Border Patrol expands to U.S. interior

[Gunny]

PEARL, Miss. (AP) — Detective Nick McLendon, on stakeout duty along a dark stretch of eastbound Interstate 20, noticed a red Chevy Suburban with heavily tinted windows and no light over its rear Texas license plate. He pulled the SUV over.
Packed into the Suburban, he discovered, were 14 illegal immigrants, two suspected smugglers, and a spiral notebook on the front seat, listing the passengers and their destinations in Spanish — "Arterio Ramires to Nuy Yersey; David Luna to Nueba York; Marcelina and Jasmin to Carolina del Norte; Jose Aguilar to Alabama; Josefina Ortega to Chicago; Gustavo Ribera to Florida."

The arrests — some 800 miles from the Mexican border — represented a new and dramatic shift in U.S. immigration enforcement strategy.

Federal agents, with help from local law officers like McLendon, a Pearl, Miss., detective, have begun intercepting illegal immigrants and smugglers along stretches of highway deep in the U.S. interior.

"They think they're pretty much home free once they get up here," said Bill Botts, the assistant chief patrol agent in charge of the Border Patrol's Gulfport, Miss., station. But Operation Uniforce, as the two-week crackdown begun Jan. 13 is called, "is pretty much a shocker for the smuggling organizations."

more ... http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-01-24-borderpatrol_N.htm

I really wouldn't have a problem with this IF they had the actual border manned properly. Seems like a hit or miss operation as it is.