ALBUQUERQUE — The U.S. Border Patrol will make a decision Friday on a much-debated planned substation for Southern New Mexico's Animas Valley, the agency recently announced.

Federal officials said the agency will hand down its final decision following a public forum scheduled for Friday in Animas.

U.S. Border Patrol agent Doug Mosier said the substation, also known as a forward operating base, is needed in the isolated southwest corner of New Mexico because of changing patterns of illegal immigration and drug trafficking due to beefed up enforcement in Arizona and around El Paso. He said it's also needed because agents must drive about two hours, one-way, from the nearest Border Patrol headquarters in Lordsburg to reach the border.

"This is an area where we are facing the most challenges in terms of terrain," Mosier said.

But a vocal group of ranchers and other Hidalgo County residents want the proposed base to be built closer to the border instead of 13 miles from a planned site that's in a draw and fed by two other arroyos. Each can carry significant amounts of water during a storm. They said U.S. Border Patrol's preferred site is hard to see and won't serve as a deterrent for those trying to cross into the U.S. illegally or trafficking drugs.

An environmental review says the base, regardless of which site is selected, will hold a heliport, horse corrals and modular buildings capable of housing up to 16 federal agents, who'll stay for short-term spans.

The project gained serious momentum after the 2010 killing of a southeastern Arizona rancher.

Officials have said they'd been waiting on two agency officials to sign off on a document, called a "finding of no significant impact," that's part of the environmental review.

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended along the Mexico-New Mexico border last year dropped to 6,900. Mosier said the arrests are a
90 percent drop from five years ago in the El Paso sector, which covers New Mexico and two Texas counties.




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