Quote:I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree on the fence. Over 50% of it is, imo, completely ineffective, and it does an equal disservice by creating the illusion that it's somehow a great help to the effort and precluding the need for more agents on the border itself.

 

It's entirely possible that I was identified and ignored, but the fact that I wasn't contacted or followed out of town struck me as odd. My first and second trips down there, I had some kind of contact with Border Patrol agents while hiking and/or driving back out of the area. On the third trip, when I actually crossed the border, spent several minutes on the Mexican side and returned, no one contacted me at all, no trucks followed me out of town or pulled me over, and when I got to the idiotic interior checkpoint before arriving home in San Diego, I wasn't even asked my citizenship, just waved through. The trips to the border were spaced out by a month or more (let's be honest, if I have to choose between walking along the Mexican border and walking up Mt. Soledad, I'm probably taking Mt. Soledad), so I doubt that agents recognized or remembered me. It just struck me as very odd that I was approached (or pulled over while leaving town) on my first two trips, and on my third trip, when I probably committed a federal offense, nobody was around to care.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvZQn8UPEzc

 

Yuma was the busiest area in the United States for many years and saw as high as 200,000 apprehensions in a fiscal year, and that was with far less than 50% of those who entered actually getting apprehended.  Within just a few years it became one of the slowest areas in the United States with, I believe, less than 10,000 apprehensions in a fiscal year at one point.  How did they do it?  Three things: More agents, more prosecutions, and more fence.  The proof is in the pudding.

 

You very well may have gotten away if you were an alien, but like I said, Border Patrol Agents know a lot more about you than you think they do when you go to the border.  In all likelyhood you passed a high res camera, set off a seismic/magnetic/infrared device, set off a game cam, the Border Patrol Agent assigned to the area ran the plates on your vehicle while you were away from it and then ran the registered owner to that vehicle, and then they decided to spend their time elsewhere when they determined you were likely just a tourist. 

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