Texas’ outsourced border

Texas’ outsourced border

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  Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 12:00 PM Central Daylight Time

Texas’ outsourced border

Rick Perry's private contractors are militarizing border security and misleading taxpayers

By Tom Barry, Alternet

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In this Sept. 27, 2010 photo, contractors reinforce a section of damaged border fence as seen from Sonora, Mexico  (Credit: AP/Matt York)

Topics:AlterNet, Immigration, Texas

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Roy “Mac” Sikes wasn’t wearing a white 10-gallon like the other top Texas Rangers attending the 2010 Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition meeting in El Paso. Mac, as the Texas Rangers and sheriffs call him, was going hatless. But that may have been because it’s not entirely clear which hat Mac should have been wearing – ranger, cop or consultant?
Since 2006 many of the key figures in state-led border security operations and information campaigns have identified themselves as DPS employees or part of the Texas Rangers to the public, policy community and the media, disguising their true identities.
The business card he handed me during the sheriffs meeting identified Sikes as the director of the Border Security Operations Center (BSOC) – which is a type of fusion center for border-security operations in Texas. It’s a project of the Texas Rangers Division, which in turn is a branch of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS).
However, Mac Sikes is neither a Texas Ranger nor a DPS employee. Like most of the other key figures behind the Lone Star State’s border security campaign, Sikes is a contract employee.