Sowards: An Ounce of Prevention



Greg Sowards

By U.S. Senate Candidate Greg Sowards - I have always been an advocate for maintaining the rule of law in America. There are many laws at the federal level that are currently unenforced, particularly in the southern states that border Mexico. When it comes to illegal immigration, I believe the federal government should enforce the laws that are on the books or hand authority and the grants necessary for the states to enforce the laws, that they might rise as effective partners with Washington. Most Americans have heard the old adage by Benjamin Franklin, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A recent article entitled “Predator Use Soars at U.S.-Mexico Border” pointed out the power of prevention when it comes to supporting our uniformed guards at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
According to the article by Christopher Sherman of the Associated Press, a Predator B surveillance aircraft, equipped with infrared and thermal imaging cameras was able to help a border patrol find two illegal immigrants that the naked eye could not find.

What shocked me is that the Predator B that was added to the Border Patrol arsenal was only the fifth drone that the force was utilizing and that a sixth drone was slated to be added in Arizona at the year's end. At a cost of $18.5 million, the Predator systems – the plane, control consoles, and sensors – are a bargain when compared to the price of physical barriers. In roughly 10,000 hours of operation, they have helped the border patrol apprehend 7,500 people and intercept over 23 tons of illegal drugs.
Two controllers – a pilot and a sensor operator – man each drone. They operate out of trailers and the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) is constantly criticized for its high cost. Really? Let's compare the cost of the UAS at $18.5 million to the U.S. Government loan to Solyndra at $535 million. Apples to oranges? Maybe. However, the Obama Administration's agenda of killing the fossil fuels industry in America may have clouded the primary purpose of government which is to defend our sovereign borders.

Solyndra, then, a failing company that was propped up by the U.S. taxpayers and then went belly up was given a loan which could have been spent to buy 28 Predator B drones to give to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. This amount of unmanned aerial vehicles would have expanded the fleet by a factor of seven and would have provided California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas with the tools necessary to monitor our borders, maximizing the efficiency of our current boots on the ground in apprehending and immediately deporting immigrants crossing into America illegally.

President Obama's decision to focus on deporting only those illegal immigrants that have committed felonies, due the high cost of apprehending and deporting non-violent undocumented souls, weakens the rule of law in this country. The Predator drone is a force multiplier. The American people deserve to know that their government is intent on protecting the borders of the nation and enforcing the rule of law. Maximizing the number and presence of unmanned surveillance aircraft in our southern border fleet is a solution whose time has come. It is time for Washington to consider adding an ounce of prevention to the forces defending our southern flank. I believe that completing the construction of a physical barrier on our southern border is necessary to demarcate our nation’s sovereign limits; beefing up our reconnaissance capacity with UAVs is both an interim and long-term homeland security solution that should be implemented without fail in the near term.

Sowards: An Ounce of Prevention