Photo: CBS 12
Law enforcement leaders on the Treasure Coast are fed up with the increase in illegal immigrant landings.
Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers visited the Southern Border this past weekend to get a sense of what he calls a deteriorating situation.
"The entire situation is insane. If you go see that, and you don’t change policies or you don’t change what’s going on, I don’t know what to tell you because that’s a failure of the greatest way. It’s not working, it’s broken and until we fix what’s happening at the border, every single county, every single city in America is in danger.”
In addition to illegal immigrants making their way to the area after walking through the U.S. border with Mexico, both sheriffs are dealing with boatloads of migrants trying to make it to shore.
Last week, federal agencies say around a dozen illegal immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico were taken into custody along the Treasure Coast and Martin County Sheriff-elect John Budensiek tells CBS 12 News that it could be just the beginning of a busy summer for marine units assisting the Coast Guard with interdictions at sea.
"We’re going to need to bolster our own complement out on the water to make sure that we keep our deputies safe while they’re out there doing patrols, and our community safe from these individuals making landfall.”
There was also an immigrant landing on Palm Beach this past weekend, where four illegals were rounded up by law enforcement. But it's believed that others go away. Flowers says that can't happen.
“If they make land, it’s almost impossible. You don’t know where they're headed to, you don’t know what their intentions are and there’s really no way to figure out who they were or where they came from.”
In Martin County, the sheriff-elect says the sheriff’s office is looking into adding two boats with expanded radar to detect vessels.
In Indian River County, Sheriff Flowers says he has increased patrols on the water, but that’s come at the expense of some patrols on county streets.