A news conference was held Tuesday at the Border Patrol Marfa Sector Headquarters. This was done to provide information about a program that will soon be used to deal with illegal immigrants.

It’s called ATEP, or the Alien Transfer and Exit Program. It’s pretty self explanatory. Illegal aliens, in this case, are transferred from Tucson , Arizona to Presidio. At that point they exit the United States and re-enter Mexico . Now you may be asking…why spend time and money to transfer them? Well it all deals with smugglers.

“The program is basically designed to break the smuggling cycle between the smugglers and the aliens who pay them to get into the United States, especially out of the Tucson Sector area where the majority of entries are occurring,” John Smietana, Chief Patrol Agent of the Marfa Sector, said.

Beginning on November 1st, two busloads of illegal immigrants will be transferred from Tucson to Presidio each day…a trip of more than 500 miles. They will then be returned to Mexico through the Presidio port of entry.

“What we’ve been told by our contacts from the government of Mexico at all levels is that they do have a temporary shelter to house these individuals temporarily. But their primary goal is to remove them from the local border area, get them back to their place of origin,” Victor M. Velazquez, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent of the Marfa Sector, said.

94 aliens will be transported each day, seven days a week. It may sound like a lot until you compare it to the number of apprehensions in Tucson .

“Tucson Sectors apprehensions vary day-to-day…could be anywhere from maybe 300 to up to 1,000 a day,” Smietana said.

All the departures will be voluntary and will only include males between the ages of 20 and 60. The program will be funded by the Department of Homeland Security and shouldn’t cost very much.

“We do have a transportation contract with Wackenhut and we’re using existing resources already as we shuttle them across so [the cost is] minimal,” Smietana said.

In order to find out if this program works, they plan to do a recidivism study. Fingerprints and photographs will be taken of those apprehended. So, through the use of biometric data, the border patrol agents will know exactly who’s been caught.