Border Caucus members signal shift in immigration approach

Brownsville Herald
September 7, 2013
by Ty Johnson

There were nearly enough members of Congress in Port Isabel Saturday to start a new House subcommittee as five Border Caucus representatives met to discuss immigration reform with the public.

Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, organized the event, which attracted more than 50 members of the public to a forum where residents peppered the congressmen with questions about border walls, paths to citizenship and the political battles holding back the nation from comprehensive reform.
 The five Democrats fielded questions that centered mostly on the language of the bill the U.S. Senate passed earlier this summer.

That bill was amended many times in a manner that some Democrats said put too much emphasis on border security while not providing enough options for undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens.

Many at the forum wore T-shirts or carried signs in opposition to the proposed border fence, which is being completed across South Texas’ border with Mexico.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents McAllen and Texas’ 28th District, called the wall “a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem,” likening it to the Great Wall of China and other failed attempts throughout history during which countries built physical barriers to keep intruders out.
Scott Nicol, a McAllen resident, made the case that the only thing the fence truly prevents from crossing is animals.

Nicol, the chairman of the Sierra Club Borderlands Team, said he was concerned about language in the Senate bill that he said allowed the federal government to suspend laws within 100 miles of the border.

Without environmental legislation to hold things in check, he was worried animals and plant life along the border would suffer.

“Why waive the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act if you’re not planning on violating them?” he pointed out following the meeting.

The fence also creates issues from a property rights standpoint, he said, referring to examples throughout Brownsville where the fence cut through property.

During the forum, Cuellar pointed out the disproportion between the fence’s cost and its effectiveness.

Cuellar said the price per mile to use technology – cameras, sensors and the like – to secure the border cost about one-eighth of that to build a fence per mile.

He also noted the testimony of an expert in Washington who admitted the fence, on average, deterred those attempting to cross by about 15 seconds.

The public’s questions about the border fence led into a discussion about the so-called “trigger” in the Senate legislation that calls for increased border security before the implementation of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Cuellar said that to the majority of Congress, border security means more boots on the ground and a fence, the construction of which began in 2006.

Vela, speaking after the meeting, said he felt that while border security and immigration reform were connected, they should be discussed and legislated separately.

“We of course need to be mindful of border security, but I don’t think those two need to be conditioned on each other,” he said.

What he does think should be factored into the immigration debate, however, is international commerce.

“(The debate) needs to include a discussion about the significant trade relationship we have with Mexico,” he said.

Vela has recently led a shift in strategy for House Republicans aiming to bring about immigration reform by moving away from discussions about divided families and deportations to talk about jobs and the impact the United States’ third-largest trading partner has on the economy.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who represents the El Paso area, said he felt those who would be swayed by moral arguments have already chosen their side, noting that Vela’s efforts to show how Mexico directly impacts states is the congressmen’s best bet to bring about immigration reform in the near future.

“It connects members of Congress with their interdependence on Mexico,” he said, noting that Democrats will try to sell immigration reform as the key to job growth for districts from Ohio and Tennessee to New York.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, who represents the Nogales, Ariz., area, said the dialogue concerning immigration needed to shift to jobs, noting that House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio district alone depends on Mexico directly for about 125,000 jobs.

“It’s got to be about how it creates jobs,” he said, again referencing the need to change reformists’ approach to immigration.

The problem facing Congress now, though, is time, Rep. Gene Green of Houston said.

Noting that there are only 39 days left in this year’s session, Green suggested that budget talks, debt ceiling debates and a vote concerning military strikes against Syria have the potential to dominate discussions through December.

“We may end up spending two weeks on (Syria),” he said, pointing out how the debate on whether to intervene in the Middle East has taken congressional focus away from other matters. “It’s kind of sucked the wind out of other issues.”

Still, Vela and the Border Caucus have not given up on the push for reform this session, as the representatives and others will be in Grijalva’s district next weekend to again bring congressional representatives to the border.

Congress reconvenes Monday.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_7217123a-182d-11e3-a1af-0019bb30f31a.html

The Complex Life of Border Towns

National Journal
September 5, 2013
by Elahe Izadi

EAGLE PASS, TEXAS—Sam Farhat grew up in this small south Texas town where he now owns Cowboy Corral, a clothing shop where customers peruse racks of jeans, belts, and shirts while Farhat—a big man of Palestinian heritage wearing a cowboy hat—answers their questions in Spanish.

Farhat's business depends upon the foot traffic that legally enters the United States from Mexico, just blocks from his downtown storefront. Outside, people leaving discount perfume, dress, and shoe stores carry shopping bags as they cross the bridge on foot, walking past cars lined up waiting to cross the border.

But talk in Washington of tightening border security in towns like Eagle Pass as part of broader immigration reforms has locals weary. "That's not going to help business, that's for sure," Farhat said. "It's already hard enough for people to come across the border."

For residents in Eagle Pass and other nearby towns, the border is not a political topic or an abstract concept—the Rio Grande River that separates Mexico from the United States is in their backyard. Many of the ideas under consideration, from border fencing to additional Border Patrol agents and even drones overhead, will have a direct impact here.

"Those of us who live along the border want to be just as safe and secure in our beds as anyone else does, but we want a solution that works," said Democratic Rep. Pete Gallego, whose district includes Eagle Pass. "We don't want a political solution, we want a practical solution."

That may not be easy. In many ways, Eagle Pass represents the complexity of living in small border towns, where life can be woven together tightly with those of neighboring communities in Mexico.
Residents here cross the border regularly into the town of Piedras Negras, Mexico, to visit families and friends. Lines can get long on both sides of the bridge around Christmas and Easter. Communities along the border often refer to their "sister cities" on the Mexican side, and mayors and local agencies have working relationships. What happens on one side often affects the other.

"Blood lines don't stop," said Laura Allen, the Republican county judge in nearby Val Verde County, which includes the town of Del Rio. "Relationships don't stop at the river."

Securing the Border

In terms of security, Border Patrol agents are a more common sight in town than local police, and they often help in responding to emergencies. And the town already has some border fencing; in 2008, Eagle Pass was the first town the federal government sued in its effort to increase border fencing, drawing fierce opposition from town officials and residents.

If Congress passes an immigration bill, many of the security elements could intensify. The immigration bill passed by the Senate essentially calls for instituting a military-like presence along the border, spending $46 billion to double the number of Border Patrol agents to 40,000, build 700 miles of border fencing, and bolster technology such as drones to increase surveillance.

Border-security legislation unanimously passed out of the House Homeland Security Committee, authored by Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, takes a different approach. Before a dollar amount is dictated, the bill calls on the Homeland Security Department to first develop a border-security plan—subject to congressional approval—that would eliminate 90 percent of illegal border crossings within five years. Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee cosponsored the bill, and other Democrats have signaled they find the language easier to work with than the Senate border-security provision. It's expected to be one of the first pieces of immigration legislation that House takes up after recess.

The congressional district with the longest stretch of the Mexican-U.S. border includes Eagle Pass. It's a swing district that President Obama lost but Gallego won in 2012. Gallego says border security is not a partisan issue in his district.

"One of the frustrations that people along the border have is so many people who are trying to drive the debate on border policy and border security are people who don't live on the border, who've never been to the border, and yet they're trying to dictate the terms by which we do border security," he said.

Indeed, there is a widespread sentiment here that people making political calculations about the border don't have sense of what daily life is like in border communities.

"They use the border, they see the area as a sword and a shield in politics, but we're human beings, we live down here," said Democratic State Rep. Poncho Nevarez, whose home is on the banks of the Rio Grande, so close that he can point to Mexico from his porch. His wife is Mexican, and his children take classes across the border.

"We shouldn't be pawns in this game to see who can get themselves elected because they can beat their chest more about how they secured the border," he said.

Unlike other parts of the border where violence from Mexico makes headlines, officials here say problems are comparatively tame, partially due to the presence of Border Patrol and state of affairs in neighboring Mexican cities.

"We're kind of the unseen area of the border here. You can go to El Paso, you can go to Loredo, but they don't have the same issues we have," Allen said. "Ask me when was the last time we had to shut down our bridge because violence spilled over from Mexico. It's not happening."

Border Patrol officials say they do apprehend people who commit serious crimes in the U.S. and cross back illegally. In the Del Rio border sector, 50 pounds of cocaine and 63,485 pounds of marijuana were seized by Border Patrol in fiscal 2012.

One major public-safety scare took place here last year, when more than 130 inmates broke out of a prison just over the border in Piedras Negras. Authorities at the time were concerned that prisoners could cross over to Eagle Pass, but it turns out that a Mexican drug cartel was likely behind the prison break, a tactic cartels use to replenish their ranks. Authorities found one suspected escapee this summer hiding in a home in Eagle Pass, but there was no other fallout.

Nevarez, who can point to the prison area from his yard, recalled rushing home after hearing of the break. But his fears were quickly allayed as he reasoned that many of those prisoners weren't going to cross into American soil, but rather stay in Mexico to work for the cartels.

Gallego says that people in border communities are united behind wanting to do something about the cartels and drug trade.

"The people coming here, even if they're coming here illegally, they're coming here to work in agriculture or construction," said Shawn Moran, vice president of National Border Patrol Council, a union representing Border Patrol agents. "But there is a large group that is coming here to sell drugs or be part of criminal gangs and commit crimes. We shouldn't overlook that in any sort of immigration reform."

The Border Patrol

Border Patrol and other federal agencies often constitute the most visible law enforcement in border communities. About 55,000 people live in the town and its outlying areas in Maverick County; Eagle Pass's police department numbered 76 in 2012.

Authorities won't release figures on the numbers of border agents designated for particular towns, but Eagle Pass and Del Rio are the two major towns in the Del Rio Border Patrol sector, which includes 210 miles of border and nearly 60,000 square miles of territory.There were 1,665 Border Patrol agents designated for this area in 2012, a figure that doesn't include Customs and Border Protection and other federal agents.

Nearly 87 percent of the nation's 21,394 Border Patrol agents come from the nine southwest border sectors. The Del Rio sector ranks in the middle in terms of the number of agents.

While Border Patrol agents are accepted as members of the community and regarded with respect, Gallego said some locals get frustrated with the checkpoints. Border Patrol checkpoints on roads extend far beyond the border; all motorists have to stop and answer questions related to their citizenship. A dog trained to detect drugs sniffs cars, and checkpoint stations are equipped with cameras, equipment to detect radioactive elements, and temporary holding cells for suspected illegal immigrants.

In 2012, the Border Patrol apprehended 21,720 illegal immigrants in the Del Rio sector, the highest number in the sector since 2007 and much higher than the El Paso sector's 9,678 apprehensions.

Moran says the border can be secured with fewer than the additional 20,000 agents called for in the Senate bill. His group pushed for an amendment by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., that would have revamped the pay system to allow flexibility for agents working overtime and covering shifts.

"It's usually during the busiest times, and when the smugglers know when we're in between shifts, and that's when they try to make their moves," Moran said.

The addition of more Border Patrol agents could have an economic impact in these communities, with an influx of jobs and dollars spent locally. Some ranchers and others living further from the border also want more agents to monitor those traversing their properties as they make their way inland. But many officials close to the border are skeptical that the federal government will be able to fully fund and sustain a doubling of Border Patrol agents.

"If you're telling me you're going to double the number of government jobs in my community and if you're going to allow these people to contribute to the economy, they're going to eat out at restaurants and shop at stores and buy homes—from an economic development perspective, I'm for that," Gallego said. "But that's not a border-security perspective. We haven't done anything for border security when we've done that."

Eagle Pass Mayor Ramsey English Cantu said that while there is a need to "have a great presence," he would like to see resources poured into Customs and Border Protection, which operate the official entry points into the United States and where lines can back up. "We continue to see ports of entries where people are smuggling drugs across because there isn't the necessary infrastructure," he said. "These are the things that need to be ultimately addressed."

Farhat and others in Eagle Pass would like to see more resources poured into shortening the lines at the official ports of entry, which are operated by Customs and Border Protection, not Border Patrol. Tolls collected at the town's two points of entry make up more than a quarter of Eagle Pass's budget revenues.

The Fence

The fence, which once drew outrage in these communities, now attracts a level of amusement.
In Eagle Pass, it's more than 10 feet high, cuts through a city golf course, and includes openings throughout. "If those folks in Ohio were to see this, they'd say, 'Is this what you're wasting my tax dollars on?' " Nevarez said.

In Del Rio, American land sits on the other side of an approximately 2-mile portion of the fence, and Allen asks whether the American government has created a Demilitarized Zone. It stops at a low, barbed-wire fence on private property. Locals point to the fence gates, with extra horizontal bars, as places people climb over.

"The fence was not a good thing," Allen said. "We would have liked to see that money put to use for other things because, like I said, I can very easily show you where people walk around it, so why did we spend all that money?"

Between 2006 and 2009, the federal government allocated $2.4 billion for construction of 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicular fences, with costs ranging between $400,000 and $15.1 million per mile, depending on the location, fence material, topography and kind of fence, according to a 2009 Government Accountability Office report.

But Border Patrol officials point to the fence as a useful tool in helping to manage crossings; agents can target their patrols better since they know where the entry points are. Moran says the fence has been very useful in slowing down the traffic across the border, particularly vehicular crossings.

"But no fence is going to stop people who are determined to get into this country. You can't have a fence with gaps if you want it to be effective," Moran said. "The technology is great and it's an asset, but no drone and no fence or whatever made an arrest. Those help us do our jobs."

There's also a sense in border communities that the fence makes them appear to be bad neighbors.

"If we take this militia approach to our border, what kind of message are we sending to our sister country? I don't like that message," Allen said. "Would we do that on the border with Canada? I really don't feel like we would."

http://www.nationaljournal.com//daily/the-complex-life-of-border-towns-20130905

Rep. Raúl Grijalva: Strict Focus on Secure Border Fences Is 'Naive Thinking'

PBS News Hour
July 11, 2013

Transcript

 

RAY SUAREZ: And we continue our look at immigration reform, as GOP leaders repeated for a second day that there's no clear consensus on a path forward for comprehensive legislation.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: We got a broken system that needs to be fixed.

RAY SUAREZ: House Speaker John Boehner insisted today the vast majority of House Republicans do want immigration reform, but on their terms.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Through all the conversations that have occurred from -- with my own members, with Democrat members, it's clear that dealing with this in bite-sized chunks that members can digest and the American people can digest is the smartest way to go.

RAY SUAREZ: In other words, the House will not take up the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate or anything like it.

That bill includes a path to citizenship for some 11 million people already in the country illegally. Democrats insist on including that step. House Republicans have focused instead on border security, but they're under growing pressure to relent on the citizenship question, and after a two-hour meeting yesterday, they displayed a conference divided.

REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-Calif.: There are three categories that those 11 million people go into, people that we all agree should remain here, people that we all agree should be removed, criminal aliens, people who have committed crimes and so on, and then people who may be in between.

REP. STEVE KING, R-Iowa: I made the point that anything that is legalization ends up in citizenship. And if that's the case, I'm opposed to it, because it destroys the rule of law. You could never reestablish the rule of law in this country, at least with regard to immigration, again.

RAY SUAREZ: This morning, the lead authors of the Senate bill, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John McCain, talked hopefully, after meeting with President Obama at the White House.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Once you say doing nothing is not an option, you have to move in a direction to be bipartisan. And once you're bipartisan, you're going to get some progress that can get something done. So, again, it's not going to be the same exact thing as we believe, but, at the end of the day, hopefully, it will be close enough that we can come to an agreement.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We are in no way bigfooting the members of the House of Representatives. We'd like to see legislation along the lines of ours, but we can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on, that we can get a majority vote in both houses.

RAY SUAREZ: House Republicans will now consider four separate bills, with a concentration on border security and enforcement of existing laws. None offers the possibility of citizenship.
But Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned today of the consequences of not acting quickly.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: I think delay can create problems, but I'm ever optimistic. So I believe that we will have immigration reform for the simple reason that the American people want us to have it, and that, if it doesn't happen in this year, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in an election year.

RAY SUAREZ: Republicans have talked of voting on immigration before the month-long recess that begins in early August. But Boehner seemed to leave some wiggle room today.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER: I'm much more concerned about doing it right than I am of meeting some deadline.

RAY SUAREZ: If action on immigration slides to the fall, fiscal battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling could sideline the issue indefinitely.

And to the next in our immigration conversations.

Earlier this week, we talked with House Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Raul Labrador of Idaho, along with Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez.

Tonight, another Democrat, Arizona's Raul Grijalva. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I spoke with him yesterday.
Congressman Grijalva, welcome to the program.

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: Thank you, Ray.

RAY SUAREZ: A lot of attention is being paid to whether Republicans will go for the Senate bill in the House, but I thought, since you're co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, we should ask you whether Democrats in the House are happy with the changes that were made to the bill to get it through the Senate?

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Well, I think a great deal of discomfort, some outright opposition to the surge, the Corker amendment that added $30 billion-plus, doubled everything that was already in the bill.

And, for many, for environmentalists and people that care about those public land laws, clean water, clean air, the waiving of all those laws along the border and public lands, people have difficulty with that. The issue of just militarizing the border to an extent that it becomes almost a combat zone will change the texture and the life in that community forever.

I think it's excessive. I think it's overkill. I think we need to define what security is. And I think it includes much more components than boots on the ground and drones and helicopters and sensors and towers and fences. It includes much more.

But the definition is very narrow. We will make an effort to try to expand that definition, but the bottom line, Ray, has been that a lot of the swallowing and bitterness of some of these additions by the Senate and even some of the components that were in the Senate bill before Corker were being swallowed because of the importance of a path to citizenship.

RAY SUAREZ: So, you call it a bitter pill to swallow. Does it still have your vote as written if it came to the House floor?

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: If it came to the House floor and there were -- at this point, I have a great deal of discomfort with it.

I feel that I have -- I have been reluctant to state what I would do in that situation, so that we wouldn't marginalize the opportunity to try to improve it.

But a lot will depend on what the Republicans do here. If we start to redefine the path, then the only sole reason for any compromise or swallowing any of this has been the millions of people that we would add comfort and protection to. If that starts to leave, then, quite frankly, there's no compromise.

RAY SUAREZ: Is the path to citizenship, some path to citizenship, a necessary precondition for this bill or a version of it to get your vote?

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: My vote and I think a great number of Democrats.

The sentiment I'm giving you, Ray, about we don't like this part, we don't like that part is pretty prevalent, but the golden opportunity to do something about these families -- and I represent 350 miles of border communities, Nogales, San Luis, Somerton, all those communities, and constantly every day dealing with those families, the deportations, the split families, children left in foster care because their parents are gone.

I mean, the human toll sometimes makes you makes you believe that that has to be the ultimate goal. And if that path isn't there, then what are we settling for?

RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the week, Congressman Trey Gowdy, your Republican colleague from South Carolina, was on this program.

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: And he said the path to citizenship is not as important to him as securing the border right now, because unless you secure the border, you end up back in the same problem we're in now, with newly legalized residents and more people coming over the border trying to achieve that status.
How do you reply to that?

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think that within the Senate bill, there's E-Verify that's going to make a demand of employers that people must have the proper documentation. Otherwise, the penalties on those employers that hire unauthorized people is going to be huge.

Beyond that, you know, people are coming out of the shadows, declaring themselves, starting that process, family unification, much -- 40 percent of the people that are right now in this country overstayed their work visas or overstayed their visas.

And as you seal this border and as you try to feel that the only way you can provide immigration reform is by zero-tolerance, secure border fences, double links, Border Patrol agents shoulder to shoulder, that's naive thinking. That's not the reality of the border.

And the reality of the economy of this nation and this world, the effect of poverty, there's root causes here. And merely building the fences, symbolism, it's pandering and good political rhetoric, but it is not going to fix or accommodate the issue that we're dealing with here, which is the people that are here already and what do you do about them? He doesn't answer that question.

And his idea of -- his idea of keeping people here with a provisional legal status is something that's so un-American, to have a second class of workers and people in this country with no access to citizenship and, more importantly, with a different set of rights and protections than the rest of us have.

I don't think that's American. I don't think -- we have never been about that. And I think he misses the point on that value. But securing the border, from somebody from a state that doesn't have to deal with it on a daily basis, it's not just overreach. I think it's oversimplification.

RAY SUAREZ: So very, very quickly, before we go, Congressman, is there a compromise floating out there that will leave people like Congressman Gowdy satisfied about the border and its security and leave the members of your Progressive Caucus satisfied that you have done well by the people who are here struggling, trying to get legal status?

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Yes, I think a path has to be integral, redefining what you mean by security, so that we make it comprehensive, so that the issues that the gentleman from South Carolina is concerned about, we use -- part of security has to be economic development.

Six million jobs in this country depend on direct trade import and export from Mexico, in the country. And so this is about jobs. This is about a vitality that we need in the borderlands in terms of an economy. We need to redefine that.

I think that's the compromise, that you expand the definition of security from the simpleton stuff that we're talking about right now, fences and boots, to the more complex and lasting solutions, which is the economic development, good ports of entries, increased trade, increased visitorship.

It's a win-win for everybody. And if there was an opportunity to sit down and have a rational discussion without posturing, I think that's a potentially good compromise.

RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, thanks for joining us, sir.

REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/immigration_07-11.html

House Democrats warn of more border deaths under Senate immigration bill

The Hill
July 24, 2013
by Mike Lillis

Border-state Democrats are warning this week that the Senate's immigration reform bill would increase the number of migrant deaths.

Behind the leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), the lawmakers said the Senate's border-security provisions – sponsored by Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and John Hoeven (N.D.) – would "militarize" the border at the expense of migrant lives.

"Since 9/11 we've seen increasing deaths of migrants despite decreasing crossing attempts," Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) told reporters Wednesday outside the Capitol. "So I think it's logical to assume that if we continue to wall up, militarize and fortify the border, we're going to push those fewer and fewer migrants who choose to cross into more treacherous territory, thereby ensuring greater death and suffering.

"We will definitely see more death and suffering if we pass immigration reform with something like Corker-Hoeven," he added.

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), delivered a similar message, warning that an over-emphasis on security would both increase migrant deaths and slow the flow of trade between Mexico and the United States.

Yet another border-state Democrat, Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), churned headlines earlier in the month when he quit the CHC to protest the Senate's border-fence provisions.

The growing opposition to the Corker-Hoeven provision comes even as Democratic leaders – from President Obama on down – are encouraging House Republicans to take up the Senate-passed bill for the sake of reforming the nation's broken immigration system this year. The suggestion has been that House Democrats would vote to support that package en masse, but the criticism from Hispanic leaders – who have been the loudest advocates for reform – threatens to undermine that message.

It might not matter. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has refused to bring the Senate package to the floor, arguing that a piecemeal approach is more thoughtful.

Approved last month in an effort to rally more conservatives behind comprehensive reform, the Corker-Hoeven provision would provide an additional $40 billion over the next decade to bolster border enforcement. Central to that effort, the measure would fund an additional 18,000 Border Patrol agents and 700 miles of physical border fence.

The amendment passed easily, 69-29, with 15 Republicans backing the measure. It set the stage for final approval of the Senate package, which passed by a similarly lopsided 68-32 vote.

The Democrats say they're more attuned to a House GOP proposal, sponsored by Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), that calls for a comprehensive border strategy to be in place before more funding is allocated.

O'Rourke called the McCaul bill "a much more humane, rational and fiscally responsible approach."

"That we're even considering building a wall of additional 700 miles and doubling the border patrol is ridiculous," he said. "This is one area, where I think the House is going to get this one right."

House Republicans have also panned the Senate's border-fence provisions – though for decidedly different reasons.

Many, like Rep. Candice Miller, don't want to spend so much without guarantees the resources are working. The Michigan Republican, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee's subpanel on border security, said at a hearing this week that the Corker-Hoeven provision represents "a continuation of previous efforts to secure the border – with a heavy emphasis on spending resources, with limited accountability or ability to measure outcomes of those applied resources."

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), a member of the bipartisan group negotiating a comprehensive reform package in the House, is also wary of the heavy emphasis on the border fence. He warned earlier this month that anyone hoping to seal the Southern border entirely is dreaming.

“I've been down there all my life, and I'm telling you, you can have a 40-foot wall and put machine guns on it, and you can't secure the Southern border," he said. "There's too much wild country."

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/313365-house-dems-warn-of-more-border-deaths-under-senate-immigration-bill

Protesting border 'militarization': 250 in El Paso march against surge in immigration reform bill

El Paso Times July 18, 2013 by Lorena Figueroa About 250 border residents as well as community and religious leaders rallied Wednesday in El Paso to protest against what they call the "militarization" of the U.S.-Mexico border under the proposed immigration reform bill pending in the U.S. House of Representatives. The protest coincided with other similar actions in at least 10 cities around the country, including Washington, D.C., Tucson, San Francisco, Houston, Las Vegas, Austin, Milwaukee and San Diego. Locally, supporters and members of the Border Network for Human Rights and representatives of other civic and religious groups gathered at Cleveland Square Park, located at Franklin and El Paso streets. They marched to the Chihuahuita neighborhood, where they rallied against the increases in border security as part of a "tradeoff" for legalizing fewer than 8 million undocumented people. They said the measure crucifies the poor and border cities by promoting fear of immigrants and responding to that fear with military force. For a while the protest was at risk of being canceled as police arrived to the park and asked protesters do disperse. Lt. Frank Hernández, from the Special Operations Sections of the El Paso Police Department, explained that organizers failed to secure proper city permits to hold the march and conduct picketing. He said organizers waited until Friday afternoon to apply for the permits, instead of doing it at least two weeks prior to the event. "They know the protocols. We have been in three or four events with them," said Hernández, who added that more than 20 officers were on duty to safeguard the protest.Ê Protesters were told to walk on the sidewalk and obey traffic laws to avoid arrests or citations. However, during the march, a dozen protesters chanting "somos frontera, no zona de guerra" (we are the border, not a war zone) blocked the intersection of El Paso and Father Rahm streets for a couple of minutes. Six of them got citations. Bertha Meléndez said she didn't understand why she got fined when she only executed her right of freedom of speech. Protesters reject the border surge proposed in the amendment that recently passed in the Senate and now is pending in the House of Representatives. The amendment proposes adding 20,000 Border Patrol agents to the 21,000 currently deployed and building 700 additional miles of border fence. It also proposes spending $46 billion on surveillance and technology at the border, which members of the border network considered as unnecessary. "Immigration reform does not mean more drones, more walls, more helicopters or checks to the Department of Defense and military contractors," said Christina Parker, of the border network. "We are the only place in the world where we are militarizing the border between two allied countries that are not even in conflict," she added. Monsignor Arturo Bañuelas, of St. Pius X Catholic Church, said that making the border look like a war zone betrays the uniqueness of the border cities. "Over seven million people on this side of the border and over nine million on the other side of the border live in peace and harmony because we are family and we are not afraid of each other," he said. Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, said the immigration reform bill has gone "in the wrong direction and has crossed the line." Presente.org, the largest online Latino advocacy organization in the nation, helped with the protest in El Paso and organized similar actions in other parts of the country. "At the beginning of the debate, the bill was bad, but we were able to swallow the pill because it promised the legalization of 11 million undocumented people. But just in a few weeks, the bill changed in to one of extreme militarization, that is willing to legalize only half of the undocumented. We cannot keep supporting it," Carmona said. http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_23678990/250-march-downtown-el-paso-protest-border-militarization

Vela wins praise for opposing 'border surge' legislation

Rio Grande Guardian July 3, 2013 by Steve Taylor SAN JUAN, July 3 - A colonia group leader has praised Congressman Filemon Vela for his strong stand against “border surge” legislation. “I so applaud Congressman Vela's bold move,” said Ann Cass, executive director of Proyecto Azteca. “We do not need any more militarization of the border. The Republican plan would have more boots on the ground than we have in South Korea and we are not at war with Mexico!” Proyecto Azteca builds houses for colonia residents. It is a member of the RGV Equal Voice Network, a coalition of ten colonia groups. “If we cannot find money in Congress for rural housing, health care, education, why are we going to spend all this money militarizing the border?” Cass asked. “The last border wall in the Rio Grande Valley averaged $12.5 million per mile. I would love to have one mile of that spending for housing in the colonias, one mile of that spending for indigent health care, one mile of that spending for community centers, education, more parks, etc. For a border wall? It is immoral. We thank the Congressman for using common sense and saying ‘No!’” Congressman Vela, a Democrat from Brownsville, announced Tuesday he was quitting the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in protest at new provisions in the Senate immigration reform legislation. The bill is known as S.744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. An amendment to S.744 authored by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, and John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, requires an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents to be hired to man the southern border with Mexico. The amendment also calls for the completion of 700 miles of border fencing, as well as the use of more cameras, sensors, watchtowers and drones. Because of its focus on border security, the amendment has been dubbed the “border surge” amendment. The Senate bill was passed by a big majority and has been sent over to the U.S. House. “Instead of spending $8 billion on border fence we should be tearing it down, or $30 billion on more agents when we are not even giving the current force the gasoline that they need to do the job,” Vela said Tuesday. “I just have a real fundamental problem with it. To me, we should be tearing the border wall down that we got, not building more. I just think it is important to take a stand on it.” The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has not taken an official position on the Senate immigration reform bill. However, its chair, Congressman Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, is a strong supporter. “The United States Senate passed landmark legislation designed to create a path for citizenship for millions of undocumented residents who will contribute to this great country the way so many immigrants in the past have done,” said Hinojosa, after S.744 passed the Senate. “The Senate showed us that it is possible for Democrats and Republicans to come together to solve one of our nation's most pressing issues. I applaud the ‘Gang of Eight’ for ensuring the bill they passed provides all immigrants the opportunity to earn citizenship. Now, it is time for my colleagues in the House of Representatives to follow suit and develop a sensible, comprehensive bill that is reflective of our American values.” The Senate bill has also won support from Congressmen Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, and Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio. “The bill is a bipartisan bill - it accounts for the political reality in Washington, D.C.,” Castro told reporters in San Antonio on Tuesday. “Many of the provisions are not provisions Democrats are in love with ... but I think it was the best compromise the Senate could come up with.” Taking a different stance to Hinojosa, Gallego and Castro are border Congressmen Vela, Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso. They issued a joint statement on the Corker-Hoeven amendment which read: “In 1987 Ronald Reagan famously challenged Russia by declaring: ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’ We object to the Corker-Hoeven Amendment. This amendment will condition a pathway to citizenship on the construction of additional border fencing. As congressmen actually representing communities along the US-Mexico border, and having grown up there ourselves, we believe this amendment is an outrageous assault on border culture; and is an ineffective and misguided attempt to solve this country’s immigration issues. For these reasons, we want to be clear: We will oppose any attempt to condition a pathway to citizenship on the construction of additional fencing along the US-Mexico border.” Vela decried the loss of the cross-border culture he grew up in during a meeting with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in March. “I wanted to make sure Secretary Napolitano understood that here along our South Texas border, our cross-border culture has been destroyed because of the violence in Mexico,” Vela said, in an interview with the Guardian. Vela said the reason he brought this subject up is because those who live along the border and those who represent the South Texas border region need to let people in Washington know that “the border we now live in is not the same border we lived in just ten years ago.” Vela repeated what many living along the border knows first-hand. “In a relatively short period of time we have gone from a cross-border culture to one where our neighbors and family members who live in Mexico are no longer safe.” Vela said many Mexican nationals have moved to South Texas to avoid the violence. “And, those of us here who enjoyed going across the border no longer can enjoy it like we used to. I think that is a message that Washington needs to hear loud and clear. I think that is something Secretary Napolitano understood, when I met with her,” Vela said. http://www.riograndeguardian.com/bordernews_story.asp?story_no=21

Sun, frost, thirst and bullets: A deadly border could become even more dangerous under Senate plan

NBC News June 26, 2013 by Bill Briggs The southwestern U.S. border has become an increasingly lethal snare: Brutal heat, desert freezes, harsh currents, poisonous snakes and sporadic gunfire are killing a rising number of undocumented migrants who are picking progressively treacherous routes to elude extra federal patrols. And the "border surge" — a Senate proposal to double U.S. agents on the Mexican boundary and extend 700 miles of fencing — would squeeze even more incoming migrants onto perilous and scorching overland paths, likely boosting the death toll of crossers from the 477 who perished attempting to enter America during 2012, experts say. “People are going into more dangerous areas. It’s probably very difficult to carry water the farther out you’re going,” said Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, an Arlington, Va.-based group that researches immigration issues. He authored a March study that showed the death rate among people trying to illegally traverse the Mexican border soared by 27 percent last year while overall migration from Mexico continued to decline. “These aren’t camping trips. People aren’t preparing. Or, they may be taken in by smugglers … and that’s not the same as a family going together where they really care about what happens to one another,” Anderson said. Harsh weather and desolate terrain combine to cause the most common form of death on the border: a nasty blend of dehydration plus either overheated or over-chilled bodies, according to a University of Arizona study published this month that examined data from the Pima County (Arizona) Medical Examiner's Office. Among the 171 undocumented migrants who died last year while scaling the mountain-and-canyon-dotted border southwest of Tucson, 46 percent expired due to “exposure” to the elements, the Arizona report determined. About eight in 10 were from Mexico. “There’s nobody out there, nowhere to go for help. So a lot of times we’ll be out there, driving a dirt road or walking a remote trail, and encounter people who are lost, sick or injured — in pretty in bad shape — and who were praying someone would come by,” said Greg Boyce, spokesman for No More Deaths, a volunteer-aid group based in Arizona. Their volunteers include nurses, doctors and emergency medical technicians. During their search excursions near Tucson, group members sometimes summon medical helicopters and ambulances to rush the sickest undocumented migrants to local hospitals. They occasionally work in tandem with some of the 900-plus U.S. Customs and Border agents who are trained in trauma treatment, Boyce said. (Last year, Border Patrol officers made 1,333 rescues at or near the southwest boundary, according to federal figures). Boyce's group also leaves containers of water throughout that vast area — thousands of gallons to date. "The really tough cases involve somebody who is not in an acute emergency, but their health is suffering. They've already been out there two or three days and they’ve got another two or three in the desert until they reach a safe place,” Boyce said. “We know if they keep walking, their health will deteriorate. “In some cases, we’ll encourage people to turn themselves into the Border Patrol — if they want, they can try another day; it’s better than dying out there,” he added. “But our advice sometimes goes unheeded. They’re desperate.” At the southern tip of Texas near Brownsville, most of the undocumented migrants who cross the border come from Central America, said Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights group. They skirt through the Rio Grande Valley, which is perched along the northern bank of the Rio Grande river that divides the United States and Mexico. Deaths in that area also rose in 2012, Isacson said, and some causes included snakebites and drownings in the swift currents of irrigation canals that wind through that sector or in the waters of the Rio Grande. But hundreds of those crossers were found dead well inside Texas, north of Brownsville and in a town called McAllen, halfway toward the coastal city of Corpus Christi. “On that primary highway north (of the border), there’s a Border Patrol checkpoint so the smugglers drop everybody off the road to get around that. It's probably only about a 10- to 12-mile walk through this scrub-land but that’s where they’re dying," Isacson said. “Most of these migrants have been held in a safe house for several days, maybe even on the U.S. side of the border, but have been poorly fed and not given much water. “In that area, it’s flat and there’s lots of bushes and mesquite that obscure your view. So people get lost. They end up going in circles,” he added. Gunfire, kidnappings Bullets also fly on the border. According to Isacson's tracking: “There have been as many as 20 cross-border shooting incidents in the last few years.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed that during the past two years there have been eight such fatal incidents involving their agents or officers. One case involved friendly fire. In October 2012, Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie, 30, was fatally shot after he and two fellow agents responded to something or someone triggering one of the thousands of ground sensors that dot parts of southeastern Arizona. An investigation found that when Ivie opened fire on two other agents, apparently mistaking them for smugglers, they returned fire and killed him. And in rare situations, abductions occur along the border. In May, armed gunmen kidnapped U.S. Marine Armando Torres III in Mexico — along with the Marine’s father and uncle — shortly after Torres exited south Texas to visit his father’s ranch in neighboring La Barranca, Tamaulipas. As of June 15, the FBI reported it was conducting an international probe. On June 4, Mexican soldiers rescued 165 people who had been kidnapped about three weeks earlier by a drug cartel and held in a small home along the U.S. line. Among the victims were 150 migrants from Central America who had planned to cross the border in the Rio Grande Valley. As Congress appears set to clamp down even harder on the U.S.-Mexico border with bolstered patrols and fencing, human-rights advocates like Isacson and Boyce contend that deaths among illegal migrants will spike as more of those people choose to head even deeper into the remote, desert scrub and higher into the mountains as they hike to enter America. Temperatures along those routes can reach 110 degrees. "If they’re going to double border patrol, they should at least quadruple or quintuple the portion of border patrol that is doing search and rescue," Isacson said. "That would save some lives." According to Customs and Border spokesman Bill Brooks, that agency already "has taken significant steps" to prevent the deaths of border-crossing migrants. "Most notably, (those steps include) the Border Safety Initiative (BSI), a humanitarian, bi-national strategy, designed to reduce migrant deaths and make the border safer for agents, border residents, and migrants, by training agents as first responders, EMTs and paramedics," Brooks said in an email. But if twice as many Border Patrol agents soon begin roaming the boundary — should the Senate bill becomes law — will the risk of migrant shootings by agents also rise? "If Border Patrol's manpower doubles, and it doesn't improve its current training and procedures for use of force and for dealing with abuses, then it's very likely that we'll see more episodes of violence and shootings," Isacson said. "There's really not enough for a doubled force to do — something that's been completely ignored in this debate," Isacson added. "The number of border-crossers apprehended per Border Patrol agent is now 19 per year. In 2000, it was 10-times that, 192 apprehensions per agent. In 1993 it was 327 ... There will be far less to guard against if the force doubles." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, however, that "common sense immigration reform legislation" must include measures that would tighten border security — along with crackdowns on employers that hire undocumented workers and a streamlining of the legal-immigration system. "The border security amendment agreed to by a bipartisan group of Senators is in line with that criteria," Napolitano said in a June 21 statement. "It will devote important additional resources to the robust border security system this Administration has put in place and strengthen what was already an unmatched piece of border security legislation.” http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/24/19120052-sun-frost-thirst-and-bullets-a-deadly-border-could-become-even-more-dangerous-under-senate-plan?lite&preview=true

Border Security Rule Costs Bill Support

New York Times June 26, 2013 by Fernanda Santos PHOENIX — A push to assuage opposition to the bipartisan immigration bill before Congress by devoting more money and muscle to the task of securing the border with Mexico has yielded at least one unforeseen consequence: It weakened support for the bill among some pro-immigrant groups that had been its most reliable backers. Advocates have staged protests in several cities this week denouncing a plan endorsed by the Senate to inject $40 billion in enforcement measures over the next decade, including 18,000 more Border Patrol agents and 700 more miles of the hulking steel fence that demarcates the countries. Leaders of Presente.org, the nation’s largest online Latino advocacy organization, took the step of opposing the broader immigration bill altogether, saying in a statement they could not “in good conscience” stand by it if it is also “guaranteed to increase death and destruction through increased militarization of the border.” Other advocates are considering the same path as they increasingly shift their criticism to the Democrats. In closed-door meetings, many have accused Democrats of giving up on a balanced compromise over immigration reform just to move the bill forward. “Is this the way they’re going to, quote-unquote, resolve immigration issues?” said Fernando Garcia, executive director for the Border Network for Human Rights, based in El Paso, Tex. The group is one of several that signed a letter to the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators who drafted the bill, denouncing the border-security proposal, an amendment by two Republican senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, that they said made no mention of the families it is bound to keep apart. “This amendment makes border communities a sacrificial lamb, in exchange for the road to citizenship,” said Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, based in San Diego. By focusing on border security, the Corker-Hoeven plan — brought to a vote quickly and under criticism by conservative legislators, who said they had not been given enough time to digest it — helped break the resistance of more than a dozen Republican senators to overhauling immigration laws. Fifteen of them joined Democrats to advance the measure by a vote of 67-27. Its provisions, the toughest in the history of border-enforcement buildup, got Mexico to break its silence on Tuesday, when Foreign Minister José Antonio Meade told reporters: “Fences do not unite us. They are not the solution to the migratory phenomenon and are not consistent with a secure and modern border.” The approach did draw praise from Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, who signed a law in 2010 that reignited the debate over illegal immigration in the United States. She stopped short of lending her support to the bill before Congress. “I have faith that House Republicans will improve the bill by making securing our border the top priority,” she said. At a meeting here on Wednesday, in the fellowship room of a church on the edge of downtown, leaders of 20 immigrant rights’ groups grappled with what to do next. One, Carlos Garcia, executive director of Puente, said: “There’s no outrage at what’s going on. We can’t just put our head down and accept this is the best we’re going to get.” Máxima Guerrero, of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, asked, “Where do we actually draw the line?” Reyna Montoya, Arizona organizer for United We Dream, said that no matters what happens, “We’re not willing to compromise on citizenship.” Petra Falcón, executive director of Promise Arizona, who worked for 15 years along the southern border, said the Corker-Hoeven amendment “caught a lot of people off guard” and called it “overkill” because of the amount of resources it devotes to security. But Ms. Falcón said “there are still good pieces left” in the broader immigration bill, like a path to citizenship for many of the immigrants who are in the country illegally. “The question we have to ask ourselves is, can we live with this as it is and continue our work to make other changes down the road?” she said. “I’d rather be at the table fighting than say we’re going to stop this now.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/us/politics/border-security-rule-costs-bill-support.html?_r=0

As Wars End, a Rush to Grab Dollars Spent on the Border

New York Times June 6, 2013 by Eric Lipton TUCSON — The nation’s largest military contractors, facing federal budget cuts and the withdrawals from two wars, are turning their sights to the Mexican border in the hopes of collecting some of the billions of dollars expected to be spent on tighter security if immigration legislation becomes law. Half a dozen major military contractors, including Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, are preparing for an unusual desert showdown here this summer, demonstrating their military-grade radar and long-range camera systems in an effort to secure a Homeland Security Department contract worth as much as $1 billion. Northrop Grumman, meanwhile, is pitching to Homeland Security officials an automated tracking device — first built for the Pentagon to find roadside bombs in Afghanistan — that could be mounted on aerial drones to find illegal border crossers. And General Atomics, which manufactures the reconnaissance drones, wants to double the size of the fleet under a recently awarded contract worth up to $443 million. The military-style buildup at the border zone, which started in the Tucson area late in the Bush administration, would become all but mandatory under the bill pending before the Senate. It requires that within six months of enactment, Homeland Security submit a plan to achieve “effective control” and “persistent surveillance” of the entire 1,969-mile land border with Mexico, something never before accomplished. For military contractors, that could be a real boon. “There are only so many missile systems and Apache attack helicopters you can sell,” said Dennis L. Hoffman, an Arizona State University economics professor who has studied future potential markets for the defense industry. “This push toward border security fits very well with the need to create an ongoing stream of revenue.” Since 2005, the number of Border Patrol agents has doubled to 21,000, and the stretches protected by pedestrian or vehicle fencing have grown to 651 miles as of last year from 135. But there are still large swaths where people trying to enter the United States illegally have good odds of success, particularly in rural Texas. And with budget cutting in the past two years, money for surveillance equipment along the border has been pared back. “The main gap in our ability to provide a more secure border at this point is technology,” Mark S. Borkowski, the head of acquisitions for Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, told participants at a border security industry conference in March. Military contractors have not played a significant role in lobbying for the passage of the immigration legislation, which includes $4.5 billion to bolster border security over the next five years. But teams of lobbyists, including former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, a New York Republican, and Benjamin Abrams, a former top aide to Representative Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat and House minority whip, have already been pressing Homeland Security officials and lawmakers on behalf of their clients, efforts that have been backed up with millions of dollars of industry campaign contributions. Homeland Security would have to decide, in consultation with Congress, how to divide the money — on long-range cameras, radar systems, mobile surveillance equipment, aircraft or lower-tech solutions like more border agents or physical fences — decisions that would determine how various contractors might fare. “It has been a tough time for the industry: people have been laid off or furloughed,” said James P. Creaghan, a lobbyist who represents a small Texas company, Personal Defense, which is trying to sell more night-vision goggles to Homeland Security. “This could help out.” Northrop has won some important allies on Capitol Hill, including Senator Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who is urging the department to invest more in Northrop’s drone-mounted surveillance system, called Vader. General Atomics, which Mr. D’Amato represents, has so much support in Congress that it has pressed Homeland Security in recent years to buy more Predator drones than the department has the personnel to operate, so they often sit unused, according to an agency audit. The specific requirement in the legislation now before the Senate is that Homeland Security must install surveillance equipment or other measures that would allow it to apprehend or turn back 9 out of 10 people trying to illegally enter across all sectors of the southern land border. The department would be prohibited from moving ahead with the “pathway to citizenship” for immigrants already in the United States until this new security strategy is “substantially operational.” The bill is scheduled to be taken up for debate on the Senate floor next week, and certain Republicans have already drafted amendments that would make the requirement even more demanding, explicitly mandating that the 90 percent standard be achieved before the pathway to citizenship can proceed. The Tucson area, for years the busiest crossing point for illegal immigrants, has served as the testing ground for the federal government’s high-technology border effort, although even senior Homeland Security officials acknowledge it got off to a poor start. Boeing was selected back in 2006, when the last major push by Congress to rewrite the nation’s immigration laws was under way, to create a “virtual fence” that would use radar and video systems to identify and track incursions, information that would then be beamed to regional command centers and border agents in the field. But the ground radar system at first kept shutting down because of faulty circuit breakers, audits found, while the towers installed for the mounting of radar and advanced long-range cameras swayed too much in the desert winds. Even rainstorms snarled things, creating countless false alerts. “It should have been pretty simple,” Mr. Borkowski said in a recent speech of the troubled $850 million project. “We weren’t frankly smart enough.” Critics say the government often is too fixated on high-technology solutions. C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a former Homeland Security official who now runs a lobbying firm, said federal officials should instead focus their limited resources on making it harder for illegal immigrants to work in the United States, an approach that would serve as an effective deterrent. “Where are you going to get the biggest bang for the buck?” Mr. Verdery said. “Enforcement of the workplace is probably the best area to invest more dollars.” But the technological solutions still have many advocates in Arizona, where Border Patrol officials contend that the equipment Boeing installed, despite its flaws, has fundamentally changed the cat-and-mouse game that plays out every day. One recent afternoon, as the temperature in the Arizona desert hovered near 100 degrees, Border Patrol agents stationed inside a command center in Tucson were notified that a ground sensor had gone off. The command center, built under the Boeing contract, resembles the set from the Hollywood movie “Minority Report,” with Border Patrol agents sitting in front of banks of computer terminals and oversize screens that allow them to virtually fly over huge expanses of open desert 70 miles away. Using his computer, one agent pointed the long-range, heat-seeking camera at the location where the sensor had gone off. Within seconds, black-and-white images of a group of men and women walking rapidly through the desert heat appeared on his screen. “One, two, three, four, five,” the agent called out, counting until he reached 15 people in the group. He also carefully scanned the images to see if any of the people were carrying large sacks, a sign of a possible drug delivery, or had any rifles or other weapons. The Border Patrol radios lit up as he directed nearby agents on the ground to respond and called for backup from one of Customs and Border Protection’s helicopters based in Tucson. “What you see today is like night and day compared to what we had,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Self of the Border Patrol, who oversees the Tucson region. The Boeing system, along with the surge in Border Patrol agents, has resulted in a major drop in attempted illegal crossings, he said, with apprehensions dropping 80 percent since their peak in 2000, considered a sign of a drop in overall traffic. But the system’s weaknesses are still apparent. The computer terminal crashed while the search was under way, cutting off one agent’s video feed. And on that recent afternoon, no air support was immediately available. The one helicopter nearby that was on duty was running low on fuel, so it did not arrive on the scene until 90 minutes later. Meanwhile, the Border Patrol agents at the Tucson command center lost the border crossers as they dropped into a ditch, taking them out of the line of sight of the camera and radar. Apparently seeing Border Patrol trucks and the helicopter, the group realized it had been spotted and retreated back south, an agency spokesman said. The 15 were marked down as “turn backs.” Homeland Security has been preparing for more than a year to expand this system, under a new contract that would rely on proven surveillance technology. That is why the military contractors vying for the job will be asked in coming weeks to demonstrate their gear. The department also wants to identify a mix of equipment — some on fixed towers, others on trucks for mobility — so that officials can tailor uses to the different needs along the border. Department officials said their choices would be driven by a determination of what the best available tools were for securing the border, not what the defense contractors or their lobbyists were pitching. Customs and Border Protection officials, said Michael J. Friel, a department spokesman in a statement, are “dedicated to continuing this progress towards a safer, stronger and more secure border.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/us/us-military-firms-eye-border-security-contracts.html?ref=ericlipton&_r=0

Border technology remains flawed

Arizona Republic June 3, 2013 by Bob Ortega UCSON - A long, sharp, high-pitched beep sounds every 30 or 40 seconds at the Border Patrol’s windowless sector-control room. Agents here monitor a vast array of video screens and sensors linked to cameras, radar and other surveillance equipment along 262 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border — including hundreds of ground sensors that beep loudly whenever one detects something. That something might be a drug smuggler or a migrant — but far, far more often, it’s a cow, or the wind, or some other false alarm, which may be why the agents seem to pay these constant beeps little mind. To complement the 651 miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexican border, Customs and Border Protection deploys drones, tethered radar blimps, P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, thermal-imaging devices, towers with day and night video cameras, ground surveillance radar and much more. But, as the ceaseless beeping of the sensor alarms illustrates, many pieces of that technology are flawed: Some produce frequent false alarms, some suffer detection failures or leave gaps in coverage. Then, too, CBP — despite spending more than $106 billion over the past five years militarizing and securing the border — struggles to mesh these pieces smoothly together so it can make good use of the data they provide. The flaws, the gaps and the challenges in analyzing the data have left CBP, of which the Border Patrol is a part, unable to answer such seemingly basic questions as how well all of this technology works and how many of the people and how much of the drugs coming across the border make it through. Many border-security analysts see that lack of answers as problematic, given current plans in Congress. The comprehensive immigration-reform bill being debated in the Senate would boost border-security spending by as much as $6.5 billion over the next five years. That would roughly quadruple the more than $2 billion in Customs and Border Protection’s existing budget plans for more technology and to fix what’s in place. In a nutshell, the bill would require the Border Patrol to build more fencing, more stations and more remote “forward-operating bases” near the border; to increase surveillance to cover the entire border 24 hours a day, seven days a week; to deploy more planes, helicopters and drones; to increase horse patrols; and to improve radio equipment and communication with other federal, state and local law enforcement. The bill also mandates hiring another 3,500 CBP officers (who work at ports of entry, versus Border Patrol agents, who work the rest of the border), a 16-percent increase, among other provisions. And it would require the Border Patrol to apprehend or turn back 90 percent of would-be border crossers. Within Congress, tighter border security has been treated as a precondition for any reform of immigration policy, but many analysts and academics who study the border express doubts about the need for more fences, agents and surveillance. The number of Border Patrol agents nearly doubled over the last seven fiscal years, to 21,394. But over that time period, the number of migrants heading north plunged — mostly because of the U.S. economic downturn, most analysts say, but also in part because of the increasing dangers of going north as more fences and surveillance pushed crossers into more remote areas. Border Patrol apprehensions fell 69 percent over those years, from nearly 1.2 million to fewer than 365,000. In 2005, Border Patrol agents apprehended an average of 106 people a year apiece. Last year, each agent apprehended an average of 17 people, or about one person every three weeks. In the Tucson Sector, each agent averaged 28 apprehensions a year, or about one every 13 days. In Yuma, each agent averaged one every two months. In the El Paso Sector, the least busy, each agent averaged 3.5 apprehensions a year. “On a lot of parts of the border, it’s gotten to the point that every person we put out there makes less and less of an additional difference,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank that seeks to connect academic research to public-policy discussion. Complicating this picture is the fact that over the six months ending in March, Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border climbed 13 percent from a year earlier, to just over 189,000. Most of that increase is happening in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Even with this rebound, apprehension numbers over that period are still the third lowest since 1972, above only last year and the year before. Looking at the current state of border security, most analysts agree on some needs — such as improving radio communications — but some say CBP really should focus on what it has in hand. “It’s not just putting a surveillance camera somewhere and you’re done; the challenge is integrating the data into Border Patrol operations. ... The Department of Homeland Security (which includes CBP) needs to step back ... and integrate the technology they have now before they get any new technology,” said James Lewis, director of the technology and public-policy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a conservative D.C. foreign-policy think tank focused on political, economic and security issues. Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said what is “really needed is a serious management effort to see what works and what doesn’t.” The lack of such an assessment “is at some level an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, given that we spend $18 billion a year on immigration enforcement,” added Alden, one of the authors of a recent study on the effectiveness of border enforcement. U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the “Gang of Eight” promoting immigration reform in Washington along with Arizona’s other Republican senator, John McCain, said Saturday that the issues of added border security and technology snafus have been thoroughly discussed. “We believe the situation clearly is better on the border than in times past; the frustration with all of us is with conflicting information out of DHS. Within the same report, they’ll use increased apprehensions to signal success, and decreased apprehensions to signal success,” Flake said. “We haven’t had a comprehensive plan by the Border Patrol to reach certain metrics of effectiveness. We did come to the conclusion that more barriers in certain places, more manpower where they need it and more technology would help ... but in combination with employer enforcement, and a legal framework for people to come in.” The Republic made several requests to interview Mark Borkowski, the CPB’s assistant commissioner in charge of technology and acquisition. DHS and CPB did not make him or other agency officials available. Faulty ground sensors The ground sensors offer one example of the challenge of making sure technology works properly. About 13,400 have been deployed piecemeal along the border over several decades. They are typically placed along known or suspected migrant or smuggler routes, and may detect vibrations (for foot traffic), metal (for vehicles) or have acoustic or infrared sensors. Sensors from the Vietnam War era remain in use. A possible false alarm from a ground sensor, and faulty radio communications, may have contributed to the death of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie in a friendly-fire incident Oct. 2. As is often the case with sensor alarms, agents didn’t detect anyone but each other when they arrived. Ivie, responding separately, apparently mistook the other agents for smugglers and opened fire. One of the agents shot and killed him. But false alarms are nothing new. In 2005, Homeland Security’s inspector general reported that only 4 percent of the alarm signals detected migrants or smugglers (34 percent were confirmed false alarms, 62 percent couldn’t be determined). The sensors, which run on batteries, frequently fail because of corrosion or bugs eating through wires. They were supposed to be replaced as part of the $1.1 billion Secure Border Initiative, a massive 2006 effort to boost security at the border. But most of the money was spent on a problematic network of high-tech towers, known as SBInet. The towers, to be equipped with video and infrared cameras and radar, were to cover the whole border. By the time Homeland Security pulled the plug in 2010, after a host of problems, the contractor, Boeing, had completed only 15 towers covering a 72-mile stretch of Arizona’s border. Most of the old ground sensors — with their false-alarm problems — remained. In January 2011, Homeland Security launched another initiative, the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan. That plan called for spending $1.5 billion over 10 years to integrate the SBInet towers, build new camera towers, buy trucks loaded with surveillance gear — and replace 525 ground sensors in Arizona with more sophisticated military models. The military sensors use a combination of technologies that can distinguish more accurately between, say, a four-legged coyote and the two-legged kind, and can even detect the direction of travel. But CBP confirmed this past week that — eight years after the problems were identified — the sensors still had not been replaced. However, under the new technology plan, Arizona agents have received: Twenty-three hand-held thermal-imaging devices (like night-vision binoculars). Two “scope trucks” – modified Ford 150 4x4 trucks with day and night cameras mounted on retractable poles. Twelve “agent portable surveillance systems,” which include radar, video and infrared video sensors and can be carried in a box and set up on tripods. Drone problems Drones, too, have proven problematic. So far, CBP has acquired 10 drones, all versions of the Predator B made by General Atomics, for about $18 million apiece. CBP’s unarmed drones carry radar, video and infrared sensors. Theoretically, the drones can fly for up to 20 hours at a time. But last year, according to CBP, the drones flew an average of 94 minutes a day. The main problem: CBP spent so much of its budget buying the drones that it hadn’t set aside enough to operate them. “They’re on the ground most of the time for lack of funding,” said Adam Isacson, a regional security-policy analyst for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights organization that studies the effects of U.S. policies on Latin America. “They cost $3,234 an hour to operate. They haven’t had the budget for maintenance or crews.” Last year, Homeland Security’s inspector general found that, because of poor planning, CBP not only flew the drones less than one-third the number of planned hours in 2011, but also had to use $25 million from other budgets pay for the hours the drones did fly. CBP also didn’t have enough operational support equipment at the airfields where the drones are based, and didn’t prioritize missions effectively, the inspector general found — all findings with which CBP concurred. Flight hours last year rose 30 percent from the year before, to 5,700, but were still well below half the target hours. Budget cuts this year because of the congressional sequester are likely to further limit flight hours, Isacson said. The drones are sensitive to high winds and thunderstorms. They face Federal Aviation Administration flight restrictions because they are less able than manned aircraft to detect other aircraft and avoid collisions. And their use raises privacy concerns. At a Senate hearing in March, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., cited reports that “DHS has customized its drone fleet to carry out domestic surveillance missions such as identifying civilians carrying guns ...” that fly in the face of civil liberties. “We must ask whether the trade-off in terms of border security is worth the privacy sacrifice.” But CBP officials have said they believe FAA concerns and other issues can be addressed, and that drones can help increase surveillance wherever it’s most needed. More coordination In practice, every piece of technology at the border has limitations: Eight aerostats, or tethered radar blimps, that CBP is taking over from the military, can’t be flown in high winds, and the line-of-sight radar makes them less effective in rugged, mountainous areas, which is much of the Tucson Sector. In May 2011, an aerostat crashed in a Sierra Vista neighborhood after coming loose in 50-mile-an-hour wind gusts. CBP limits the use of its 16 Blackhawk helicopters because the high rate at which they guzzle fuel makes them very expensive to operate, according to pilots; and CBP budget documents confirm plans to temporarily ground nine of the 16 Blackhawks next year pending enough money for renovations. The 16 workhorse P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft are, on average, 42 years old. Refurbishing costs $28 million apiece. But the bigger issue is a lack of coordination in fitting all of the pieces together and making effective use of the data they provide, said Rick Van Schoik, director of the North American Center for Transborder Studies at Arizona State University in Phoenix. “It’s still hard for CBP to figure out what we get out of all these billions that have been spent,” he said, which hampers planning for the future. Others argue that focus now should be on the ports of entry rather than on the vast spaces between them. By some estimates, as many as 40 percent of undocumented migrants are people who entered legally through ports of entry and overstayed their visas, said Eric Olson, at the Wilson Center. And, according to CBP data, most hard drugs are smuggled through the ports. “A strong case can be made now that the biggest risks are at the ports of entry,” Olson said. Olson supports the bill’s call to add 3,500 more CBP officers, which he said also potentially “has a huge benefit, which is making the ports more efficient and reducing wait times for business and for legal travelers between the U.S. and Mexico.” Outside analysts aren’t the only ones suggesting Congress reconsider its focus on more security. A May 3 Congressional Research Service study invited members of Congress to consider that “certain additional investments at the border may be met with diminishing returns.” Some lawmakers, the report said, “may question the concrete benefits of deploying more sophisticated surveillance systems across ... vast regions in which too few personnel are deployed to respond to the occasional illegal entry that may be detected.” For their part, Homeland Security, CBP and Border Patrol officials in recent months reiterated Secretary Janet Napolitano’s insistence that the border is more secure than ever before. And Assistant Commissioner Borkowski earlier this year made it clear CBP learned one lesson from its past struggles with technology: He said CBP won’t even consider buying technology unless it has been proven to work in the field. But Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., sees the push for border security as political. “Without it, you don’t have a path to citizenship or any real compromise” in the immigration bill, he said. “But if we’re going to put more resources on the border, we should modernize the ports of entry, to expedite trade and travel,” Grijalva said. More drones, towers and sensors “may have symbolic value. But it’s fighting a perception, rather than a reality.” http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130524border-technology-flawed.html

Inside Immigration Reform: Securing the U.S.- Mexico Border

PBS News Hour May 29, 2013 Transcript GWEN IFILL: Next, we take a look at the issue of border security, as part of our ongoing series “Inside Immigration Reform.” And to Ray Suarez. RAY SUAREZ: It's critical to the debate over immigration reform: security along the United States' nearly-2,000-mile border with Mexico. Nogales, Ariz., is a case in point. A long stretch of fencing separates the 20,000 residents there from more than 200,000 people just across the border in Nogales, Mexico. It's one of the busiest ports of entry between the two countries, and U.S. Border Patrol agents process millions of legal crossings each year. But more than 124,000 people were caught crossing illegally last year. Millions more have not been caught over the years. And Republicans say they shouldn't be given a path to citizenship until the border is secured. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona helped author the immigration bill now headed to the Senate. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We have confronted the reality of de facto amnesty for the 11 million or more people who came here illegally by proposing a lengthy path to citizenship that doesn't place lawful immigrants at a disadvantage and it -- and is contingent on doing everything possible to make our border secure and discourage future waves of illegal immigration. RAY SUAREZ: On the other hand, many Democrats argue the border has never been safer. They point to nearly 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents patrolling the boundary and to a network of cameras, sensors, drones and some 700 miles of fencing. President Obama made that point on his visit to Mexico earlier this month. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think it's important for everybody to remember that our shared border is more secure than it's been in years. Illegal immigration attempts into the United States are near their lowest level in decades. RAY SUAREZ: Indeed, some 1.6 million people were apprehended on the southwest border back in 2000, while in 2012, the number fell to just over 350,000. So, how secure is the border? For that, we get two different views from law enforcement leaders whose counties sit directly on the U.S. border with Mexico. Tony Estrada is the sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Ariz. And Captain Robert Wilson is a sheriff's deputy in Hudspeth County, Texas. And, gentlemen, a lot of attention's been paid to border security in the dozen years since 9/11. As we're approaching a national debate over immigration reform, can you, Sheriff Estrada, say the say the border is more secure than it used to be? SHERIFF TONY ESTRADA, Santa Cruz County, Ariz.: You know, I can definitely say that, because I have been there 45 years along the border with Mexico, and we have had more resources, more technology, more boots on the ground. It just has improved tremendously. The urban area, we consider Nogales and Santa Cruz County as pretty secure. But it's a challenge. The border with Mexico continues to be a major challenge that we're going to have for a long time. RAY SUAREZ: Capt. Wilson, same question. Is the border more secure? CAPT. ROBERT WILSON, Hudspeth County, Texas, Sheriff's Deputy: Well, I agree with the sheriff that there has been more resources thrown at the border, and maybe in that area. But, in Hudspeth County, Texas, we have 99 miles of river border with Mexico, and the border is not secure in that area. We still have continued cartel activity across the river. We still have folks from our communities being executed, taken from Texas and executed in Mexico. And the immigration problem, the people coming over is the same. It hasn't diminished. RAY SUAREZ: Let me follow up with you, Capt. Wilson. Is it possible -- you mentioned 99 miles of river frontier with another country -- is it possible, is it affordable to seal Mexico off from the United States in those places to control cross-border movements? ROBERT WILSON: I don't believe it's feasible to completely seal the border with Mexico. And I don't believe you would want to. I mean, there's a good relationship with that government. There's commerce and trade, and I think that needs to continue. RAY SUAREZ: So what do you need that you don't have? ROBERT WILSON: I believe that we need more people, more patrols from U.S. Border Patrol. They're doing what they can with what they have. And maybe policies out of Washington concerning the border might need to be looked at. RAY SUAREZ: Sheriff Estrada, you heard Capt. Wilson talking about a mostly rural area. Nogales is one of the major crossings in your part of the country. How are the problems different there? TONY ESTRADA: Well, I guess we have a rugged, remote terrain, you know, valleys, canyons that, obviously, are very attractive for these organizations to move drugs and people. So, we have always had that challenge of having to deal with those remote areas where you actually have very little ways of detecting that type of activity and that type of movement. We're not seeing the violence, obviously, that the sheriff -- or the captain mentioned that he's having in his area. And I think that's very important to recognize that and be mindful that the dynamics change tremendously from border to border. RAY SUAREZ: And when we look at a place like Nogales, would we, if we were to visit the border today, see more in the way of actual physical barriers so that people can't cross on foot as easily any longer? TONY ESTRADA: Oh, definitely. They have more barriers, obviously more walls, more sensors, more floodlights, a lot more technology that has been applied along the border, which makes it more and more difficult. But you still have the major thoroughfare from Sonora that connects to the major highways here in Arizona and the major hubs of Tucson and Phoenix. So, this is a major corridor for drugs and people. It's going to continue. It's going to continue. They're going to find ways. We have had tunnels. Since 1995, about 100 drug tunnels have been discovered. So, people will come through the ports either making false claims, false documents, they have overstayed with their visa, they will go under the fence, over the fence, around the fence. So it just doesn't stop. So, the border is secure in a certain way, but you can't have perfect security. That's not attainable. RAY SUAREZ: Well, you heard Capt. Wilson mention that he just needs more people. What do you need? TONY ESTRADA: Well, definitely. We're a small department with a small budget, with major challenges along the border. Obviously, we need more funding, and we're getting some more funding from the federal government. Department of Homeland Security is providing that Stonegarden funds, which puts extra people out there to hot spots in Santa Cruz County, which is partnering with Border Patrol and very helpful not only to help them out, but to provide more security for the residents and the visitors of Santa Cruz County. RAY SUAREZ: Capt. Wilson, does the immigration bill that is currently working its way through Congress hold any promise to get you closer to your goals in securing the border? ROBERT WILSON: No, I don't believe so. Even if this immigration bill comes -- is passed and comes to light, I believe that they're still going to continue to come across the border in Hudspeth County, and all along Texas and the United States, and the cartels and their activity with drug smuggling and the things that they do, that's not going to stop that. RAY SUAREZ: And how about you, Sheriff Estrada? Does the current proposed immigration bill now in the Senate hold any promise and any help for Santa Cruz County? TONY ESTRADA: I think it will. I think it will make a difference. There are still some triggers obviously that are going to make a difference to make sure that we don't repeat the mistake that we made in the 1980s with the amnesty at that time. But we need to continue to focus and be mindful and understand that it is a border. It's a robust border. It's an active border. It's a dynamic border. And we're going to continue to have those issues. If the United States consumes over 50 percent of the world's drugs, then we have an issue with consumption here. If we also have poverty along the world, there's going to be people that are going to keep coming in. That's the reality of the whole thing. Irregardless of immigration reform, which will be a good step forward, it's not going to eliminate the problem. RAY SUAREZ: Capt. Wilson, are you being asked to do too much? Is the federal government taking enough of the burden for watching such a big chunk of frontier off of your shoulder and your department's shoulders? ROBERT WILSON: Well, Hudspeth County is 5,000 square miles. We have 10 regular deputies to work this problem. They use overtime from the state. We call it “Border Star.” Our guys are out there all the time after their shift. I think the Border Patrol is doing -- doing what they can do with what they're allowed to do. And that basically -- I don't think you could put enough guys in these places to curb all of the drug trafficking and immigration problems. RAY SUAREZ: Sheriff Tony Estrada, Capt. Robert Wilson, gentlemen, thank you both. TONY ESTRADA: Thank you. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june13/immigration_05-29.html