GOP: Border patrol agents handcuffed by wildlife rules

The Hill
July 28, 2014
By Tinothy Cama

Federal land protections are hampering efforts to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the border, Republicans say.

The Interior Department controls about 800 miles along the dividing line with Mexico, or about 40 percent of the total, with other land in the region owned by the Forest Service.

GOP lawmakers argue federal regulations intended to protect land and wildlife have become an obstacle for Customs and Borders Protection officers because they restrict their ability to drive near the border, build infrastructure or install surveillance technology.

“There is no doubt that the restrictions on accessing land along the border have made it more difficult for the Border Patrol to do their job,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who traveled to McAllen County, Texas, earlier this month to meet with officials about the surge of child migrants into the United States.

Smugglers know where agents cannot patrol or monitor, Cruz said, so they target those areas when moving people across the border.

“It seems a commonsense reform to say that the border patrol should be able to fully access and patrol the border,” he said.

A House Republican working group led by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) this week recommended prohibiting the Interior and Forest Service from in any way hampering border patrol.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who accompanied Cruz, wants border security to play a larger role in how federal officials manage land. At a hearing this week in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, she said officers sometimes cannot build roads or even trails on federal land.

“We’re not asking for a major highway around there, but … we need to think about national security issues and how we enforce our own laws, when you juxtapose that with other priorities within the federal agencies,” she said.

Murkowski is the top Republican on the energy panel, which oversees Interior.

Democrats aren’t buying the GOP’s argument.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said conservation issues are just one of the policies that are falling victim to the current crisis.

“These kids have become both the excuse and the reason that they can revisit some of these policies,” Grijalva said.

“You see everything from getting rid of [deferred action] because of the kids, we have to have troops on the border because of the kids, now we don’t need environmental regulations on public lands because of the kids.”

Grijalva said the Homeland Security Department has repeatedly told Congress that land protections don’t hamper border operations.

“If they’re talking about the most recent influx, it’s happening in areas that have nothing to do with protected federal lands,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. “So I think it’s a specious argument to continue their anti-conservation agenda.”

This is not the first time that land restrictions have been drawn into the debate over border patrol.
Many Republicans criticized President Obama in May for creating the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, abutting the border in New Mexico.

The designation, said Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), will “place additional burdens on Border Patrol personnel and limit access to high crime areas along the border, making it easier for drug smugglers and human traffickers to move in and out of the country.”

Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee’s subpanel with responsibility over national parks, has made border security a top issue, and introduced the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act in an attempt to ensure that the issue is prioritized over environmental conservation.

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats don’t see the problem.

Interior spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said Interior, the Forest Service and Customs and Border Protection entered an agreement in 2006 to cooperate on the border.

“This [plan] has served to strengthen border security measures while at the same time protecting important natural and cultural resources located in national parks and national wildlife refuges and other public lands,” Kershaw said.

Kirk Emerson, an environmental law professor at the University of Arizona, said conservation and security issues often clashed in the last decade, when large expanses of border fence were being built rapidly.

“What I’m generally finding is that there are very few of those kinds of challenges on the ground now,” she said. “There’s more radio interoperability, some of the protocols that weren’t in place before are now in place for cooperation, and the cooperation works both ways.”

Emerson said federal land managers know how to accommodate border patrol officers, and noted that patrol officers are often the first ones to see environmental problems such as fires and report them.

Dinah Bear, an environmental attorney and consultant who works with border advocacy group Humane Borders, said officers don’t complain about land protections.

“We have a very close working relationship with the border patrol, and I have never heard the border patrol ever complain,” she said. “They are clearly puzzled as to why Congress keeps trying to give them more waivers of things that they don’t need.”

She said conservation has nothing to do with the current crisis, because the children and families aren’t trying to evade officers.

“In fact, the kids and the families are usually running toward the border patrol,” she said. “It’s not a question of border security.”

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/213405-gop-border-patrol-agents-handcuffed-by-wildlife-rules

Cornyn, McCaul to Introduce Border Security Measure

The Texas Tribune
April 9, 2013
by Julian Aguilar

Doubling down on their vows to focus on border security before considering immigration reform, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, will file legislation on Tuesday that will further scrutinize how well the federal government protects the U.S.-Mexico border.

A Cornyn aide said the Border Security Results Act will “lay down a marker for what must be done on the border security front before we can reform our broken immigration system.”

Cornyn currently serves as the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security Subcommittee, and McCaul is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

 

The legislation will be introduced as a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight purportedly moves closer to introducing a bill to overhaul the country’s immigration system. Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama, have argued that the border needs to be secure before reform can be passed. But discussions on how that end is achieved — and how success is measured — have been contentious.

Cornyn and McCaul's border security bill will require the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, to readopt the metrics by which they determine if a portion of the border is under “operational control.”

Under operational control, illegal crossers are either detected, deterred or apprehended at the border or within 100 miles of the border. A 2011 Government Accountability Office study found that about 875 miles of the 2,000-mile southern border were under operational control.

Cornyn’s office said DHS in 2010 stopped the metric “operational control” to gauge border security and has not replaced it, leaving nothing in place to evaluate the agency’s progress.

Cornyn and McCaul's bill will also require federal agents on the border to set a 90 percent apprehension rate goal for people who enter the country without inspection, and set a 50 percent reduction in wait times at the nation’s ports as the standard. The bill will also require DHS to attain “full situational awareness of our borders through technology, manpower and results-based metrics,” the aide said.

Proponents of immigration reform, including several Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, cite recent apprehension data as proof that the border is more secure than it has been. Apprehensions have fallen to record lows, which DHS said indicates that fewer people are attempting to enter the country illegally. And a recent report by the Migration Policy Institute estimates that in fiscal year 2012, the federal government spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement efforts, about 24 percent more than it spent in combined funding for the FBI, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal's Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Firearms and Explosives.

Cornyn is not convinced. Last week during DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s visit to Texas, Cornyn released a hard-line statement.

“Recent news reports noting wide gaps in security along the U.S.-Mexico border and scores of individuals crossing into the U.S. illegally continue to fly in the face of the Obama administration’s insistence that our border is secure,” he said in a statement.

“Texans — and all Americans — would appreciate a healthy dose of reality from Secretary Napolitano.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/09/cornyn-mccaul-introduce-border-security-measure/

Border security quandary could kill immigration bill

USA Today
April 2, 2013
by Alan Gomez

Though many in Washington have been hailing the recent progress made on a sweeping immigration bill that would legalize the nation's estimated 11million illegal immigrants, major disagreements over how best to secure the nation's Southwest border with Mexico threaten to derail the process.

Lawmakers in the nation's capital are largely in agreement that the border must be secured, but the next battle will be how to secure it — and over what time period. A failure to find common ground on this critical issue could be enough to snuff out a compromise, and with it the first comprehensive immigration legislation in more than a quarter-century.

"I wouldn't vote for the president's fast-track, and I wouldn't vote for the Senate's slower track," said Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, a member of a bipartisan group of House members drafting a House immigration plan. "I think there's a better way to do it."

That "fast track" is President Obama's argument that illegal immigrants need a path to legal status now and should not wait until the border is secured. In the Senate, a bipartisan group of senators — the "Gang of Eight" — is trying to craft a provision in their bill that could quantify and establish a level of border security that must be reached before illegal immigrants can apply for legal residency and U.S. citizenship.

Though many congressional Republicans understand the political reality that the party needs to remake its image with Latinos after the 2012 election, the pall from the last major immigration law still hangs over today's negotiations. That landmark bill, signed in 1986 by President Reagan, was sold as a solution to illegal immigration and a way to secure the border. The citizenship part happened; the border part did not. Millions of people from Mexico and other parts of Latin America have continued to enter illegally through a porous Southwest border, and others who entered the country legally have continued overstaying their visas.

"The amnesty provisions become law, they become final ... and the promises of enforcement don't occur. I really believe that is a danger again," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said in February on the Senate floor, echoing a fear among many of the party faithful.

Republicans backed the 1986 bill that granted amnesty to an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants. The legislation was coupled with a vow to close illegal border crossings and crack down on the hiring of these immigrants, neither of which occurred. Now the GOP demands the border be secured for good before agreeing to citizenship for those who are here.

Some senators were excited to clear one roadblock to a deal this past weekend when the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest coalition of labor unions, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, agreed to support giving up to 200,000 visas a year to foreigners for janitorial, hospitality and construction work. But that agreement would go nowhere if a deal on security cannot be reached.

GETTING BUY-IN

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising GOP star viewed as a possible 2016 presidential contender, was the Gang of Eight member chosen to sell the immigration plan to several conservative media outlets. During one appearance, radio host Rush Limbaugh told Rubio that many listeners were worried the Senate group wouldn't take border security seriously.

"If it doesn't, then I'll come back to you and say, 'Look, it didn't. We tried,'" Rubio responded during the January interview.

There is disagreement over how one shuts down a border stretching 1,969 miles across desert, mountain passes and the Rio Grande. Some sheriffs along the border say the answer is more "boots on the ground," or border guards blocking those who try to make the trek despite the odds.

In fact, the federal government boosted the number of Border Patrol agents from just over 4,000 in 1993 to more than 21,000 in 2012. That increase, as well as the economic recession that eliminated many of the jobs luring so many illegal immigrants, led to sharp drops in crossings. More than 1 million people a year crossed the border illegally from 2004-06. By 2012, that number was 364,000.

Sheriff Paul Babeu of Arizona's Pinal County says more boots is only part of the answer. Babeu previously commanded a unit of Army National Guard troops who patrolled the border and is now sheriff of an inland county that is a major channel for human and drug smuggling. His solution to seal the border: Add 6,000 border agents and National Guardsmen, build more fencing and rigorously enforce existing laws. "You can get close to that, yes," he said.

Others along the border say the strategy, not the number, of federal agents there needs to change.
Donald Reay, executive director of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition — which includes the chief law enforcement officer of all Texas counties within 25 miles of the border — said Border Patrol agents in his state often work miles inland, focusing on high-volume immigration corridors rather than patrolling the border itself. That leads many ranchers and farmers who live along the border to say they live in "almost America."

"They're not seeing Border Patrol on a regular basis," Reay said. "That's a decision that's made in Washington. It's hard for us to tell another agency, 'You're doing your job wrong.' But our sheriffs have to try to fill that gap. And quite frankly, we don't have the manpower to do that."

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., both in the Gang of Eight, toured the Arizona border last Wednesday and watched as a woman scaled an 18-foot-high border fence in Nogales. Both said Border Patrol needs more technological assistance to fill in gaps.

Though agents already use cameras, sensors and drones to monitor people crossing the border, those technologies need to be augmented, Schumer said.

"We have adequate manpower, but not adequate technology," he said after the tour.

BIGGER THAN THE BORDER

Former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said Congress also needs to figure out how to identify "visa overstays" — about 40% of illegal immigrants entered the country legally with a visa but stayed after it expired. At least two of the 9/11 hijackers were in the U.S. after overstaying tourist visas. Chertoff also said little has been done to monitor people who enter illegally by water.

He said focusing solely on the Southwest border "would be like if you have three doors to your house and you only lock one. This popular image of people running across the deserts or the mountains only accounts for a percentage of the total issue," he said.

Others say the problem of illegal crossings will fade away when the country reforms its legal immigration system.

El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar says the U.S. government has approached the problem of illegal immigration in a "completely backward way." She said most people illegally enter the country to work, so reforming the nation's visa system to allow more foreign workers in temporarily would slow illegal crossings. That would then allow the government to concentrate law enforcement efforts on illegal immigrants who might pose a true threat to national security.

Though that might sound simple enough, just defining what security means has become a point of contention in negotiations.

For years, the Department of Homeland Security relied on a measurement called "operational control" of the border, which Congress defined in 2006 as "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics and contraband." In 2007, Border Patrol defined operational control as "the ability to detect, respond and interdict border penetrations in areas deemed as high priority for threat potential or other national security objectives."

In 2010, Border Patrol estimated it had established operational control of 873 miles of the border, or 44%. The next year, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said the agency was scrapping operational control as a metric and would develop a new measurement for border security: the "border condition index."

Now, DHS says that metric may not be a viable way to truly explain how secure the border is.

'A DIFFICULT LIFT'

During a March 20 House committee hearing, DHS said its agents were using a wide variety of metrics — including apprehensions of people along the border, economic measurements and hotel vacancy rates on the Mexican side of the border — to help them figure out where they need to concentrate efforts. But department officials cautioned it might not be possible to use such a metric as a final grade on overall border security.

That reaction upset House Republicans who had been waiting for years for the new measurement.
"We have a moment in time here," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., chair of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security. "If we do not as a nation have a high degree of confidence that we are securing our border, or are on the path to measuring border security in a way that we feel confident in, I think this whole comprehensive immigration reform is going to be a very difficult lift."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/02/border-security-illegal-immigration-gang-of-eight/2048037/

Senate ‘Gang of 8’ Members Pledge To Bolster Border Security On Arizona Trip

Talking Points Memo
March 27, 2013
by Benjy Sarlin

Senators working on a bipartisan immigration bill toured the Arizona border Wednesday in an effort to reassure worried hawks that security will be a top priority in any legislation they produce.

“What I learned today is we have adequate manpower, but not adequate technology,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told reporters after meeting with Border Patrol agents.


Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) stressed the hardware side of the equation as well, calling for “constant surveillance over the entire length of the border” via improved equipment. Illustrating his point, he tweeted shortly before the press conference that he, Schumer, and Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Michael Bennett (D-CO), had just watched a woman climb over an 18-foot border fence before being apprehended.

Responding to a reporter’s question, McCain said that the border security issue was more urgent because of Congress’ failure to reach a deal replacing sequester cuts.

“There’s no doubt that our border is less secure because of the sequester and we’ll be doing everything we can to restore that funding,” he said.

The Senate group has yet to release a draft of their bill (Schumer put their status at “90 percent” complete), but an early framework includes a requirement that certain border metrics be met before undocumented immigrants can apply for green cards and citizenship. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano expressed concern this week that the border “trigger” could end up being too vague and stranding millions of immigrants in legal limbo. Republican lawmakers, led by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rand Paul (R-KY), have said the trigger concept is absolutely necessary to draw GOP support.

McCain told reporters that he did not see the Senate group’s border measures as a long term barrier to citizenship.

“I believe that if we do the right thing … that over a relatively short period of time with the proper use of technology, with the proper coordination between different agencies that we will be able to see that we have a degree of border security that will allow people to move forward with a path to citizenship,” he said.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/senate-border-trip-immigration.php

McCain, other senators to tour U.S.-Mexico border with immigration reform on their minds

Associated Press
March 27, 2013

A group of U.S. senators who will be influential in shaping and negotiating details of an immigration reform package is traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona to get a firsthand look at issues affecting the region.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona were expected to tour the border today with Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado. They are all members of the so-called Gang of Eight — a bipartisan group that has spent recent weeks trying to craft proposed immigration legislation.

The trip comes as Congress is in recess and as the lawmakers wrap up a bill designed to secure the border and put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. President Barack Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform this year, and border security is critical to McCain and other Republicans who contend that some areas along the border are far from secure.

"I wish every member of the United States Senate and Congress could see the border," McCain told reporters in Phoenix on Monday. "Only when you can see the expanse, the difficulties and the challenges of the border, can you really appreciate the need for our border security."

With top Republicans and Democrats focused on the issue, immigration reform faces its best odds in years. The proposed legislation will likely put illegal immigrants on a 13-year path to citizenship and would install new criteria for border security, allow more high- and low-skilled workers to come to the U.S. and hold businesses to tougher standards on verifying their workers are in the country legally.

McCain sought to lower expectations for the bill Monday during a town hall in Phoenix. He told immigration activists they wouldn't be completely happy with the measure and warned that the group must overcome difficult disagreements.

"We've made progress in a number of areas that I am encouraged by, but there are still areas that we are not in agreement," he said.

McCain said the lawmakers had reached an agreement on protections for young illegal immigrants brought to the country as children and on visas for workers, but declined to provide specifics.

Reports indicate that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, negotiating through the Gang of Eight senators, had reached significant agreement Friday on a new visa program to bring up to 200,000 lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The groups did not reach consensus on how much the workers would be paid.

The bill is expected to be lengthy and cover numerous issues, including limiting family-based immigration to put a greater emphasis on skills and employment ties instead.

The legislation was initially promised in March, but the lawmakers have since said they won't be done until at least April. Immigration proponents have said the group needs to introduce legislation soon, while some Republican lawmakers complain the process has moved too quickly.

If passed, the legislation could usher in the most sweeping changes in immigration law in nearly 30 years.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/03/mccain_other_senators_to_tour.html

Steve King: If China Can Build The Great Wall, We Can Build A Border Fence

Huffington Post
March 25, 2013
by Preston Maddock

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a relentless opponent of comprehensive immigration reform, on Saturday outlined a simple solution to the complex issue: build a better border fence.

"I supported the fence," King told Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly on her radio program, according to Right Wing Watch. Building a fence along the approximately 2,000 mile Mexican-American border would not "be too much of an engineering marvel," King argued.

"We can do the Panama Canal 100 years-plus ago and I’ve been over there to take a look at the Great Wall of China that was built more than 2,000 years ago, and that’s 5,500 miles long," King said. "So building a fence is not that hard; I’ll just show you how to do it if it’s too complicated for our public policy people to get their mind around."

(Click over to Right Wing Watch for audio of King's comments.)

Later in the program, King spoke with a caller named Meryl, who claimed undocumented immigrants had allegedly trespassed on her property. King warned her that if the United States continued to have "open borders" it might go the way of "Third World countries" like "Mexico" and "places in the Caribbean or in Africa where there’s no law or very little law."

"If lawlessness prevails then the more wealthy build a better, more effective barrier around their own compounds," King cautioned.

King's comments came in response to a set of recommendations published last week by the Republican National Committee, which called for a modernization of the GOP's platform on immigration in order to stay competitive within America's evolving electorate. To gain support among Hispanic voters, the report said, the GOP “must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform."

King's resistance to his party's changing politics is not surprising considering his position as one of Congress's staunchest immigration hardliners. During his recent address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, King called immigration reform a "deconstruction" of the rule of law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/steve-king-great-wall-of-china_n_2951480.html

Republicans on immigration reform: Before and after

Washington Post blog
March 20, 2013
by Rachel Weiner

The Washington Post editorial board noted Wednesday that the “Immigration” section of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s 2013 gubernatorial campaign website, which until recently touted his tough policies cracking down on illegal residents, has disappeared. If  Cuccinelli is considering a softer stance on immigration, he’s far from the only one in his party.

In the mid-2000s there “was just a remarkable lurch to the right in search of votes in competitive primaries, and it distorted where the Republican party had traditionally been on immigration,” said Frank Sharry of the pro-reform group America’s Voice. “I think that Republicans are politically driven to come back to the table, and once they’re there, they realize that comprehensive immigration reform is really in line with Republican principles.”

Here’s a rundown of Republicans who have embraced new policies — or at least, a new and more accommodating – since the 2012 election:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Before: In early 2011, Paul teamed up with Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) on an attempt to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. “Citizenship is a privilege, and only those who respect our immigration laws should be allowed to enjoy its benefits,” said Paul. Later that year, he also expressed concern that legal immigrants coming in on student visas or as refugees were not being properly screened.

After: Paul is endorsing immigration reform that would allow the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to obtain legalized status. He is against a special “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants, but open to those immigrants applying for citizenship through the current process. He has said that if immigration reform is completed, he will rethink his position on birthright citizenship.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

Before: In a 2010 Republican Senate primary debate, Rubio attacked then-Gov. Charlie Crist on immigration: “If you grant amnesty, as the governor proposes that we do, in any form, whether it’s back of the line or so forth, you will destroy any chance we will ever have of having a legal immigration system that works here in America.” In a subsequent debate, he said that illegal immigrants should leave the country and reapply for citizenship from their homelands. While he expressed some reservations about Arizona’s controversial immigration legislation, he supported the law after tweaks were made. He opposed the DREAM Act, although he was for some accommodation for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

After: Rubio is now the most high-profile member of a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” working on immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. “After weighing both sides of it I just concluded – that every country that’s done this, that’s had millions of people living in it that are permanently barred from applying for citizenship, it hasn’t worked out really well for them,” he said.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)

Before: Cantor voted against the DREAM Act in 2010, which would grant permanent residency and a chance for citizenship to some young illegal immigrants. In speaking about immigration, he argued that laws should be “evenly applied.”

After: In a highly-publicized speech early last month, Cantor came out in support of “an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home” — the tenets of the DREAM Act.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.)

Before: In December 2010, Coffman called the DREAM Act “a nightmare for the American people.” He supported ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, and he proposed legislation to make Colorado ballots English-only.

After: Coffman now supports a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and is undecided on how to deal with adults. His congressional district became significantly less Republican and more Hispanic in redistricting, and Coffman has said that meeting some of his new constituents provoked the change of heart.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)

Before: Goodlatte has long been known as an immigration hardliner, earning an A+ rating from the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA. He has supported bills that would limit birthright citizenship, limit family reunification preferences and end the diversity visa lottery.  He was also a vocal opponent of bipartisan “amnesty” legislation in 2007.

After: As the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Goodlatte has surprised immigration reform advocates. He told reporters at a recent Christian Science Monitor breakfast that he is open to legalization and the possibility of citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

Before: In 2007, Jordan criticized comprehensive immigration reform. “I cannot think of a more misguided approach to one of the most pressing issues facing our country today,” he wrote in an op-ed. “[W]e must reject ‘amnesty’ for illegal aliens.  Allowing these individuals to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship — whether through special visas or otherwise — is nothing less than rewarding their illegal behavior.”

After: At a Heritage Foundation panel Wednesday, Jordan said he was “willing to consider” a proposal that would allow illegal immigrants to eventually apply for citizenship.

The Republican National Commitee

Before: The Republican party platform in 2012 promised “humane procedures to encourage illegal aliens to return home voluntarily, while enforcing the law against those who overstay their visas.”

After: The RNC has urged Republicans to embrace comprehensive immigration reform. “One of the issues that I think really cut pretty badly within the Hispanic community is when Mitt Romney talked about self-deportation,” Chairman Reince Priebus said on CNN. “And you know, it really doesn’t — it’s not our party’s position. But it was something that I think hit every kitchen table across America.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/03/20/the-startling-speed-of-the-gops-shift-on-immigration/

Senate immigration draft rejected by Arizona Republicans

Politico
February 19, 2013
by Ginger Gibson

All four Republican Arizona House members penned a letter Tuesday voicing opposition to the bipartisan immigration proposal rolled out in the Senate by the Gang of Eight, a group led in part by Arizona Sen. John McCain.

In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) obtained by POLITICO, the four House members argue that border security must be at the forefront of any immigration debate. Only after the border has been secured should Congress take up immigration reform.

“As the House begins to debate possible immigration reform proposals, it is vitally important to those of us who represent Border States that the first priority of any reform is securing our Southwest border,” the four congressmen write.

Reps. Matt Salmon, Trent Franks, Paul Gosar and David Schweikert point to the escalating drug cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the ability for people from “countries unfriendly to the U.S.” to enter the country through the Southern border.

“Only after first securing our borders can we begin to contemplate discussions of additional immigration reform,” the quartet writes.

The bipartisan Senate plan being would create a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States. But as a compromise, the path is contingent on the border being secured first, a requirement that has stirred opposition from some Republicans who worry that the determination will be made prematurely by the Obama administration.

The Senators have yet to introduce any legislation, but the principles that were outlined by those supporting the deal would allow Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to determine when the border is secured.

The four Arizona House Republicans argued that the determination must be based on data and “independent third-party evaluations rather than bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. with political motives.”

“If we do not follow this protocol, we will replay the failed immigration reforms of 1986 when we lost the trust of those in our communities to take on the difficult task of securing our borders,” the group writes. “We cannot allow this to happen again.”

The Senate sponsors had hoped to see a bill pass through their chamber in the spring or early summer, which would send the measure over to the less-receptive Republican-controlled House. In an effort to encourage bipartisan support, President Barack Obama has warned that he will begin pushing his own measure if an agreement is not struck by both chambers.

Draft legislation from the White House, which is more liberal than the Gang of Eight proposal, leaked to the public over the weekend.

 http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/ariz-gopers-reject-senate-immigration-draft-87807.html#ixzz2LxJ8qLOv

Progressives pressure Obama on immigration reform triggers

NBC
February 6, 2013
by Ali Weinberg

President Barack Obama’s allies in organized labor and progressive groups are drawing a line in the sand when it comes to so-called “triggers” that would require a secure border as a precondition to allowing undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship.

Left-leaning groups told the president during a meeting this week that any preconditions on creating a pathway to citizenship would be a deal-breaker in terms of winning their support.

“That is not the starting point,” said Marielena Hincapie of the National Immigration Law Center when asked about part of the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform proposal that would make prospects for full citizenship contingent on increased border security. “What we are demanding is a road to citizenship that's clear, that's direct, not contingent at all on additional enforcement.”

The concept is one of the “basic legislative pillars” of a bipartisan Senate proposal on comprehensive immigration reform. While vague, the language is geared towards conservative lawmakers who want tough enforcement mechanisms in place before a path to citizenship can be formed.

The second of the Senate’s four pillars reads: “Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required.”

The trigger has been an essential component for conservatives like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, one of the four Republican senators to help craft the plan.

“I will not be supporting any law that does not ensure that the enforcement things happen," he told conservative blogger Ed Morrisey in late January.

But progressive groups have been ratcheting up the pressure on the president, whom they assert agrees about the concept of a trigger.

“There is clear alignment between us and the president and we look forward to expressing that power as the debate carries forward,” said Marshall Fitz of the Center for American Progress, adding, “We're going to focus like a laser beam on the path to citizenship.”

While White House press secretary Jay Carney seemed to split the difference between the two approaches, saying the president remained committed to both border security and a path to citizenship, but not going so far as to link the two.

“He remains, as part of the comprehensive immigration reform process, committed to increasing our border security further,” Carney said. “But when we talk about comprehensive immigration reform, we're talking about a whole package that moves as a whole, and that includes a clear path to citizenship for people who are affected here,” Carney said.

Cornell University Law School professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert, said one possible compromise between the two sides would be an enforcement mechanism based on objective criteria, like a certain number of Border Patrol agents along the border or amount of money spent on security.

But he said that if Republicans insist on a subjective measure, such as whether a poll finds the majority of Americans think the border is secure, or whether Republican governors of border states agree the border is secure, common ground will be much more difficult to find.

Asked about the political feasibility of objective measures in a final immigration bill, Yale-Loehr said, “I would hope than an objective one would satisfy the conservatives enough that they could live with it while not antagonizing the other side too much.”

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/06/16869322-progressives-pressure-obama-on-immigration-reform-triggers?lite

Senate Plan would give Napolitano final say on Border Security

The Hill
February 2, 2013
by Alexander Bolton

Under a bipartisan Senate framework, Democrats say, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano would have final say over whether the border is secure enough to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.

If Napolitano does not provide the green light for putting illegal immigrants on a pathway to citizenship, the responsibility for judging whether the metrics for border security have been met will be given to her successor.

The early debate over immigration reform has yielded two thorny questions: What metrics will be used to determine whether the goals for border security and other safeguards against illegal immigration have been met? Who will decide whether the metrics have been achieved?

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the bipartisan immigration reform framework unveiled this past week, said Napolitano should decide.

“What we’ve proposed is that the DHS secretary, whomever it is, will have final say on [whether] whatever metrics we proposes are met,” Schumer said. “We think those metrics will be quite objective.”

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the lead Republican sponsor of the framework, said the issue is under discussion within the Gang of Eight.

“We’re working on a lot of it,” he said.

But the idea of letting Napolitano, who plans to stay in the cabinet for President Obama’s second term, or a future secretary of Homeland Security make the final call on the border has sparked alarm among other Republicans.

“My constituents are not going to accept a Washington bureaucrat making a representation the border is secure when they know it’s not true. So that’s unacceptable,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, who represents Texas.

There are other tough issues that could derail immigration reform negotiations. These include the establishment of an entry-exit visa system to track whether persons who enter the country leave when they are supposed to. An estimated 40 percent of illegal immigrants have overstayed their visas.

Another is the question of how to handle the future flow of workers for so-called low-skill jobs in meat processing, hospitality and other service industries. Some lawmakers say disagreements over a guest worker program blew up a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate in 2007.

The proposal to make border security a condition for allowing illegal immigrants onto a pathway to citizenship has emerged as the biggest disagreement in the early debate. Obama pointedly did not call for it during a speech in Las Vegas, Tuesday.

The Senate framework would create a commission made up of governors, attorneys general and community leaders from Southwestern border states to recommend when border security goals have been met.
They could not render the final judgment, however, because lawmakers fear that would violate the Constitution.

McCain says the commission nevertheless will have a significant influence.

“The Constitution requires that action taken by the Congress is not dictated by a commission. We will be guided to a large degree by their conclusions and recommendations,” he said.

The bipartisan Senate group envisions metrics for border security that can be objectively verified, such as target numbers for border patrol agents and unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles.

“They will be objective so there’s not that much leeway,” Schumer said. “What we envision is that because they [are] objective, the advisory committee and DHS will in all likelihood agree.”

Members of the Gang of Eight would like to put in place a sequential process.

The commission of Southwestern officials would submit evaluations of border security that Napolitano or another DHS secretary would then approve. Democrats say Napolitano would not have unilateral power to put 11 million immigrants on a pathway to citizenship.

Advocates for a fast path to citizenship say Napolitano or someone else in the Obama administration would be a preferable choice to make the call.

“Having the DHS secretary decide rather than (Arizona Gov.) Jan Brewer decide is obviously a no-brainer,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice.

Sharry said “having clear metrics be the goalpost rather than the moving goalpost that Republicans have been engaged in the last five years is much better.”

“But any condition that leaves room for mischief is a potential problem,” he added.

Democrats and advocates for a relatively fast pathway to citizenship worry border security could become an excuse for delay.

Sharry and his allies say it should not be conditioned on further enforcement “when the border is already secure.”

He points to a dramatic increase to more than 21,000 border guards in the last several years and a large decrease in net levels of illegal immigration from Mexico, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, which supports reduced immigration levels, said even with the trigger endorsed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the Gang of Eight, the Senate framework would grant immediate amnesty to 11 million illegal immigrants.

“On Day One, illegal aliens step forward and get their probationary status and essentially get on the path. They start the path right there, Day One,” she said. “So the triggers are pretty much useless anyway.”

Jenks also argued the plank of the Senate framework requiring the completion of an entry-exit system to track whether visitors leave the country on schedule includes a big loophole. She said the entry-exit system would be ineffective because it would track only people entering and leaving the United States via airports and seaports.

“Do we really believe that agricultural workers are going to be flying into the country through airports or cruising in to seaports?” she said. “You just totally exempted them from the entry-exit system. You exempted everyone who comes across the Southern border and the Northern border.”


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/280687-senate-immigration-plan-would-give-napolitano-final-say-on-border-security-#ixzz2K3Iv72S8

How will we know border is 'secure'?

Arizona Republic
February 1, 2013
by Bob Ortega and Rebekah Sanders

As Congress moves to tackle meaningful immigration reform this year, one of the obstacles may be determining when the border between the U.S. and Mexico can be declared secure.

For years, even as border enforcement increased dramatically, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and other critics charged that the federal government doesn't do enough to prevent illegal immigrants and drugs from crossing the border and that the border must be secure before there can be any action on immigration reform.

But a secure border is in the eye of the beholder.


There isn't a specific point at which one can declare the border is secure, said Jessica Zuckerman, Homeland Security research associate at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
"It's a fictitious point," she said. "We can always do more. What we need to do is make the best decisions about what we should do."

A bipartisan proposal put forward Monday by eight senators, including Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, aims to shift the discussion by moving on immigration reform and border security at the same time.

The plan would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for legal permanent status and eventually earn citizenship.

But the path to citizenship would stay on hold until the Department of Homeland Security, advised by a commission of border governors, state attorneys general and other border-community leaders, agreed that the border was secure.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama unveiled his own immigration-reform proposal. He didn't peg reform to better border security but called for more spending on surveillance and other technology along the border. He also proposed upgrading infrastructure at various ports of entry.

Defining a secure border is as much a matter of politics as numbers, said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Bill Clinton.

"Border enforcement has been a conversation stopper for at least six years," she said. "So, it is high time, given the incredible investment we've made, to get past the simplistic statement that our borders are out of control and talk in an informed way about how you assess the billions that Congress has invested in border security."

In 1986, as part of a law that offered amnesty to undocumented migrants, Congress began increasing funding for border security, a move that gained momentum after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Since 1986, the government has spent more than $219 billion, adjusted for inflation, on the border and immigration enforcement. Last fiscal year alone, two agencies, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, spent more than $17.9 billion.

In the past seven years, the number of Border Patrol agents has doubled to more than 21,000. The fence along the southwestern border has grown to more than 641 miles from 135 miles in 2005.
Apprehensions of undocumented migrants, since peaking at 1.7 million in 2000, dropped to 340,252 in fiscal 2011, the last year for which figures are available.

The Border Patrol says enhanced security has made it more difficult and dangerous to cross illegally, discouraging such attempts; analysts say the economic downturn played a major role.
The rapid increase in Border Patrol staffing has been problematic.

According to an internal Homeland Security report obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, lower standards and reduced screening of candidates has left the Border Patrol vulnerable to corruption.

In the past eight years, 147 agents and officers have been convicted of or charged with corruption-related offenses such as accepting bribes to let drugs in and stealing government money.

In one recent example, two months ago in Yuma, officials say an agent hired in 2010 was arrested while loading 150 pounds of marijuana into his patrol vehicle while he was on duty.

Then, too, the Border Patrol hasn't developed good ways of measuring how effectively it uses its agents and other resources, according to a Government Accountability Office study released last month.

The GAO said the Border Patrol also hasn't set clear goals or timelines for improving.

On Monday night, more than 100 southern Arizona residents packed a town hall in Douglas, a few blocks from the reddish metal border fence and a busy port of entry, to talk with U.S. Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., about border security and the GAO report.

Barber said the Border Patrol needs to do better.

"If you (get) hundreds of new agents and you have lots of new technologies, lots of mobile surveillance systems, and you have a lot of sensors, and you have drones, all of these new assets, and we still have a very high level of illegal traffic, both people and drugs, there's something missing," the congressman said. "What I think is missing is what this study revealed -- that the Border Patrol does not yet have good goals that can be measured and good decision-making about where to deploy these assets."

At the meeting, ranchers complained about agents being stationed 25 miles or more north of the border, sometimes facing north, allowing smugglers to cross through ranchlands that sprawl east of Douglas. Ranchers said they feared dangerous encounters with smugglers as well as lost cattle when smugglers cut their fences to pass through.

Asked if the answer is to hire more Border Patrol agents, one rancher said, "Hell no. We have too much damn Border Patrol. We don't need more."

Instead, the ranchers repeatedly called for agents to patrol closer to the border.

"We feel our pleas for help have been neglected," said Sue Krentz, widow of Robert Krentz, who was killed on their ranch in 2010, reigniting the border-security debate across the country. "I believe the Border Patrol is doing their honest best. But it's like in your home: You don't let people walk through your living room."

Acting Chief Patrol Agent Manuel Padilla Jr., the Border Patrol's top agent in the area, said the agency understands the concerns and is developing a strategy to address them.

"If you go back to 2004 in Douglas, we saw huge groups of people and narcotics driving through the streets. It was a chaotic border environment. ... That is no more," Padilla said. "However, we do have a lot of work to do because that traffic has now moved into the more difficult terrain for us to detect and respond to that traffic."

In a phone interview Wednesday, Meissner said Homeland Security has been developing better performance yardsticks for the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, centering on using surveillance and other data to show not just how many people they are apprehending, but how that compares with the ones who get away.

Homeland Security is completing an index of data on border trends, based on comments by outside reviewers, spokesman Peter Boogaard said in a written statement.

Meissner said Homeland Security needs to try harder to make that information public. She said she supports the proposed commission.

By involving governors and others in border states whose views may differ from the rest of the country, it offers an opportunity to discuss appropriate levels of security.

But not everyone is convinced that defining how secure the border is will hold up immigration reform.

"What they're proposing is a fig leaf," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for robust enforcement of immigration laws. By giving undocumented immigrants provisional legal status immediately, "any talk of the amnesty being contingent on enforcement is made meaningless on the first day," he said.

Zuckerman, at the Heritage Institute, which opposes linking immigration reform to border security, said, "Both proposals were just laying out principles. Until we see legislation, we're not going to know what some of this means."


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2013/01/30/20130130how-will-we-know-border-secure.html#ixzz2JiLsUxsb

Key question in immigration debate: Is U.S. border secure?

Washington Post
January 30, 2013
by David Nakamura

The debate over a national immigration overhaul has quickly begun to focus on a key question: Are the U.S. borders secure enough?

Leading Republicans say much more needs to be done to control the illegal flow of migrants from Mexico, and they have vowed not to authorize a path to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented residents until stricter enforcement provisions are in place.

But the Obama administration contends that it has invested more heavily in enforcement efforts than ever before. Several high-profile studies have found that the federal response has helped reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, bringing net migration between the United States and Mexico to a virtual standstill.

Last year, the government spent $18 billion on immigration control, 24 percent more than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a study released this month by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. The Obama administration deported nearly 410,000 people in 2012 — a record, and 25 percent more than in 2007.

At the same time, the number of people apprehended at the Mexican border trying to enter the United States dropped to 340,000, a 40-year low, in 2011. Immigration advocates say the decline shows that the heavy investment in border agents and surveillance technology has effectively deterred foreign nationals from attempting to cross.

Obama administration officials also say the government has largely met, and in some cases surpassed, enforcement benchmarks set in 2007, when a comprehensive immigration reform bill failed in the Senate in part because of concerns about border control.

“I certainly feel very comfortable saying that never before has the border been as protected as it is now,” said Nestor Rodriguez, a sociology professor at the University of Texas who has studied immigration from Mexico and Central America. “The large undocumented population is partly a result of that success: People are afraid to go back home because it’s hard to get back in.”

That progress, advocates say, largely renders moot the demand from leading Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), that a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants be contingent on stricter border-control measures that remain largely undefined.

“Incredible resources have been spent on the interior and border enforcement, and we need to make sure the road to citizenship is not subject to that,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. The GOP position “raises the question of whether the border can ever be completely secured and is that road to citizenship even achievable or not?”

The issue is quickly emerging as a key obstacle in the latest round of immigration reform negotiations. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh pressed Rubio on Tuesday to vow he would not support a path to citizenship without tying it to stricter border control.

“If there is not language in this bill that guarantees that nothing else will happen unless these enforcement mechanisms are in place, I won’t support it,” Rubio responded.

Obama has also emphasized that he supports increased enforcement at the border as a key element of any immigration plan. But he did not endorse a proposal this week from Rubio and seven other senators that would establish a border commission to monitor security and make recommendations that would be used as a “trigger” to allow undocumented migrants to pursue citizenship.

Administration officials and advocates fear such a mechanism could create long delays and create a class of legal residents without full benefits.

With border apprehensions plummeting in recent years, most experts agree that the number of migrants attempting to enter the United States illegally has probably dropped sharply. They attribute the trend to several factors, including reduced labor demand in the United States as the result of a sluggish economy.

Still, the experts agree that federal enforcement is also a likely reason for the reduced flow. Increased federal funding has paid for more than 21,000 federal agents at the border with Mexico, 651 miles of fencing, 300 camera towers and nine surveillance drones to monitor remote areas.

Last April, the Pew Hispanic Center found that the net migration between the United States and Mexico had fallen to zero, reversing four decades of “the largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States.”

Marc Rosenblum, an immigration policy specialist for the Congressional Research Service, wrote in a report last year that Congress “may consider the possibility that certain additional investments at the border may be met with diminishing returns.”

Republicans argue that as the U.S. economy improves, the flow of undocumented workers is likely to pick up again. And they cite a report last month from the Government Accountability Office that determined that the U.S. Border Patrol was intercepting just 61 percent of migrants who attempted to cross illegally into the country from Mexico.

That study found that the agency was unable to apprehend nearly 209,000 migrants at the border, of which about 86,000 successfully escaped into the United States. Both numbers, however, were down significantly from 2006.

“There has been some progress,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.). “But the bottom line is that we are far from having operational control of our borders.”

Rubio and other GOP leaders also include improved workplace verification of immigration status as part of the broad conversation over enforcement. Democrats, including Obama, agree that new safeguards must be established to help employers identify undocumented workers.

Some conservatives view worker identification as a more vital issue. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes stricter immigration control, said the border commission proposed by the Senate working group is “a gimmick” that has little value but is designed to appeal to conservatives who would otherwise reject comprehensive reform efforts.

“It’s easier to talk about fences and border-control agents than it is to deal with the more difficult issues of work-site enforcement,” Krikorian said.

The National Association of Retired Border Patrol Officials has opposed allowing illegal immigrants to become legal residents, saying it rewards lawbreakers. But many retired agents agree that the number of illegal migrants has fallen dramatically.

“We have never seen the level of control we have now,” said David B. Ham, a retired Border Patrol officer and president of the National Border Patrol Museum in El Paso. “The numbers are way down — there’s no doubt.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/key-question-in-immigration-debate-is-us-border-secure/2013/01/30/0c20b168-6afc-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story_1.html

Senators reinforce call for tightened borders as part of immigration reform

The Guardian
January 30, 2013
by Karen McVeigh

The citizenship ambitions of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US could rest on a fight over the definition of what constitutes a secure border, experts predict.

Barack Obama, in a milestone speech on immigration reform on Tuesday, echoed Republicans' tough language on border enforcement. But he did not go as far as a demand by a bipartisan group of senators that the US border be declared secure before people who are in the US illegally be given a "path to citizenship".

Those senators argue that a commission be set up to rule on whether the border is secure before a single undocumented immigrant is given a chance to move towards a fully legal status. Obama's failure to endorse explicitly that demand has already raised suspicions among Republicans.

Marco Rubio, a prominent Latino senator and one of the eight who set out their own proposals a day earlier, warned the president not to ignore his party's concerns about border security. "I think that would be a terrible mistake," Rubio told Fox News. "We have a bipartisan group of senators that have agreed to that. For the president to try to move the goalposts on that specific requirement, as an example, does not bode well in terms of what his role's going to be in this or the outcome." He added: "If that's not in the bill, I won't support it." 

Senator Jeff Flake, a newly elected Republican senator for the border state of Arizona, echoed Rubio's demand for a clear statement from an independent commission on border security. "This provision is key to ensuring that border security is achieved, and is also necessary to ensure that a reform package can actually move through Congress," he said in remarks quoted by Reuters.

The question of what constitutes a secure border is likely to be be crucial in determining the success of the latest plans to reform what is widely accepted to be a "broken" immigration system.

A framework set out by the bipartisan "gang of eight" senators on Monday talks about the need to "prevent, detect and apprehend every entry". But Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute, said it would be impossible to meet that demand literally. "If it has to reach a point where there are zero illegal entrants – that is just not achievable," she said. "No police force could guarantee on an annual basis that there would be zero homicides or zero crimes of violence."

The demands for "enforcement first" stem from previous attempts at immigration reform. But despite the implicit suggestion that border security is lax, the opposite is true.

The number of border control agents has doubled in six years, and there has been a massive increase in federal spending on enforcement. Last month, a report by the Migration Policy Institute, Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The rise of a Formidable Machinery, found that the Obama administration spent $18bn on immigration enforcement last year, significantly more than its spending on all the other major federal law enforcement agencies combined.

"We've sketched a dramatic transformation of the immigration enforcement system since 1986," said Mittelstadt. She said it had reached a "level unparalleled in this country's history".

Obama noted in his speech on Tuesday that the "tide of illegal immigrants" from Mexico had been stemmed by increased border security. "We put more boots on the ground on the southern border than at any time in our history. And today, illegal crossings are down nearly 80% from their peak in 2000," he said. Obama also noted that deportations of criminals "is at its highest level ever".

But Thad Bingel, who was chief of staff, US Customs and Border Protection from 2005 to 2009, said the legacy of the last overhaul over the immigration laws, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, had created a generation sceptical of reform without border control.

"Even although we've seen significant progress, there's a recognition from the senators that the public need to be convinced that we have not done enough. I agree with that. You need to assure people." He agreed with the senators' proposal on how to define border security. "They want to have a commission made up of attorney generals, governors and leaders of the border states, and that makes sense. The sticking part will be the membership of that commission and what its powers are."

Bingel cited a doubling of border patrol agents, from 10,000 in 2004 to 21,000 today as one of many recent improvements. There had also been a drop in the number of people apprehended for attempting to cross the border illegally, from about one million a year in 2000 to 327,000 in 2011. "That is significant progress. But the debate now is what will be an acceptable number," he said.

He said that border security has a different meaning today, pointing out that 50% of those who are in the US illegally had entered the country legally, but overstayed their visas. That posed different challenges: "You need a mix of things, including technology on the border itself, employment verification and an exit control system on land, looking at documents that can be scanned when someone leaves the country."

Bingel also said border security had become more dangerous. "It's a different battle now. Because the border had become more difficult to cross, we have seen an increase in criminal organisations using more violent tactics to defeat border security. Organisations that used to smuggle narcotics have diversified into people smuggling. You need a different set of tools."

Mittelstadt, of the Migration Policy Institute, said that the answer to the question of border security was not more enforcement but to look at where the gaps were. "More enforcement of the existing system will not yield results. There continue to be gaps and one is in employment enforcement. What is needed is to address those gaps."

Mittelstadt welcomed the framework set out by the bipartisan group of eight senators as a "significant breakthrough". But she added: "It is, however, just a framework. There remains the filling in of details between the document and the legislative text."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/30/republicans-border-control-immigration-plan

Obama pushes Congress on immigration, split emerges

Reuters
January 29, 2013
by Matt Spetalnick

Just over a week into his second term, President Barack Obama took his fight for immigration reform to the West on Tuesday and pushed Congress to quickly find a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented residents.
But as Obama praised a bipartisan immigration plan during a speech in Las Vegas, disagreement emerged between the White House and Republicans that underscored the difficulty of resolving an emotive issue that has long defied a legislative fix.

"I'm here today because the time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said at a high school. "The time is now. Now is the time."

After years on the back burner, immigration reform has suddenly looked possible as Republicans, chastened by Latino voters who rejected them in the November election, appear more willing to accept a thorough overhaul.

Action on immigration was sidelined by economic issues and healthcare reform during Obama's first term but it is part of an ambitious liberal agenda the Democratic president laid out last week in his second inaugural address. That agenda also includes gun control, gay rights and fighting climate change.

Hispanic voters were crucial in winning Nevada for Obama in November and the crowd at the high school was supportive.

"Si se puede," yelled some, using a Spanish phrase that harked back to Obama's 2008 "Yes we can" campaign slogan. Some in the audience were brought to tears when he talked about the difficulties some immigrants have experienced.

In Washington, however, differences quickly emerged between what Obama would like and the proposals by the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators, whose plan is heavy on border security.

Obama pushed for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants that is faster than the one the Senate group proposed.

Rather than emphasize border security first, he would let undocumented immigrants get on a path to citizenship if they first undergo national security and criminal background checks, pay penalties, learn English and get behind those foreigners seeking to immigrate legally.

"We all agree that these men and women should have to earn their way to citizenship. But for comprehensive immigration reform to work, it must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship," he said.

For Republicans, this is a sticking point. The Gang of Eight plan envisions first taking steps to toughen security along the U.S.-Mexican border before setting in motion the steps illegal immigrants must take to gain legal status.

That difference was enough to raise concerns among Republican lawmakers who are trying to frame a package that can pass the Republican-led House of Representatives.

RUBIO "CONCERNED"

A Hispanic Republican, Senator Marco Rubio, complained that Obama's speech neglected border security and left the impression that "he believes reforming immigration quickly is more important than reforming immigration right."

"I am concerned by the president's unwillingness to accept significant enforcement triggers before current undocumented immigrants can apply for a green card," he said. "Without such triggers in place, enforcement systems will never be implemented and we will be back in just a few years dealing with millions of new undocumented people in our country."

Republicans will likely oppose any immigration plan that doesn't put border security first.

"This provision is key to ensuring that border security is achieved, and is also necessary to ensure that a reform package can actually move through Congress," said newly elected Senator Jeff Flake of the border state of Arizona.

In addition, Obama made no mention of creating a temporary guest worker program geared to the low-skilled, labor-intensive agricultural industry. Labor unions do not yet support such a program.

Another point of contention is expected to be whether same-sex couples are granted the same benefits as heterosexual couples under immigration reform - something the White House says Obama will insist upon but which the Senate group did not deal with.

Obama's speech in Nevada, coming a little more than a week after his second inauguration, reflects the growing clout of Hispanic voters, as does Republican willingness to move on the issue.

The president said that if Congress is unable to act in a timely fashion, he will propose immigration legislation of his own and "insist that they vote on it right away."

Immigration reform could give Obama a landmark second-term legislative achievement, but the White House is mindful that success on such a divisive issue will require a delicate balancing act.

The last major attempt at an immigration overhaul was done by Republican President George W. Bush in 2007. It collapsed in Congress. Obama did not follow through with a promise to seek an overhaul in his first term, fearing a repeat of the earlier debacle.

"We can't allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate. We've been debating this a very long time. So it's not as if we don't know technically what needs to get done," Obama said.

Republicans who saw their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, receive only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in the election loss to Obama are adamant that steps must be taken to draw more Hispanics to their party's ranks.

This could be a slow process to change hearts and minds.

"I don't know about voting for them (the Republicans) yet but they definitely are starting to talk about things we want to hear," said Maxima Guerrero, 22, a community college student in Phoenix. Originally from Morelos, Mexico, she was brought to the United States at age five.

In addition to dealing with Republican demands, Obama needs to watch his left flank, where unions worry about temporary workers' programs.

And the American Civil Liberties Union warned against an erosion of rights under plans to tighten the employment verification system that determines whether a worker is in the United States legally.

"While there are components of the Senate plan that provide millions of aspiring citizens the legal status they deserve to live, work, and raise their families free of fear, others, such as mandating E-Verify and continued wasteful and unnecessary spending on the border, raise serious civil liberties concerns," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/29/us-usa-immigration-obama-idUSBRE90S06U20130129

GOP platform gets tougher on immigration

Politico
August 21, 2012
by James Hohmann

TAMPA, Fla.— Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach persuaded the Republican platform committee Tuesday to toughen its language on immigration.

“We recognize that if you really want to create a job tomorrow, you can remove an illegal alien today,” he told the 100-plus representatives to the committee. “That is the way to open up jobs very quickly for U.S. citizen workers and lawfully admitted alien workers.”

The committee agreed to restore 2008 platform planks that didn’t appear in a draft prepared by Republican National Committee staff, who worked in close consultation with Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The platform committee overwhelmingly voted to add language proposed by Kobach calling for the completion of a border fence, the end of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and an end to sanctuary cities. It also voted to support national E-Verify, an Internet database run by the federal government that makes it harder for undocumented workers to get jobs.

Trying to make inroads with Latino votes, Romney has toned down the hardline rhetoric he used in the primaries. The GOP convention is also being held in the key state of Florida, which is home to a large population of Hispanic voters that Republicans realize are key to the party’s electoral chances and future.

Kobach, who wrote Arizona's and Alabama’s controversial immigration laws, reminded the group of Republicans in a ballroom at the Marriott hotel here of Romney’s stated positions on the hot-button issue

“These positions are consistent with the Romney campaign,” he said. “As you all will remember one of the primary reasons that Gov. Romney rose past Gov. [Rick] Perry when Mr. Perry was achieving first place in the polls was because of his opposition to in-state tuition for illegal aliens.”

Kobach quoted a passage from Romney’s website that says the soon-to-be GOP nominee will build a high-tech fence and eliminate the magnets for illegal immigration.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79958.html

A Desert Mirage: 1 year later, no progress on state border fence

Arizona Capitol Times
July 19, 2012
by Jeremy Duda

A year after Arizona began a nationally publicized effort to build its own border fence through private contributions, not a single fencepost has gone up. And there are several barriers standing in the way of the project.

Fundraising for the project, spearheaded by Sen. Steve Smith, has almost completely dried up. The $273,000 raised by Build America’s Fence is probably not enough to erect even a mile of fencing.
And a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Smith said the group hired to raise money has not started collecting funds. The federal nonprofit status the group needs for its nationwide fundraising campaign has been pending for a year.

Furthermore, the committee hasn’t yet obtained the materials it needs to build any fencing. It hasn’t yet identified the land where the fencing will be built. And an inmate labor agreement Smith hopes to reach with the Arizona Department of Corrections is still in its infancy, at best.

Smith, R-Maricopa, said he’d hoped to have something to announce by July 20, the anniversary of the launch of www.buildtheborderfence.com and the effective date of the legislation creating the state- sanctioned effort. But things have taken longer than he’d hoped.

“If it were up to me, it would’ve been done on July 21 of last year,” Smith said. “It is a massive undertaking.”

But while no one expects Smith or the Joint Border Security Advisory Task Force, which oversees the project, to cover every unfenced area of Arizona’s 376-mile border with Mexico, Smith said he hopes to get something up soon. After a year of hammering out the details, Smith said he’s “very close” to starting work on part of the fence, which he hopes will be a one-mile section.

There are still a lot of details to work out before anything can be done. Smith said he’s in talks with two fencing companies after the first firm he dealt with, Betafence, had pledged to contribute materials. A change in management in Betafence put those talks on hold, Smith said.

Smith also acknowledged that the $273,000 that has been contributed to the Border Security Trust Fund may not even be enough for the first mile of fencing he wants to construct.

“My goal is to get the first mile in. Obviously, all this stuff costs more than ($273,000). The money we have ordinarily wouldn’t cover it, but we’re going to make those dollars stretch,” the freshman lawmaker said of his hope to use donated materials and cheap labor to build it.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2007 that a mile of double-steel fencing would cost about $1.5 million. A 2009 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimated the cost at $2.8 million per mile.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said this is exactly what he predicted last year when the border fence effort began. Campbell, a Phoenix Democrat, called the project a “political pyramid scheme.”

“I predicted this when it went through appropriations in 2011, that this would be a bill that would achieve absolutely nothing, would drain money away from people’s personal finances, and would accomplish absolutely zero in terms of addressing anything related to border security,” Campbell said. “This whole thing is an absolute fiasco and it’s been a joke since Day One.”

When the border fence project began in the summer of 2011, it got a lot of national media attention and the checks poured in immediately.

In August, the fund raised $213,000.

But it didn’t take long for the monthly fundraising number to drop from the hundreds of thousands to the thousands to the hundreds. In June of this year, the fund raised just $579. The month before, it raised nothing.

The Joint Border Security Advisory Task Force has its skeptics. Rep. Russ Jones, a Yuma Republican who co-chairs the committee, has long said that building a full fence would be nearly impossible.
But that doesn’t mean nothing will ever be built.

“I don’t think with the money that’s raised that it’s going to be a large area,” Jones said. “It may be more symbolic than anything. But it will be something.”

Even if only a mile or less of fencing goes up, Jones said it still could help U.S. Customs and Border Patrol with interdiction efforts.

And if something is built, Jones said it could help encourage more contributions to the fund.

Committee member Bas Aja, the head of the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association, said even a mile of fence would be welcome to border-area ranchers who live in fear.

“Those people down there are desperate. If they go down there and they can demonstrate that they can do something that will provide them additional security, I think people will accept it,” Aja said.
“They’re not going to get all of (the border) covered, but I think their intent is to try to demonstrate that there is a way to increase security, and they might be able to do that with some examples.”

Money may be hard to come by, but Aja said Smith won’t have any trouble finding ranchers and other landowners along the border who are willing to let the committee build on their land.

Smith said fundraising dries up when there’s no media attention. And media attention has been sparse. But that could change, he said, if he can get that first length of fencing up.

Build America’s Fence has hired a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm, and Smith said the firm believes building the first mile is the key to raising more money. The firm hasn’t been paid yet, Smith said, and will receive a portion of the funds it raises for the fence. Smith said he could not recall the name of the public relations firm.

“They say as soon as you can get construction going and of course get the first mile … or whatever up, they will then take that and deliver that quite literally across the country. But they’re asking for a solid, mother-of-all press releases,” he said. “They seem to think that once we get something in the ground they can certainly try to raise a whole heck of a lot more.”

Aja has a more grim prediction for what will cause the next spike in fundraising.

“But we will have another American citizen killed on the border, and when that happens they’ll see their fundraising increase again,” Aja said, evoking memories of Rob Krentz, the rancher whose murder by suspected Mexican drug cartels provided much of the momentum in favor of SB1070 in 2010.

Build America’s Fence will need more than actual physical barriers to raise money though. It needs nonprofit certification from the IRS, which has been pending for about a year. Arizona public relations consultant Jason Rose, who has worked with Smith on the border fence issue, said Build America’s Fence can’t conduct a substantial, nationwide direct mail campaign until it gets federal certification.

Smith is trying to negotiate good prices for fencing materials, which he said may be “green technology,” though he wouldn’t elaborate on what he meant. He also would not disclose the names of fencing companies he said he is talking with.

If anything actually goes up, Campbell said he expects it to be nothing more than a mile of chain-link fence.

“They’re using some technical term, but it’s a chain fence. You and I could probably cut it down in five minutes,” he said.

One way Smith had long hoped to save money on the fence was by using inmate labor from the Arizona Department of Corrections. But the company that builds the fence, he said, will decide for itself whether it wants to use inmate labor.

Once Smith has an agreement with a fencing company and landowners, he said he’ll go back to the joint committee for approval. His next chance will likely be August, when Jones said the committee will meet for the first time in months.

There’s nothing unusual about the lengthy amount of time it’s taken to start building, Smith said.
“Things take time. Clearly I wish this could go faster. But again, when you have so many parties involved — you’ve got contractors, you’ve got building supply materials, you’ve got installers, you’ve got principals of companies who live in different states and sometimes different companies. You’ve got a lot of people, engineers and everything else. Things like this just don’t happen overnight,” he said.

Smith said he’ll build fencing as long as there’s money to do so. And he’s hoping the money will roll in once a section gets built.

But even if nothing more than a mile ever goes up, Smith said it will still have been worth it.

“To call that a wasted effort, it’s just silly,” he said.

http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/07/19/a-desert-mirage-1-year-later-no-progress-on-state-border-fence/