With 40,000 thousand acres, The Port of Brownsville is the port with the most land in the United States.
It also ranks in the top three in the nation for ports that import and export steel.
It's also now the home of former Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia who takes on the title of Chief of Police and Security.
"Definitely here, it's more focused on security of the amount of ship traffic that's coming in here,” Garcia said. “(Also, to) make sure that we have secure premises for The Port of Brownsville, as mandated by homeland security."
Garcia works closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Coast Guard.
Garcia said these working relationships are nothing new, but adds that learning about the port in depth, led him to a new discovery.
"In the last few weeks, I’ve learned that there's more business here that actually people know about,” Garcia said. “When I first toured the port several months ago, I had no idea how big the port is. There is a lot of potential for development for the future – (it’s) definitely there, so the potential for creating additional jobs is there.”
Garcia said the high security levels he will have to implement and oversee are a fairly new thing, since they only began after 9/11.
He hopes to bring 30 years of experience in law enforcement to make an impact on the port. He wants to start by increasing his department of eight officers and eight security guards.
"One of my goals here, is to double the size of this department within the next 5 years,” Garcia said. “Definitely a lot of that is going to be mandated by the growth of the port in the future and not only that, (we need to) work with every tenant that leases land from the port."
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