485 NEW AGENTS TO BE POSITIONED ALONG TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER BY SEPTEMBER

Nearly 500 new agents will be deployed along the Texas border in the next
few months in an effort to halt the flow of illegal immigrants.

Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner said 485
U.S. Border Patrol agents will be posted along the Texas border from El Paso
to Brownsville between now and Sept. 1, the end of the federal government's
fiscal year.

Last year, agents in Texas apprehended more than 578,292 people who crossed
the border illegally in five border regions: Del Rio, El Paso, Laredo, Marfa
and McAllen. Of the estimated 5 million immigrants who live in the United
States, about 2.5 million entered illegally. Meissner said the additional
agents are part of President Clinton's mandate to halt illegal immigration
and drug trafficking along the border. "The Clinton administration is
committed to continued strengthening of our enforcement operations. The
deployment of the 1,000 border patrol agents and associated support
personnel underscores this commitment."

There are currently 7,357 Border Patrol agents on the U.S. border with
Mexico. Last year they apprehended 1,555,776 illegal immigrants. There are
an additional 289 agents on the Canadian border and 54 in Florida.

INS will position 978 of the new agents along the southwest border and 22 on
the Canadian border. Most of the new agents will be stationed in Texas, but
395 will be posted on the Arizona border, 83 in California and 15 in New
Mexico.

Beefing up border security has paid off in the past.

Since beginning Operation Rio Grande, a special initiative to stop illegal
border crossings in McAllen and Laredo in late 1996, the number of illegal
border crossings has been cut dramatically in those sectors, said Tomas
Zuniga, INS spokesman.

Armed with infrared scopes, night vision goggles and underground sensors,
agents were better able to thwart crossings at night and in rural areas. As
a result, officials noted a big drop in apprehensions in those sectors,
Zuniga said.

Agents apprehended 385,686 illegal immigrants in McAllen and Laredo during
fiscal 1997, but that figure dropped to 307,680 after Operation Rio Grande's
first full year of operation.

But Houston also stands to gain an undetermined number of the 600 support
personnel INS will add to alleviate heavy immigration traffic at the
airports, assist in processing naturalization applications and supervise at
INS detention facilities.

Houston is one of the cities where INS will add employees to reduce the
backlog of naturalization applications. Processing time for applications is
15 months or longer in Houston and eight other cities.

And 101 INS employees will be added in Port Isabel, where the INS plans to
add 400 adult beds and 126 juvenile beds to INS detention facilities, Zuniga
said.