Bishop: More border troops won't work if they're blocked

A Utah congressman said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's plan to send 1,200 troops to the U.S-Mexico border won't make much difference if public land managers won't allow enforcement in wilderness areas. Rep. Rob Bishop, the ranking Republican on the Natural Resources subcommittee over national parks and public lands, said Obama's aim may be more about beefing up his poll numbers than beefing up border security. "It is not a problem of not having enough personnel down there. It's not a problem of the Border Patrol not being able to do the job," Bishop said. The problem as he sees it is the inability of the Border Patrol to access some areas in protected lands overseen by the Interior Department. Bishop has made border security along America's public lands a personal mission and spent time in the uninhabited areas in Arizona abutting Mexico earlier this year...more