622 NW Rimrock Court, Redmond, OR 97756
