With the eyes and ears of national leaders upon them, Valley and state law enforcement begged for more resources to help keep our border safe.
It is especially critical for Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio, nearly a dozen of his deputies will be given the ax in the coming weeks.
"Do we need them? Yes, no question about it,” he said. “But the budget is not there."
Lucio hired them with grant money, but those funds are almost out, and with Cameron County facing a $3 million budget shortfall, they don't know where to find money to keep them on the payroll.
"We're looking really hard to see how we can fund them but we'll probably have to get rid of most of them," Lucio added.
The deputies work mainly in drug interdiction.
Last year alone, the sheriff said they seized 16 tons of marijuana and 100 pounds of cocaine.
County Judge Carlos Cascos hopes those discrepancies will get the attention of lawmakers so they can do something about it.
"These funding mechanisms have to be more of a permanent nature,” he said. “In other words, they're part of the federal budget every single year that way at least we can count on those monies."
He added those measures would allow local law enforcement to work better because they would not have to spend time re-hiring and re-training officers, and instead can focus on the task at hand.
"I need an additional 75 officers to have them working at the border," Sheriff Lucio said.
Though that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, he added that they will continue doing the best they can, even without the appropriate resources.
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