| Didn’t Donald Trump say something about Mexico paying for the border fence, once upon a time? |
[WashingtonExaminer] The U.S. government collected its first fine as part of a new bilateral deal that forces Mexico to prosecute anyone who damages the fence along one part of the southern border and send penalties collected to the United States.
"We just collected the first fine," said Gloria Chavez, the former Border Patrol chief in El Centro, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, who spearheaded the initiative. "It was like $600. The person paid the fine in lieu of going to jail in Mexico for damaging the border wall."
American and Mexican leaders reached a deal a year ago this week to start arresting, prosecuting, and seeking damages from anyone caught attempting to destroy border barrier in southeastern California, where the Border Patrol made $396,000 worth of repairs at 1,300 cuts in its fence in fiscal 2019, Customs and Border Protection told the Washington Examiner. The 2019 fiscal year ran from Oct. 1, 2018, through Sept. 30, 2019.
"When I saw that number, I said, 'Absolutely not. We have to do something more about this. We have to hold these people accountable that are cutting our border fence,'" said Chavez. "Because look at the money that we are spending. These are U.S. dollars that we are spending in trying to fix the mesh fencing."
On Nov. 22, 2019, CBP's Office of Chief Counsel and the Mexican government reached a deal to go after fence cutters in court and send any fines derived from prosecutions back to the U.S.
The Mexican government recently began prosecuting suspects caught on its side of the border across from southeastern California. It marks the first time the countries have partnered to reimburse U.S. border authorities, who must take money out of their budgets to fix the fence after the nightly breaches. Cuts to the fence were happening every night, and repairmen were constantly on the border fixing new ones from the previous night, Chavez said.
The U.S. has recouped $1,273 in four instances in which Mexico prosecuted people for attempting to blow-torch or saw through older mesh and scrap-metal fencing that was installed during the Clinton, Bush, and B.O. regimes. Another 15 cases are before the Mexican courts.
Border authorities in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas told the Washington Examiner that they believe the installation of 400 miles of new steel border wall has led them to try to breach the older, shorter fencing that is easier to compromise than the new wall, most of which is 30 feet tall.
"The height of the fence is a deterrent in of itself," said Anthony Porvaznik, head of Border Patrol's Yuma, Arizona, region, which encompasses some of California and Arizona. "The footing keeps people from burrowing under."
The new wall and legal ramifications to fence cutters are meant to improve agent safety, CBP said.
"During this time frame, many of the incidents involving border wall breaches also involved assaults against the responding Border Patrol agents," a CBP spokeswoman said in a statement. El Centro "agents suffered more than 43 agent assaults from October 1, 2018 to February 24, 2019."
Chavez hopes to establish the same agreement in her new region of command in El Paso, Texas. 
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