By Andrew Becker

Many of the thousands of new border agents hired in recent years as part of a push to block drug traffickers and other safety threats from entering the country might actually pose security risks themselves, a Homeland Security official testified today.

Speaking at a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on corruption of federal law enforcement officers, James Tomsheck, the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at Customs and Border Protection, testified that drug-trafficking organizations have infiltrated the nation's largest federal law enforcement agency.

"There is a concerted effort on the part of transnational criminal organizations to infiltrate through hiring initiatives and to compromise our existing agents and officers," he said.

Despite efforts to combat corruption, which include lie-detector tests for applicants and background checks for new hires and veteran employees, Tomsheck said he worries that the problem may be too big for his agency and others to wipe out even when they work together harmoniously.

Since 2004, more than 100 CBP agents and officers have been arrested or indicted, officials said. Tomsheck said when he took over the internal affairs office in 2006 the vast majority of corrupted employees had worked with the agency for 10 years or more, but now an increasing number of younger agents and officers have become corrupted.

CBP has expanded rapidly in recent years, nearly doubling the number of Border Patrol agents to 20,000, which has pushed its ranks to about 58,000 employees.

Tomsheck, who appeared with top officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, said that his agency has a backlog of 10,000 regularly scheduled background investigations, which could almost double by the end of the year. Nearly 100 contractors, among them retired FBI, DEA and other federal agents who conduct the checks, were recently laid off because of budget woes.

Funding shortfalls have also limited polygraph examiners to administer lie-detector tests to 10 to 15 percent of applicants, Tomsheck said, although the goal is to test all potential hires. But 60 percent of those who take the test are deemed "unsuitable" to work as Border Patrol agents or customs inspectors, Tomsheck said.

When asked if the 60 percent failure rate could apply to the other 85-90 percent of possible hires who are not tested, Tomsheck said officials had reached that conclusion. They suspect that many of those hired during the hiring push would be found not suitable to work for CBP if subjected to the test, Tomsheck said.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., who called the hearing and is the chair of the subcommittee, said the percentage is "alarming."

"We're on very dangerous ground here with corruption inside federal law enforcement," Pryor said.

Kevin Perkins, the assistant director of the FBI's criminal investigative division, did not give a specific number on how pervasive the problem is, but offered the case of customs inspector Margarita Crispin as an example of how valuable a corrupt official is to traffickers.

Agents suspect that Crispin joined CBP in 2003 with the intent of working with drug smugglers. She was sentenced in 2008 to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $5 million in bribes she was paid to allow thousands of pounds of marijuana to be smuggled through her inspection lane in El Paso.

Based on the amount of bribe money Perkins said he seems the problem of corruption is "significantly pervasive." The FBI has expanded the number of its anti-corruption units, which draw from other state and federal agencies, to attack corruption, he said.

But corruption in the Homeland Security Department isn't limited to Border Patrol agents and customs inspectors. Agents and officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which both runs immigration detention and is Homeland Security's investigative arm, and employees of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues green cards and other immigration benefits, have also been corrupted.

Tom Frost, the assistant inspector general for investigations at DHS, said his office has even greater concern about the risk of corruption within CIS.

"Immigration benefits are such a valuable commodity to drug-trafficking organizations or other persons that would do us harm," he said. "Immigration benefits are even more lasting and profound" because they allow drug traffickers to operate within the United States.

Pryor said that changes in the law might address the problem.

“These cartels in Mexico are very powerful,” he said. “We should not underestimate their ability to corrupt law enforcement authorities.”

Following up an in-depth March 8 story examining federal homeland security grants, the nonprofit Texas Tribune has posted a searchable database online that allows visitors to see how cities and counties in the Lone Star State have used anti-terrorism and preparedness grants since 2003.

The Center for Investigative Reporting made the records available to the Austin-based news organization after obtaining them from the Texas Department of Public Safety using open-government laws. Tribune data guru Matt Stiles built the easy-to-use application that enables visitors to compare grant spending per capita, from tiny Loving County ($1,144 for every resident) to the county surrounding the Texas capital (about $1 for each resident).

The database can also be used to search by community for a detailed list in each of actual purchases totaling more than 25,000 expenditures statewide. In Bexar County where San Antonio is located, for example, authorities spent $350,000 on an armored-response vehicle. In the sample box here you can see a $68,000 "WMD kit," i.e. weapons of mass destruction.

Reporter Brandi Grissom's main story pointed out that big cities weren't the only ones to indulge in such high-priced items. A small county southeast of Dallas with fewer than 8,000 people also scooped up a fortified military-style truck. Grissom's reporting showed that the city of Houston paid professional filmmakers $194,000 for a 22-minute movie on disaster preparedness. Read the story for much more.

"The City of Corpus Christi hasn't used the $188,000 video screen it bought with homeland security funding in 2008," begins Texas Tribune reporter Brandi Grissom in a March 8 story about federal preparedness and anti-terrorism grants. "But when a hurricane strikes, city officials will be ready to watch footage from surveillance cameras around the area -- if the storm doesn't knock them out, of course."

The Tribune examined thousands of transactions made with federal homeland security grants that were contained in a database turned over by the Texas Department of Public Safety. The Center for Investigative Reporting made the data available to the Tribune after obtaining the records through an open-government request.

Doing so is part of the center's ongoing effort to collaborate with other investigative journalism organizations focused on the public interest. It's also an essential component of our more than year-long push to report on post-Sept. 11 security spending in the United States. You can see the nationwide map we recently unveiled using similar records from around the country here. The Center for Public Integrity partnered with us in constructing the map.

The Texas Tribune and Grissom found among other things that the city of Houston purchased a $1.3 million five-man helicopter and paid $194,000 to a professional filmmaking company for a 22-minute movie on disaster preparedness. A small county 80 miles southwest of Dallas with fewer than 8,000 people acquired a $180,000 military-style armored truck.

Image: Texas Tribune

Corruption-related investigations of federal immigration and border agents in the Southwest has increased for the third year in a row, according to records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting through a Freedom of Information Act request.

More than 80 investigations were opened last year by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General in the four Southwest border states against employees of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agencies that police the border and immigration.

The Inspector General, which is the lead Homeland Security agency to investigate criminal corruption cases, had more than 170 open cases, some dating to 2003, at the end of last fiscal year. That figure does not include cases being investigated by the FBI or the internal affairs offices of CBP or ICE.

CBP has significantly increased its ranks in recent years, while also hiring more internal affairs agents to combat the threat of corruption.

The latest case of an allegedly corrupt customs inspector was announced yesterday by federal officials in El Paso. Martha Alicia Garnica, 43, was arrested and indicted on charges of conspiracy to smuggle undocumented aliens, two counts of bribery and one count of importation of a controlled substance, according to a press release.

CBP spokesman Roger Maier said in an email statement that Garnica was hired as customs inspector in February 1997 and became a CBP officer when DHS formed in 2003. Since March 2008 she had been a technician assigned to the El Paso border crossing.

"Corruption is an issue CBP takes extremely seriously," Maier said. "Corruption by employees tarnishes our badge and our reputation, brings dishonor to our service and most importantly jeopardizes our border security."

An El Paso police spokesman said an officer by the same name worked for the department from 1990 to 1997, but could not confirm it was the same person.

November has been a busy time for corruption cases. Two CBP officers have been sentenced, two more will be sentenced later this month, and another this weekpleaded guilty to charges .

In South Texas, Raul Montano, 34, pleaded guilty Monday to bribery, cocaine trafficking and illegal immigrant smuggling charges. The former CBP officer will be sentenced in February.

Earlier this month, Sergio Lopez Hernandez, a 41-year-old former CBP officer, was sentenced in Federal District Court to more than 11 years in prison for human smuggling, bribery and cocaine possession. The former officer, who worked in Brownsville, Texas, admitted to taking more than $15,000 in bribes when he pleaded guilty in April.

In San Diego, John Paul Yanez-Camacho, a former CBP officer at the Otay Mesa border crossing, was sentenced to three years probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized access to a government computer.

From January 2005 through November 2006 Yanez-Camacho accessed a government database containing confidential information more than 250 times to check on the status of himself, family members, and drug traffickers who he knew from a previous job he held at Tequila Frogs restaurant in Juarez, Mexico, according to court documents. Yanez-Camacho was hired in 2003 by the federal government.

Jesus Velasco Esparza, a former CBP officer at the Calexico, Calif., border crossing, will be sentenced for corruption-related charges next week.

Update:
Velasco Esparza's sentencing has been postponed until next year.

Also, CBP Officer Henry Gauani, 41, of Yuma, Ariz., and his wife were sentenced Nov. 23 to a little more than three years in prison on bribery and drug trafficking charges. They were arrested in January and pleaded guilty in June.

Raquel Esquivel, a Border Patrol agent in Texas who was convicted in April by a federal jury of drug-trafficking charges, will be sentenced today.

All told, the Inspector General opened in fiscal year 2009 more than 400 investigations in the four Southwest border states, ranging from misconduct to criminal corruption cases. That number represents the most investigations in any year since the advent of the department in 2003. Overall, the Inspector General has 725 open investigations.

Other recent cases:
• Yamilkar Fierros, a former Border Patrol agent in Arizona, was arrested Oct. 30 and indicted on charges of accepting bribes.

• Former CBP Officer Rudy Trace Soliz III, 43, of Brownsville, was arrested Oct. 29 and charged with human smuggling

• Elliott R. Hernandez, 44, of Houston, a Citizenship and Immigration Services officer was arrested Oct. 22 on charges of bribery, fraud in connection with a computer and receiving something of value in exchange for performing an official act to which he is not entitled.

• Former CBP Officer Jose Carmelo Magana, 46, of Yuma, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Oct. 21 of charges of bribery and human smuggling. He will be sentenced in January.

• Retired CBP Officer Tony Alan Barker, 58, of Sahuarita, Ariz., was detained Oct. 7 on child pornography charges. Barker, a retired Customs and Border Protection officer of 35 years out of Georgia, was indicted in September 2009 by a federal grand jury in Tucson for Attempted Distribution of Child Pornography and Possession of Child Pornography.

• Former CBP Officer Javier Cavazos, 50, of Los Fresnos, Texas, was arrested on Sept. 29 and charged with bribery in connection with human smuggling.

In 2007, the federal Department of Homeland Security entered into more than $3 billion worth of contracts with private companies for goods and services while not requiring that they compete against each other to make sure taxpayers receive the best value possible. That’s a quarter of all contracts awarded by the department and a major jump from 2003 when Congress created the new federal bureaucracy.

It’s known as “sole-source” contracting or non-competitive procurement, and sometimes there are perfectly good reasons for why government bureaucrats would do business with suppliers in such a way. There may be only one company that manufactures a product in demand. Or there’s unusual and compelling urgency, such as during a natural disaster, and the purchase must be made as quickly as possible.

However, government agencies are required to demonstrate why a purchase needs to be exempt from federal guidelines otherwise in place to protect taxpayers.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general says that didn’t happen with dozens of purchases examined for compliance, according to a report released Sept. 15. Inspector General Richard Skinner’s office looked at $417 million worth of spending that took place in 2007 involving sole-source contracts and found that in most cases, contracts were awarded without federal regulations being followed.

The Center for Investigative Reporting found in a story earlier this month that communities in California spent millions of dollars on anti-terrorism equipment and emergency preparedness consultants using federal homeland security grants without following the same types of rules that among other things require competition.

Government auditors concluded in a March report that cities and counties across the Golden State “preferred to avoid the burden of initiating competitive procurement whenever possible” for the purchase of communications systems, night-vision goggles, bomb-disposal robots and more.

California, it turns out, isn’t alone. According to Skinner’s recent report, contract files at the Department of Homeland Security didn’t have documentation to explain why sole-source purchases were necessary. It also wasn’t always clear market research had been done so the best products could be identified. Nor did officials appear to thoroughly plan how they would manage large investments, leading to opportunities for additional waste.

In some instances, files were so disorganized and incomplete, it was impossible for the inspector general’s staff to determine if non-competitive contracts were justified, according to the report. Purchasing documents in two cases listed in the report as examples had to be reconstructed “because contract personnel were unable to locate the original files.”

Forty percent of the department’s annual budget is consumed through contracts with the private sector, but it continues to struggle with high turnover rates of personnel and an inability to hire contract officers who can effectively police major purchases and hold contractors accountable.

Department officials responded in a letter to the inspector general that the report doesn’t mention its “significant strides” in hiring qualified contract overseers. The Department of Homeland Security has doubled its contracting workforce since 2003 and increased its staff by over 20 percent since 2007, according to the letter.

Also, a far greater percentage of contracts are awarded competitively now compared to past years, the letter stated. Whether that’s something to be proud of is a matter of perception. Less than half of contract awards in 2006 were competitively bid out to multiple companies, so any improvements made by the department in saving taxpayer money could be viewed as the federal government simply meeting basic expectations.

When companies do compete for government business, the difference can be extraordinary. Taxpayers benefitted from more than $7 billion in net savings between 2003 and 2007 at the federal level due to competitive contracting, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Concerns about wasteful spending are nothing new for the Department of Homeland Security. At this time last year, Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, held a hearing on $15 billion worth of “failed contracts” signed by the department for everything from fences and surveillance equipment on the southwest border with Mexico to new ships and aircraft for the Coast Guard.

According to Thompson’s office:

“Billions of dollars have been spent on contracts for programs that have been delayed, deferred and/or discontinued resulting in a waste of taxpayer money. Unfortunately, the wasting of these funds was not haphazard or as a result of conditions that could not have been foreseen. On the contrary, the department has failed to implement a ‘lessons learned’ approach, which has resulted in the same mistakes being made over and over again.”

Late last year, the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that authorities in Oregon failed to deploy hundreds of thousands of dollars in safety equipment to the scene of a reported bomb that eventually exploded killing two police officers. The Oregon State Police has used federal homeland security grants since 2001 to purchase an ordinance-detection vehicle, two pricey bomb robots and more.

Now the Associated Press and others are reporting that federal law enforcement agencies quarreled over who would get to investigate the tragedy, one of several such incidents that threaten to undermine coordinated anti-terrorism and bomb-suppression efforts.

The AP obtained a draft report on Sept. 15 from the U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general who found that for years agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives competed to reach crime scenes first, refused to exchange information through a joint database and maintained separate facilities for training and forensics.

In another November 2007 incident, according to the AP, the two agencies argued with one another in front of local police over whether the discovery of a pipe bomb in Arizona had a connection to terrorism, a case detail needed to trigger FBI jurisdiction.

According to the AP:

So-called "battles of the badges" between different law enforcement agencies are nothing new, but the ill will between FBI and ATF dates back decades and has survived the 2002 transfer of ATF from the Treasury Department to Justice. Some had thought putting the agencies in the same department might end the feud, but the Justice Department has spent years trying to get the two sides to cooperate.

After the explosion in Woodburn, Ore., a local prosecutor asked for assistance from the ATF, but the FBI protested.

In addition, a spokesman for the state police told CIR at the time of the bombing that his department was unsure why a 28-foot long, $170,000 ordinance-detection vehicle had not been sent to the scene. He said local officials would be requesting help from the federal government to determine what went wrong.

Earlier this month, county prosecutors in Oregon announced that they would be pursuing the death penalty for a father and son allegedly involved in the explosion. Police claim to have connected the pair to a bank branch in Woodburn where the bomb was planted.

According to published reports, a bomb expert with the state police began prying into the device believing it was bogus when it detonated. He was killed along with another officer, while a third was severely injured. Officers involved in responding to the incident were also honored this month.

State records obtained by CIR show that in recent years, the Oregon State Police spent $427,000 on two bomb robots, $265,000 on an armored SWAT truck and $334,000 on more general equipment designed to defeat explosive devices. Other police and fire departments in the region have spent hundreds of thousands more in federal grants for their own ballistics gear, records show.

Reporters are discovering one unique way to examine spending from President Obama’s stimulus package: comparing it to the disarray that surrounded homeland security grants after Sept. 11. With a little help from the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Voice of San Diego produced this story on May 20. We’ve also covered California’s grant spending in the past.

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government flooded California with money to help the state ramp up its homeland security effort. San Diego benefited greatly from the spending, reaping more than $20 million in homeland security grants since 2002.

But while San Diego and other local governments spent the federal money, the state scrambled to keep track of where all the cash was going. As California's spending on homeland security ballooned from a few million in 2000 to more than $500 million in 2003, the state's effort to account for all the money became akin to "trying to build a bicycle while you're riding it," according to one senior state official.

It took the state more than five years to get around to checking on San Diego's spending of the federal grants, according to state and county audits. Those documents reveal that for the first few years the federal money poured into San Diego, few formal procedures existed to track whether the money was actually being spent on the purpose for which Congress made it available: Making San Diegans safer.

When the federal government did its own checking, it found that, as a result of the state of California's poor monitoring of the homeland security money, local governments had been allowed to misspend millions of dollars. California was also unable to adequately measure whether the vast amounts of money actually helped to protect the state's citizens, a federal audit concluded.

Now, the federal government plans to send California more than $80 billion—an amount that makes the state's homeland security spending look puny—via the stimulus package. The city of San Diego hopes to claim more than $56 million of that money, and the county and other local cities, schools, and agencies hope to pick up tens of millions more.

Local officials in California failed to properly account for millions of dollars spent on homeland security efforts in the state, made dubious purchases that may not make communities safer, and could have overpaid millions by not seeking competitive bidding for equipment, according to an audit by the inspector general of the US Department of Homeland Security.

In one example cited, a California county bought a $96,600 generator to provide its public works department with emergency power during a catastrophe but didn't factor in a $130,000 overhaul of its electrical system needed to accommodate the generator. So nearly two years after the purchase, the new equipment wasn't ready for a disaster and might never be, county leaders admitted.

Another county entered into a multimillion-dollar contract for communications equipment without competitive bidding, which an independent assessment found could have cost taxpayers as much as 26 percent less if other companies had participated. A third county paid more than a half-million dollars to outfit a witness interview room, which was rejected as an illegitimate use of homeland security funds.

In addition to citing municipalities for irregularities, the audit was critical of the state homeland security department's oversight of grant spending, saying it's monitoring "was not sufficient to assure grant funds were spent properly."

The report noted that only half of the local agencies in California that have received cash since 2001 were visited by state monitors as of December 2007 and the state's weak controls did not ensure purchases made were "eligible, allowable, and supportable in accordance with federal guidelines."

According to the audit: "Our reviews of several grant files disclosed that documents such as purchase orders, receipts, or delivery notices, were not present to support millions of dollars in grant expenditures. State officials explained that, in an effort to improve operational efficiency of grant management, subgrantees were not required to provide supporting documentation together with their reimbursement requests."

In a letter responding to the audit, California Office of Homeland Security Director Matthew Bettenhausen argued that the state has a system in place for approving local expenditures and that grant managers in his office receive extensive training throughout the year. A spokesman for Bettenhausen said "We're reviewing the report" but declined to address individual findings in the audit.

The March 13 report focused on $265 million given to the state from 2004-2006 through the State Homeland Security Program, only a fraction of the at least $1.7 billion awarded to California between 2003 and 2008 through the most common grant programs made available by the federal government. The state has received additional millions from Washington for projects that exclusively target port security, expanded interoperable radio systems, hiring new firefighters, border protection and more.

In overall dollars received, California is the leading beneficiary of homeland security grants compared to other states, according to Matt Mayer, a former top official in the federal Department of Homeland Security's Office of Grants and Training.

The audit also found that despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in homeland security grants since 2001, California has not adequately evaluated improvements made in emergency response efforts, so it's difficult to tell which areas of the state are better prepared to respond to a major catastrophe.

Bettenhausen, in his response letter, disputed that California had failed to measure changes in its ability to manage disasters. He wrote that the state has tracked improvements in its emergency response capabilities and can gauge today how it is better equipped for calamity than before California began receiving the grants. "California has gone above and beyond what is required at the federal level in the measurement of preparedness and capabilities," Bettenhausen wrote.

The audit does not name any of the counties singled out in examples of questionable grant expenditures, and Bettenhausen's office would not provide them, although it made assurances to the inspector general that the purchases were valid.

Two California counties CIR was able to independently identify from the report, Alameda and Contra Costa, committed $33.4 million to a new emergency communications system using grants funds, but they need at least $34 million more for additional equipment and are unsure where it will come from, according to auditors. So for now, the system is only partially operational. In addition, a contractor may have overcharged them, and auditors are questioning the entire investment.

For the most part, local California recipients of the homeland security grants Congress began handing out after Sept. 11 must purchase what they need first, such as equipment and terrorism response training, before being reimbursed with federal money controlled by Sacramento. The grants have allowed cities of all sizes across the country to buy new mobile command vehicles, gas masks, hazmat suits, decontamination shelters, surveillance equipment for identifying terrorists and more.

A number of states have struggled to comply with rules created to increase accountability over the grant spending such as seeing to it that cities and counties keep their pricey new gear in a "state of readiness" and maintain documents that validate the purchases they've made.

Bettenhausen agreed in his response letter that more monitoring visits needed to occur and vowed to ramp up their frequency, but he complained that the amount of grant funds available specifically for such administrative costs are limited and a backlog of older grant years still exists. However, he promised that more on-site inspections will help ensure "funds are being expended as intended."

Suspect equipment purchases were made in cases identified by the auditors. One of the two aforementioned counties not named hired an engineering firm after determining that the $96,600 generator it had purchased with grant funds would be too difficult for its own employees to install. The consultants discovered that an electrical system would first need to be expensively renovated before the generator could be used. Because the county wouldn't put up the money needed to cover the previously unrealized costs, the generator has sat inactive for almost two years. A public works director from the county didn't believe the money would ever be made available, according to the report.

Another recipient spent nearly $600,000 on audio recorders and additional equipment to outfit a witness interview room for law enforcement purposes, but such items do not "enhance preparedness for terrorists' attacks or natural disasters," the report found. Auditors recommended that the state recover the costs of both projects.

Bettenhausen countered in his letter that the audio equipment "can be used to monitor and record suspects and witnesses involved in a terrorist event." Bettenhausen also promised to make sure that the emergency generator was eventually installed.

Many local authorities in California, according to the report's findings, also are not meeting federal procurement guidelines that require competitive bidding for major homeland security purchases, an obligation that's designed to make certain taxpayers receive the most value possible. "As a result, the grants' requirements for fair and open competition in procurement were not always practiced and subgrantees may have paid more than was necessary," the report states.

Local grant administrators bought large-ticket items but were not familiar with federal procurement rules and did not have records showing what processes they did use to purchase the gear. The report cited examples totaling $11.6 million worth of questionable transactions, including a $294,000 bomb disposal robot, $81,000 worth of night-vision goggles and a $5.1 million communications system.

Multiple purchases were made without competition, or local officials failed to prove that there weren't enough suppliers of specific goods to compete with one another. Nor did grantees conduct cost analyses to determine whether prices were "fair and reasonable" when only one vendor was used without competition.

The $5.1 million communications system was supposed to be part of a much larger regional network in the San Francisco Bay Area of northern California, designed to serve multiple dispatch centers and emergency radios so that first responders could more readily talk to one another. Two Bay Area counties, Alameda and Contra Costa, which encircle several California cities including Oakland and Berkeley, manage the interoperability project together, one of many similar but expensive efforts that exist today around the country. Because of the system's original design, according to the report, most of the equipment for an early phase of the undertaking was purchased from the same company that conceived it.

The contractor, which is not named in the report but CIR identified as Motorola by searching documents online, estimated that the larger system ultimately would carry a price tag of about $54.8 million, including the cost of transmission towers, repeaters and other equipment. A later independent assessment, however, found that Motorola had added a substantial premium to the price of as much as 26 percent compared to what the cost may have been if more than one company competed to offer a better deal.

A spokesman for Motorola declined to comment on the audit's findings. The East Bay Regional Communications System Authority has spent approximately $10 million so far against the contract with Motorola. Bill McCammon, executive director of the authority, told CIR that it has since learned of other less costly alternatives, such as piggy backing on a contract that was competitively bid out to Motorola by Riverside County in southern California. The authority will pursue those options rather than continuing with the existing contract, but McCammon admits some service fees charged by Motorola so far were overpriced.

He said that when Alameda County sought a contractor initially for a new radio system, Motorola was the only bidder. Officials chose to proceed with the company anyway because the Department of Homeland Security requires grants to be obligated quickly for projects each year after the federal awards are announced.

"It was a question of using those dollars or losing those dollars entirely," McCammon said. "Those funds need to be expended within a certain amount of time."

Regardless of the system's estimated cost now, it doesn't include the additional millions it will take to provide the police, sheriffs, firefighters, paramedics, public works personnel and others who would benefit from interoperability with individual radios, thousands of which may be needed. McCammon isn't sure how much more that could cost.

As of May 2008, the two counties were looking for a way to meet a funding gap in the project of $34 million, but according to the audit, they don't know how to fill it. McCammon responds that "we're going through a very deliberate process to evaluate our options" with the aid of a communications consultant. Nonetheless, if the system does not eventually work, auditors say that all of the money used from homeland security grants for the project – more than $33 million earmarked so far – should be relinquished.

Bettenhausen responded in his letter that the state would not be requiring an "artificial date" for completion of the communications project but would review its implementation plan to see if the system is technically feasible and compatible with other interoperable radio initiatives in the state.

The report, meanwhile, did single out another project in California for commendation. The California National Guard created a unique truck-bound system that can bridge disconnected communications systems in a disaster area. But it would still take a few hours for the system to be deployed during an emergency with the help of a military airlift. An early prototype was used during Hurricane Katrina and also California's 2007 wildfire season. Six of the units are being manufactured and will be set up in regions across the state. Other states are examining the system's state-of-the-art design.

Copyrighted image courtesy Tobias Kraft

ABC's reality show "Homeland Security USA" would have you believe that no one of suspicion will make it into the United States from Mexico without being captured by the Department of Homeland Security. What if the greatest threat to national security isn't people trying illicitly to bring goods into the United States but criminals who take them out of the country?

That question was the subject of a hearing convened March 12 by the House Homeland Security Committee.

Experts testified that violent clashes between drug cartels currently underway in northern Mexico will increasingly bleed into the United States if the near-anarchy isn't brought under control. Newly appointed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a Democratic former governor of Arizona, has made it a top priority to stem the growing potential for a spillover of violence, calling for "utmost attention" from U.S. officials. Mexican President Felipe Calderón has deployed thousands of armed forces in an attempt to quash a surge in brutality that resulted in 6,200 murders across the country last year, 1,600 alone in Ciudad Juarez, which shares the border with El Paso.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that as many as 90 percent of the firearms fueling bloodshed south of the border aren't obtained in Mexico, where gun laws are far more restrictive than those in the United States. They're coming from firearms retailers in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California, exploited by warring narco-traffickers who use straw buyers with clean records to buy the weapons here. The Houston Chronicle, citing investigations by the ATF, revealed in late November that the southern Texas metropolis has become a top source for firearms slipping into Mexico.

"All the weapons the drug syndicates are using in Mexico come across the border from the United States," Mexico's ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhan, told the Chronicle.

Authorities linked an M-16 assault rifle purchased at a Houston sporting goods store to the murder of four police officers in Acapulco. Another rifle allegedly purchased at a Houston gun store was connected to the killing of a man kidnapped in Mexico during a soccer game, according to the newspaper.

A cell of weapons smugglers bought as many as 45 assault rifles from just one gun shop, and Mexican officials believe the vast majority of thousands of weapons so far seized or found at crime scenes on the southern side of the border originated in the United States. An ATF office in Houston has beefed up its attention to the area, but officials told the Chronicle that legal interpretations of Second Amendment freedoms bar the federal government from keeping a detailed database of weapons and ammo buyers, which hamstrings investigations into the source of the gun flows.

Kumar Kibble, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deputy director, described for the committee last week the case of Ernesto Tornel Olvera-Garza who allegedly began sneaking hunting rifles into Mexico during the summer of 2005. ICE agents concluded that he used straw buyers with no criminal record to fraudulently buy as many as 50 weapons on the U.S. side of the border that were later smuggled southbound, one of which appears to have been involved in the killing of two Mexican soldiers, according to Kibble's testimony.

The Department of Homeland Security last year officially launched Operation Armas Cruzadas, a joint campaign with the government of Mexico, to fight gun smuggling networks, and Kibble told the committee that the effort has netted more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition and hundreds of weapons. "The challenge in countering the smuggling activity is compounded by the reliance on the technique called 'ant trafficking,' where small weapons are smuggled through multiple ports-of-entry, on a continued basis," Kibble said at the hearing

Despite ICE's new operation, the chaos seems only to be growing worse. The Los Angeles Times reported March 15 on a harrowing new development that's making the bid by Mexican and U.S. authorities to stop drug trafficking truly resemble a war: military-grade weapons being used by cartels to attack one another and police. The list includes armor-piercing ammunition, antitank rockets and grenade launchers.

Many of the weapons are shipped over ocean channels from Central America, according to the Times, but some remain from the anti-revolutionary campaigns the United States once helped fight in that region. Others come from illegal global arms networks, redirected from once-legitimate sources with the help of corrupt government officials onto the black market after being manufactured in South Korea, Israel, Spain—and the United States.

The Mexican government claims to have seized more than 2,200 grenades over the last two years. In one case, a U.S.-based company with a manufacturing facility in Mexico was robbed of bomb-making equipment.

According to the Times story:

The fear of guerrilla warfare was compounded in February when 270 pounds of dynamite and several hundred electric detonators were stolen from a U.S. firm in the state of Durango. On Valentine's Day, about 20 masked gunmen, led by a heavyset man wearing gold rings and chains, stormed the warehouse of a subsidiary of Austin Powder Co., an industrial explosives manufacturer, according to official accounts. They overpowered guards and emptied the warehouse. … In addition to grenades, high-powered guns such as the .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle have become a weapon of choice in narcotics traffickers' arsenals, [ATF Spokesman Thomas G.] Mangan said. Unlike grenades and antitank weapons, the .50-caliber guns can be obtained by ordinary citizens in the U.S. and smuggled easily into Mexico, like the tons of assault rifles and automatic pistols.

The possibility that Mexico might actually become a "failed state" due to the intensity of the drug war is being considered openly by U.S. military intelligence and members of Congress, a serious matter given that Mexico is a major economic trading partner of the United States.

The Homeland Security Committee's vice chair, Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California, said during the March 12 hearing: "We must not overhype the dangers in border cities, such as El Paso, which has seen declining crime rates. However, we know that cartel members are present in some 230 U.S. cities, often times masquerading as local gang members who engage in drug-related kidnappings and home invasions.

"In addition, it should be noted that over 200 U.S. citizens have been killed in this drug war, either because they were involved in the cartels or were innocent bystanders. With those concerns in mind, it is essential that the Department of Homeland Security, along with other relevant departments, continue to pursue a contingency plan to address 'spillover' violence along our border."

NOTE: The Center for Investigative Reporting spent the last several weeks offering alternative news on the Department of Homeland Security that typically didn't make it onto ABC's reality show "Homeland Security USA." After seven episodes, it appears that the show has been taken off the air without completing the season, perhaps due to poor ratings. It's not clear yet if the remaining episodes will run later, but our reporting on the department will certainly continue.

Two former Border Patrol agents arrested on charges of smuggling Brazilians and Mexicans into the country on Friday made their first appearance in U.S. Federal District Court in San Diego.

The Associated Press reports that a U.S. magistrate judge entered not guilty pleas on behalf of brothers Fidel, 41, and Raul, 39, Villarreal, as uniformed Border Patrol agents looked on disapprovingly at their former co-workers. The brothers, who were extradited from Mexico on Thursday, had been on the lam for more than two years until their arrest last October in Tijuana. Since then the men had been held in Mexico City pending their extradition to the United States.

A federal grand jury in April indicted the brothers on 18 counts of bribery, alien smuggling, money laundering and witness tampering, but the indictment was sealed until after their arrest in October.

The Villlarreals were allegedly part of a network that smuggled Brazilians and Mexicans into the country through Tijuana, according to court documents. The network included a Mexican police officer who drove the immigrants to remote mountain areas from where the brothers would drive them in a Border Patrol truck further into the country, a Brazilian said in a sworn affidavit, adding that he paid $12,000 to be smuggled into the country.

The brothers, who were highlighted in a joint New York Times-PBS Frontline/WORLD production in May 2008, were assigned to different Border Patrol posts in the San Diego area. Fidel Villarreal was a senior agent while Raul Villarreal was once a Border Patrol spokesman, who acted as a "coyote" in public service announcements for the Mexican government warning immigrants about the dangers of human smugglers.

The brothers were captured during an early morning raid following a birthday party at a gated apartment complex near the U.S. Consulate. Their father, who lived near the border in National City, Calif., was also at the apartment at that time. Two other suspected smugglers, Armando Garcia and Claudia Gonzalez, who were caught along with the brothers, were also extradited.

The brothers had lived with their parents in a San Diego suburb until they abruptly quit the Border Patrol in June 2006 and vanished. Federal agents involved in the investigation speculated that the brothers may have been tipped off about the investigation as it closed in on them, and had chosen to go into hiding.

Jan E. Ronis, the attorney for Raul Villarreal, declined to comment on his client's case beyond the fact the brothers are in a difficult position.

"Obviously the allegations are serious," he said.