Rio Grande Guardian
June 2, 2014
by Luis Montoya
LAREDO, June 2 - U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar on Monday called for the establishment of a multi-agency processing center on the border to deal with a recent influx of immigrant apprehensions.
In a letter sent to the chairs and ranking members of various House committees, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, the Cuellar pointed out that since the beginning of this year over 145,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector. This is more than a 65 percent increase over the same period of Fiscal Year 2013. If current rates continue, the Rio Grande Valley is expected to have over 240,000 apprehensions for Fiscal Year 2014, Cuellar wrote, in his letter. Cuellar said the Valley is currently at more than 190 percent of its temporary detention capacity. “We need to do a better job taking care of the children who are crossing the southern border unaccompanied and we must act immediately to avert a potential humanitarian crisis along the border,” Cuellar, D-Laredo, wrote. Cuellar sent a letter on the same day President Obama President Obama held a news conference at the White House to say there is an "urgent humanitarian situation" at the border. Obama referenced a surge of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing into the United States from Mexico. According to Kids in Need of Defense, a group that advocates for immigrant children and provides legal services during deportation proceedings, as many as 150,000 unaccompanied children could cross into the United States next. In fiscal year 2012 that number was 13,625, the group says. It rose to 24,668 in 2013. The government predicts as many as 60,000 children could enter the U.S. unaccompanied in 2014. Border Patrol cannot keep the children form more than 72 hours and so the numbers are overwhelming the agencies charged with catering for the children. Obama said he was placing Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate in charge of a group that will coordinate services among many federal agencies in order to better assist the minors apprehended at the border. The Office of Management and Budget says it will cost $2.28 billion next year to deal with minors caught at the southern border. This is more than the $868 million requested by the Obama Administration in March. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has urged cooperation between the United States, Mexico and several Central American countries on the issue of migrant children. Cuellar’s letter was sent to U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, ranking member of the same committee. It was also sent to U.S. Rep. John Carter, chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, and U.S. Rep. David Price, ranking member of the same committee. Cuellar’s letter was sent also to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, and U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, ranking member of the same committee. It was also sent to U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the same committee. Here is Cuellar’s letter in full: June 2, 2014 In recent weeks, the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas has experienced an unprecedented influx of undocumented immigrant apprehensions and detentions, many of which are unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico. These crossings have created a resource crisis in the Rio Grande Valley that demands immediate attention from the federal government and the Appropriations Committee. Since the beginning of this year, over 145,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector, a more than 65 percent increase over the same period of Fiscal Year 2013. If current rates continue, the Rio Grande Valley is expected to have over 240,000 apprehensions for Fiscal Year 2014. On average, over 70 percent of apprehensions are Other Than Mexicans (OTM) and a large percentage of them are Unaccompanied Children (UAC). Currently, the Rio Grande Valley is apprehending approximately 300 UACs on a daily basis. I represent much of this area in the 28th District of Texas, which stretches from San Antonio in the north to Laredo and the much of the upper Rio Grande Valley. I have had extensive personal conversations with the men and women of Border Patrol in the past few weeks about this ongoing issue and they have laid out the issues straining the resources and personnel of Border Patrol. Every undocumented immigrant that is apprehended while attempting to cross the border must be processed by Border Patrol. With this unprecedented surge in crossings, the Rio Grande Valley is currently at more than 190 percent of its temporary detention capacity. Those that are detained are then transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many others are released with a notice to appear before an immigration judge at a future date. This resource crisis requires a multi-agency response involving the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Justice. Because of the massive influx of immigrants being apprehended at the border, it is necessary to create a central location in which all elements of the adjudication process can be completed. We need to do a better job taking care of the children who are crossing the southern border unaccompanied and we must act immediately to avert a potential humanitarian crisis along the border. I am committed to working with Chairwoman Kay Granger, Ranking Member David Price, and the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee to work with our partners in Mexico and other Central American countries. Thank you for your consideration. If you require further information, do not hesitate to contact me, my legislative director Megan Swearingen, or my legislative assistant Wendell White at 225-1640. Sincerely, Henry Cuellar, PhD U.S. Congressman Texas District 28
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Monday, June 2, 2014
Friday, April 11, 2014
Hoping for Asylum, Migrants Strain U.S. Border
New York Times
April 10, 2014
by Julia Preston
April 10, 2014
by Julia Preston
HIDALGO, Tex. — Border Patrol agents in olive uniforms stood in broad daylight on the banks of the Rio Grande, while on the Mexican side smugglers pulled up in vans and unloaded illegal migrants.
The agents were clearly visible on that recent afternoon, but the migrants were undeterred. Mainly women and children, 45 in all, they crossed the narrow river on the smugglers’ rafts, scrambled up the bluff and turned themselves in, signaling a growing challenge for the immigration authorities.
After six years of steep declines across the Southwest, illegal crossings have soared in South Texas while remaining low elsewhere. The Border Patrol made more than 90,700 apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley in the past six months, a 69 percent increase over last year.
The migrants are no longer primarily Mexican laborers. Instead they are Central Americans, including many families with small children and youngsters without their parents, who risk a danger-filled journey across Mexico. Driven out by deepening poverty but also by rampant gang violence, increasing numbers of migrants caught here seek asylum, setting off lengthy legal procedures to determine whether they qualify.
The new migrant flow, largely from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, is straining resources and confounding Obama administration security strategies that work effectively in other regions. It is further complicating President Obama’s uphill push on immigration, fueling Republican arguments for more border security before any overhaul.
With detention facilities, asylum offices and immigration courts overwhelmed, enough migrants have been released temporarily in the United States that back home in Central America people have heard that those who make it to American soil have a good chance of staying.
“Word has gotten out that we’re giving people permission and walking them out the door,” said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent who is vice president of the local of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents’ union. “So they’re coming across in droves.”
In Mexican border cities like Reynosa, just across the river, migrants have become easy prey for Mexican drug cartels that have seized control of the human smuggling business, heightening perils for illegal crossers and security risks for the United States.
At the Rio Grande that afternoon, the smugglers calculatedly sent the migrants across at a point where the water is too shallow for Border Patrol boats that might have turned them back safely at the midriver boundary between the United States and Mexico.
A Border Patrol chief, Raul Ortiz, watched in frustration from a helicopter overhead. “Somebody probably told them they’re going to get released,” he said. As agents booked them, the migrants waited quietly: a Guatemalan mother carrying a toddler with a baby bottle, another with an infant wrapped in blankets.
A 9-year-old girl said she was traveling by herself, hoping to rejoin her mother and two brothers in Louisiana. But she did not know where in Louisiana they were. After a two-week journey from Honduras, her only connection to them was one telephone number on a scrap of paper.
A Honduran woman said the group had followed the instructions of the Mexican smugglers. “They just told us to cross and start walking,” she said.
Other migrants were trying to elude the Border Patrol, and within the hour Chief Ortiz saw his interdiction efforts working according to plan. A short way upriver in deeper water, agents radioed that they had turned back a raft with eight “bodies.”
Moments later a surveillance blimp cruising nearby detected people lying under dense brush. As the helicopter swooped low, the pilot spotted sneakers at the base of the trees. Agents on the ground flushed out nine migrants, all men.
“Technology, air operations, ground units, that’s the complete package,” Chief Ortiz said.
The new migrants head for South Texas because it is the shortest distance from Central America. Many young people ride across Mexico on top of freight trains, jumping off in Reynosa.
The Rio Grande twists and winds, and those who make it across can quickly hide in sugar cane fields and orchards. In many places it is a short sprint to shopping malls and suburban streets where smugglers pick up migrants to continue north.
Border Patrol officials said apprehensions were higher partly because they were catching many more of the illegal crossers. About 3,000 agents in the Rio Grande Valley — 495 new this year — patrol in helicopters and boats, on all-terrain vehicles and horseback. Drones and aerostat blimps are watching from the sky. Under a new strategy, border agencies are working with federal drug agents, the F.B.I. and Texas police to break up Mexican smuggling organizations by prosecuting operatives on this side of the border.
But whereas Mexicans can be swiftly returned by the Border Patrol, migrants from noncontiguous countries must be formally deported and flown home by other agencies. Even though federal flights are leaving South Texas every day, Central Americans are often detained longer.
Women with children are detained separately. But because the nearest facility for “family units” is in Pennsylvania, families apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley are likely to be released while their cases proceed, a senior deportations official said.
Minors without parents are turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services, which holds them in shelters that provide medical care and schooling and tries to send them to relatives in the United States. The authorities here are expecting 35,000 unaccompanied minors this year, triple the number two years ago.
Under asylum law, border agents are required to ask migrants if they are afraid of returning to their countries. If the answer is yes, migrants must be detained until an immigration officer interviews them to determine if the fear is credible. If the officer concludes it is, the migrant can petition for asylum. An immigration judge will decide whether there is a “well-founded fear of persecution” based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or “membership in a particular social group.”
Immigration officials said they had set the bar intentionally low for the initial “credible fear” test, to avoid turning away a foreigner in danger. In 2013, 85 percent of fear claims were found to be credible, according to federal figures.
As more Central Americans have come, fear claims have spiked, more than doubling in 2013 to 36,026 from 13,931 in 2012.
The chances have not improved much to win asylum in the end, however. In 2012, immigration courts approved 34 percent of asylum petitions from migrants facing deportation — 2,888 cases nationwide. Many Central Americans say they are fleeing extortion or forced recruitment by criminal gangs. But immigration courts have rarely recognized those threats as grounds for asylum.
Yet because of immense backlogs in the courts — with the average wait for a hearing currently at about 19 months — claiming fear of return has allowed some Central Americans to prolong their time in the United States.
Detention beds fill up, and migrants deemed to present no security risk are released under supervision, officials said, with their next court hearing often more than a year away.
At their now teeming front-line stations along the river, Border Patrol officials readily admit they are not set up to hold migrants for long. Agents and migrants alike refer to the cells there as “hieleras” — freezers.
In cinder-block rooms with concrete benches and a toilet in the corner, there are no chairs, beds, showers or hot food. On a recent day, migrants caked in river mud were packed shoulder to shoulder, many on the floor, trying to warm up in space blankets the Border Patrol provides. Some held their fingers to their lips to signal hunger.
But agents said they have accelerated their work so more migrants are deported directly from Border Patrol stations in as little as two days. Officials said few migrants — only 4 percent — claim fear of returning when they are with the Border Patrol.
Rather, migrants are claiming fear after they are sent to longer-term detention centers like Port Isabel, leading officials to suspect they have been coached by other detainees.
But lawyers for asylum seekers said migrants frequently report that Border Patrol agents never asked them about their concerns, or that they were too exhausted or intimidated to express them in the hours after being caught.
“A lot of times these people had very real, legitimate fears,” said Kimi Jackson, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, known as ProBAR. “But it seems to them they were not asked the questions by the Border Patrol in the type of situation where they could talk freely.”
Lawyers said officials had started to make it far harder for migrants to win release by requiring many more to post bond, with rates rising to as high as $10,000.
That news had not reached migrants at a shelter run by nuns in Reynosa. Several said they were heading to the United States to seek “asilo.” They could say truthfully they were afraid to go home.
Luis Fernando Herrera Perdomo, 19, said he fled Honduras after gang members shot and killed a brother who was sleeping in the bed next to his.
A 29-year-old former soldier from El Salvador, who asked to be identified only as Jesús, said he left his wife and three children to escape a gang that came gunning for him because he arrested some of its members while in the army.
In Reynosa, the dangers had only multiplied. José Rubén Hernández, 32, said he had been kidnapped for two weeks while Mexican smugglers extorted $10,000 in ransom from his frantic family in Honduras.
“We are a gold mine for the cartels,” he said.
Other migrants had been imprisoned in a smugglers’ stash house until Mexican military troops stormed it to free them. Two Hondurans who had just arrived at the shelter displayed new bruises, saying they had been beaten that morning in a rail yard by smugglers associated with the Zetas, a brutal Mexican cartel.
But the migrants still intended to hire new smugglers and try to cross. “I’m still alive and I have faith in God, so I will try to make it over to the other side,” Mr. Herrera said.
Chief Ortiz said agents were speeding deportations to change the message reaching Central America.
“It cost the migrant an awful lot of money and time and effort to get here,” he said. “If I send somebody back to Guatemala or Honduras, chances are they’re going to sit there and say, ‘You know what, I don’t think I’m going to try this again.’ ”
“The word may get out,” he said
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Pharr PD: Salvadoran man loses pinky finger to border fence
The Monitor
November 18, 2013
by Daniella Diaz
PHARR — A man who scaled the border fence wound up losing a finger after it got caught in the fence, authorities said.
November 18, 2013
by Daniella Diaz
PHARR — A man who scaled the border fence wound up losing a finger after it got caught in the fence, authorities said.
Friday night, police responded to a call from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about a 22-year-old man from El Salvador who had jumped the fence, according to a Pharr police news release.
Police found Hector Anibal Aguila lying in the grass under the bridge, holding his hand up, according to the release. He told police that his hand got caught along the fence and it severed his right pinky finger.
He was transported to Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco for treatment and then was turned over to Border Patrol.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Sister of border agency leader pleads guilty to human smuggling charge
Center for Investigative Reporting
November 1, 2013
by Andrew Becker
The sister of the top-ranking U.S. Customs and Border Protection official in Arizona pleaded guilty Thursday to smuggling an immigrant through a Border Patrol checkpoint near Tucson in the car she was driving, her defense attorney said.
Tammy Leigh Stephens, 52, of Phoenix, admitted in U.S. District Court in Tucson to aiding and abetting an illegal entry. As part of a plea agreement, a second charge of transporting a migrant not authorized to be in the U.S. for financial gain was dropped, her attorney, Eric S. Manch, said in a telephone interview.
Stephens is the sister of Jeffrey Self, the commander of the agency’s Arizona Joint Field Command, which, under his control, unifies three major border operations in the state and includes one of the busiest smuggling corridors along the Southwest U.S. border.
Agency officials said they have no information that suggests any employees were involved or aware of the alleged criminal activity, including Self.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection “is fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and will refer all questions to them,” Melanie Roe, the agency’s assistant commissioner for public affairs, said in a written statement.
Stephens and a co-defendant, Jason Miles English, who pleaded guilty to the same charge Wednesday, were sentenced to 30 days each, said Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. He declined to answer other questions related to the prosecution.
A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, Self has stepped aside from any involvement with his sister’s case, officials said. In the interim, he will be reassigned to Washington, where he will serve as the acting deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Training and Development. In that role, he will lead efforts to implement recently announced changes to the agency’s use-of-force policies and practices.
The union that represents Border Patrol agents took issue with Self's reassignment.
“A normal Border Patrol agent who had a close relative arrested for alien smuggling would themselves be investigated by internal affairs and the Border Patrol, not rewarded and reassigned to a high-profile position within the agency,” said Shawn Moran, a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Alan Bersin, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, appointed Self as the first commander of the Joint Field Command when it was created in 2011. Martin Vaughan, an official with the agency’s Office of Air and Marine, will serve as the Joint Field Command’s acting commander.
The offices that fall under the Arizona Joint Field Command – the U.S. Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations, and the Office of Air and Marine – include operations at some of the agency’s biggest Border Patrol stations, various border crossings and other ports of entry, and unmanned aerial vehicles and other aircraft.
Arizona is a major transit area for human and drug smuggling and has been a major focus for the agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In fiscal year 2012, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 124,631 unauthorized border crossers in Arizona, the lowest number in 19 years, while capturing more than 1.1 million pounds of drugs between and at border crossings and other ports, according to the agency.
The family relation makes for an uncommon situation, but defense attorneys for Stephens and co-defendant English described the alleged smuggling attempt as nothing unusual for that area.
“There’s not really anything about the case that seems out of the ordinary,” said Manch.
Stephens was driving a white Mitsubishi Galant with two passengers Oct. 20 when she approached a Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 85 near Why, Ariz, according to the criminal complaint signed by a Border Patrol agent.
When an agent asked the nationality of a passenger, Marlene Josefina Rodriguez-Fernandez, Stephens answered that the woman was a U.S. citizen, the complaint shows.
Rodriguez-Fernandez presented a U.S. passport that did not belong to her and eventually admitted that she was not a citizen or national of the United States and did not have documents that permitted her to be in the country.
She told the Border Patrol that she made arrangements to be smuggled into the United States and agreed to pay money for the use of a U.S. passport, the complaint shows. She was told to go to a gas station after crossing the border and board a car with a female driver, who turned out to be Stephens.
English later entered the car, asked for an identification document from Rodriguez-Fernandez and told her “to say that they were returning from partying in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico,” the complaint shows.
English admitted to the Border Patrol that he agreed to accompany Stephens to the border to “pick up a friend,” according to the complaint.
There's no indication Stephens has been involved in smuggling before, Manch said. He said there were "a lot of reasons" for her decision to be involved in the smuggling attempt, but it was complicated and he declined to give more specifics. He said she was aware of her brother's involvement in border security but did not know his specific role.
"She's embarrassed enough about this incident” and just wants to get back to her life, he said.
http://cironline.org/reports/sister-border-agency-leader-pleads-guilty-human-smuggling-charge-5493
November 1, 2013
by Andrew Becker
The sister of the top-ranking U.S. Customs and Border Protection official in Arizona pleaded guilty Thursday to smuggling an immigrant through a Border Patrol checkpoint near Tucson in the car she was driving, her defense attorney said.
Tammy Leigh Stephens, 52, of Phoenix, admitted in U.S. District Court in Tucson to aiding and abetting an illegal entry. As part of a plea agreement, a second charge of transporting a migrant not authorized to be in the U.S. for financial gain was dropped, her attorney, Eric S. Manch, said in a telephone interview.
Stephens is the sister of Jeffrey Self, the commander of the agency’s Arizona Joint Field Command, which, under his control, unifies three major border operations in the state and includes one of the busiest smuggling corridors along the Southwest U.S. border.
Agency officials said they have no information that suggests any employees were involved or aware of the alleged criminal activity, including Self.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection “is fully cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and will refer all questions to them,” Melanie Roe, the agency’s assistant commissioner for public affairs, said in a written statement.
Stephens and a co-defendant, Jason Miles English, who pleaded guilty to the same charge Wednesday, were sentenced to 30 days each, said Cosme Lopez, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona. He declined to answer other questions related to the prosecution.
A 25-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, Self has stepped aside from any involvement with his sister’s case, officials said. In the interim, he will be reassigned to Washington, where he will serve as the acting deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Training and Development. In that role, he will lead efforts to implement recently announced changes to the agency’s use-of-force policies and practices.
The union that represents Border Patrol agents took issue with Self's reassignment.
“A normal Border Patrol agent who had a close relative arrested for alien smuggling would themselves be investigated by internal affairs and the Border Patrol, not rewarded and reassigned to a high-profile position within the agency,” said Shawn Moran, a vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
Alan Bersin, then commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, appointed Self as the first commander of the Joint Field Command when it was created in 2011. Martin Vaughan, an official with the agency’s Office of Air and Marine, will serve as the Joint Field Command’s acting commander.
The offices that fall under the Arizona Joint Field Command – the U.S. Border Patrol, Office of Field Operations, and the Office of Air and Marine – include operations at some of the agency’s biggest Border Patrol stations, various border crossings and other ports of entry, and unmanned aerial vehicles and other aircraft.
Arizona is a major transit area for human and drug smuggling and has been a major focus for the agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In fiscal year 2012, Customs and Border Protection apprehended 124,631 unauthorized border crossers in Arizona, the lowest number in 19 years, while capturing more than 1.1 million pounds of drugs between and at border crossings and other ports, according to the agency.
The family relation makes for an uncommon situation, but defense attorneys for Stephens and co-defendant English described the alleged smuggling attempt as nothing unusual for that area.
“There’s not really anything about the case that seems out of the ordinary,” said Manch.
Stephens was driving a white Mitsubishi Galant with two passengers Oct. 20 when she approached a Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 85 near Why, Ariz, according to the criminal complaint signed by a Border Patrol agent.
When an agent asked the nationality of a passenger, Marlene Josefina Rodriguez-Fernandez, Stephens answered that the woman was a U.S. citizen, the complaint shows.
Rodriguez-Fernandez presented a U.S. passport that did not belong to her and eventually admitted that she was not a citizen or national of the United States and did not have documents that permitted her to be in the country.
She told the Border Patrol that she made arrangements to be smuggled into the United States and agreed to pay money for the use of a U.S. passport, the complaint shows. She was told to go to a gas station after crossing the border and board a car with a female driver, who turned out to be Stephens.
English later entered the car, asked for an identification document from Rodriguez-Fernandez and told her “to say that they were returning from partying in Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico,” the complaint shows.
English admitted to the Border Patrol that he agreed to accompany Stephens to the border to “pick up a friend,” according to the complaint.
There's no indication Stephens has been involved in smuggling before, Manch said. He said there were "a lot of reasons" for her decision to be involved in the smuggling attempt, but it was complicated and he declined to give more specifics. He said she was aware of her brother's involvement in border security but did not know his specific role.
"She's embarrassed enough about this incident” and just wants to get back to her life, he said.
http://cironline.org/reports/sister-border-agency-leader-pleads-guilty-human-smuggling-charge-5493
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Ted Cruz tried to boost border security in immigration bill
Dallas Morning News
May 9, 2013
by Alexandria Baca
WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tried to add significant security resources along the U.S.-Mexico border as a Senate committee debated immigration legislation Thursday, but his amendment was rejected.
Cruz proposed tripling the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border and quadrupling equipment, “including cameras, sensors, drones and helicopters,” within three years. He also would have required that 700 miles of border fence called for in a 2006 law be finished.
If the Department of Homeland Security failed to comply, 20 percent of its budget for the next year would be shifted as block grants to border states. But the amendment was voted down, 13-5. Sen. John Cornyn was among those supporting his fellow Texas Republican.
Cruz also clashed with New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who complained that the Texas freshman was falsely accusing the committee of failing to take security seriously.
“Let’s not keep bringing up this false issue,” Schumer said, raising his voice slightly. Border security isn’t the real issue he said, but rather the fact that Cruz won’t support any immigration legislation that offers a path to citizenship for the 11 million people already in the country illegally.
Cornyn came to Cruz’s defense, saying all was going well on the committee before Schumer “impugned people’s motives.”
Cruz and Schumer continued to pick at each other for another few minutes, and Cruz invited all of the members to visit the Texas-Mexico border to see the “broken immigration system” that has motivated his amendments.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130509-ted-cruz-tried-to-boost-border-security-in-immigration-bill.ece
May 9, 2013
by Alexandria Baca
WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tried to add significant security resources along the U.S.-Mexico border as a Senate committee debated immigration legislation Thursday, but his amendment was rejected.
Cruz proposed tripling the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border and quadrupling equipment, “including cameras, sensors, drones and helicopters,” within three years. He also would have required that 700 miles of border fence called for in a 2006 law be finished.
If the Department of Homeland Security failed to comply, 20 percent of its budget for the next year would be shifted as block grants to border states. But the amendment was voted down, 13-5. Sen. John Cornyn was among those supporting his fellow Texas Republican.
Cruz also clashed with New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, who complained that the Texas freshman was falsely accusing the committee of failing to take security seriously.
“Let’s not keep bringing up this false issue,” Schumer said, raising his voice slightly. Border security isn’t the real issue he said, but rather the fact that Cruz won’t support any immigration legislation that offers a path to citizenship for the 11 million people already in the country illegally.
Cornyn came to Cruz’s defense, saying all was going well on the committee before Schumer “impugned people’s motives.”
Cruz and Schumer continued to pick at each other for another few minutes, and Cruz invited all of the members to visit the Texas-Mexico border to see the “broken immigration system” that has motivated his amendments.
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20130509-ted-cruz-tried-to-boost-border-security-in-immigration-bill.ece
Monday, May 6, 2013
The Fence Junkies
Slate
May 6, 2013
by David Weigel
HEREFORD, Ariz. – Glenn Spencer wakes every day in pitch dark, at 3 a.m., a habit he picked up in the last couple of years. “I do my best thinking in the morning,” he explains. The early morning is also when he usually gets an audio tape intercepting chatter between U.S. border patrol agents, which he edits for public consumption. He always uses this information to plot a map of border crossings. Spencer’s group, American Border Patrol, will release all of this online.
May 6, 2013
by David Weigel
HEREFORD, Ariz. – Glenn Spencer wakes every day in pitch dark, at 3 a.m., a habit he picked up in the last couple of years. “I do my best thinking in the morning,” he explains. The early morning is also when he usually gets an audio tape intercepting chatter between U.S. border patrol agents, which he edits for public consumption. He always uses this information to plot a map of border crossings. Spencer’s group, American Border Patrol, will release all of this online.
I wake up at 4 a.m. in the “Coronado house” that Spencer opens for visitors to his 104-acre property on the U.S.-Mexico border. The property abuts a border fence that sinks 6 feet into the ground and shoots up 18 feet above it. I got there at sundown the day before, which meant turning off Arizona State Route 92, past a wary border patrol agent, and driving five miles of dirt roads past dozens of ranches.* All of them sport sturdy fences around the dirt and brush. Many of them are for sale.
Years ago Spencer bought this compound from one of those sellers, a retired colonel who couldn’t put up with the drug cartel shootouts. Four years after the construction of that fence, there aren’t any shootouts. It’s a “gated community,” a “little Shangri-La,” says Spencer. The rehabbed guesthouse sits in front of a landscaped pond, and Spencer keeps a sound system and laptop outside, piping jazzy covers of pop-rock hits. At night the only light comes from the stars, the Mexican mining town of Cananea, and from a border patrol floodlight so intense you could sit on your porch and read by the glow.
But this isn’t what wakes me up. Spencer owns seven German Shepherds, and some of them have started howling for attention. At 7 a.m. sharp, Spencer drives from his place to the guesthouse on an ATV. Seventy-five years old, with the cheerful look and vocal rasp of Santa Claus in some Rankin/Bass animation, he speculates that the dogs staying with him were disagreeing with the dog staying with me. The dog that spent the night in my quarters is covered in black-and-white spots and named Migra—as in la migra, immigration police.
But this isn’t what wakes me up. Spencer owns seven German Shepherds, and some of them have started howling for attention. At 7 a.m. sharp, Spencer drives from his place to the guesthouse on an ATV. Seventy-five years old, with the cheerful look and vocal rasp of Santa Claus in some Rankin/Bass animation, he speculates that the dogs staying with him were disagreeing with the dog staying with me. The dog that spent the night in my quarters is covered in black-and-white spots and named Migra—as in la migra, immigration police.
“She doesn’t get along with the others,” says Spencer.
Spencer, who has devoted the last 20 years of his life to the immigration wars, kicks his doors wide open for the media. When the Southern Poverty Law Center designates you “anti-immigrant” and a “vitriolic Mexican-basher,” what choice do you have? He’s showed up to legislative hearings in Phoenix and Democrats have walked out. He’s been in touch with the office of his congressman, Democratic Rep. Ron Barber, but apart from that he’s “persona non grata.”
So he talks to the press—and, he says, to defense contractors. Spencer initially invited me to the border to watch a trial run of a new gyroscopic surveillance drone designed by his team. The nucleus of the Spencer operation is actually Border Technology, Inc., headquartered a short walk from the guesthouse (just past a horse stable), and made famous in 2003 and 2004 when it started running homemade Border Hawk planes on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico fence. Two years ago, Spencer buried seismic sensors, the kind that he used to find oil deposits in his private sector days, to test whether they could trace border movements.
“I was a good systems engineering thinker,” he says. “That’s what I’m applying right now. Here I am trying to present technology trying to solve the border problem, and the whole thing is about what a hateful guy I am! What the hell is happening in this country?”
What Spencer thinks is happening is that waves of illegal immigrants from Mexico have weakened America, and could weaken it further. This is specifically why he bothers the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the 1990s, while living in his native California, Spencer worked to pass Proposition 187 (which denied state benefits to the undocumented), and recoiled in horror when it was stymied by politicians and the courts. He started warning of a “Mexican takeover of the southwestern United States,” and in 2001 he delivered a homemade video about this, Immigration: Threatening the Bonds of Our Union, to every member of Congress.* DVDs of Spencer’s videos about “Aztlan” sit around Border Technology’s workrooms, right next to the CubeX 3-D printer the company just bought, to make plastic components for the new drones.
“I moved here because it was clear that California was just gone,” says Spencer. His old state went socialist, thanks to immigrants who grab at benefits, hospital care, and food stamps that we pay for. “Here’s a question. Why are 50 percent of the students at UCLA from Asia? Why are they not 70 percent Latinos? That’s because of a different attitude [toward] education. Instead of being launched into a brave new world of science and technology, we’re going backward. We keep this up, we’re going to be a Third-World country—the only one with nuclear weapons. Nobody’s ever thought of that? Us, turning into a third world country?”
“I moved here because it was clear that California was just gone,” says Spencer. His old state went socialist, thanks to immigrants who grab at benefits, hospital care, and food stamps that we pay for. “Here’s a question. Why are 50 percent of the students at UCLA from Asia? Why are they not 70 percent Latinos? That’s because of a different attitude [toward] education. Instead of being launched into a brave new world of science and technology, we’re going backward. We keep this up, we’re going to be a Third-World country—the only one with nuclear weapons. Nobody’s ever thought of that? Us, turning into a third world country?”
This is rhetorical: Plenty of people have thought about that. That’s why the grand project of closing down the border with technology is such a risk. The senators currently trying to legalize millions of immigrants are in on the plan—not Spencer’s plan, exactly, but an impressive-sounding matrix that borrows from what we’ve learned in foreign wars. If they get their way, we’ll have a secure border and a growing immigrant population.
So Spencer and his team keep the discussion to two main topics: The reality of the border and the technology that could close it. The American Border Patrol’s compound is a short walk from the border itself, separated by rough red desert, bushes, and tufts of brown grass.
They estimate that the Identiseis project, the burying-sensors-in-the-ground plan, would cost $100,000 per mile. Sensors could be buried up to 6-feet deep, run on solar power—a massive green jobs initiative that tracks the footsteps of people trying to walk from Mexico into Texas or Arizona. The total price tag—maybe $200,000,000 to secure the entire border—sounds ludicrous, and apart from the defense contractor that Spencer can’t name (“one of the big five”), no one could verify it, but it’s roughly 5 percent of the cost of the border fence, and less than Boeing was going to ask for its own scheme—known as the Secure Border Initiative—had it actually worked before a disappointed Department of Homeland Security scrapped it in 2011.
Standing on the porch as Migra trots around the yard, I get the full spiel from Mike White, Spencer’s business partner and designer for 10 years, an athletic guy sporting a soul patch and wearing a polo shirt from his side job as a paramedic.
Standing on the porch as Migra trots around the yard, I get the full spiel from Mike White, Spencer’s business partner and designer for 10 years, an athletic guy sporting a soul patch and wearing a polo shirt from his side job as a paramedic.
“For what we gave Boeing for that SBI disaster,” says White, “you could run this along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. And the Canada border. And you could take the rest of the money and retire. I don’t know why they’re not banging our doors down.”
“If the people who wanted legalization were thinking straight,” says Spencer, “they’d drive up to American Border Patrol and they’d bring out signs and start chanting. ‘We want this! We need this!’ They’d do that if they wanted to stop the drug trade? Right? Wouldn’t they?”
White laughs. “You wonder if they really want this secured. They land things on Mars, you know? How can they not secure our border?”
White laughs. “You wonder if they really want this secured. They land things on Mars, you know? How can they not secure our border?”
“They can find life on Mars, but they can’t find life on our border,” says Spencer.
“If people with water bottles and a backpack with no training can walk into this country without being detected,” White continues, “what would stop people with guns and bombs from doing that?”
Once, to prove how bad the security truly was, American Border Patrol staged a “terrorist” border crossing. White created a faux suitcase nuke, put it in a backpack with a prominent nuclear symbol, and snuck across the border. Twice. Spencer gives me an ATV tour of the area they were able to sneak past, which has changed plenty. He cuts a path between two 18-wheeler-sized plywood signs:
SAVE THE UNITED STATES
SECURE THE BORDER
SECURE THE BORDER
The words are spelled out by miniature American flags. Attached to each flag is a message from one of the group’s donors—“Thank you for what you do” or a quote from some patriotic text. Twenty thousand of these flags are arrayed between the full text of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase. “When we get another 20,000 of these from American citizens, we need to think of a new sign,” he says. “Maybe: Good fences make good neighbors.”
We drive on and park at the fence. Spencer happily takes credit for it: He started filming the action on the border in 2003, and by 2009, presto, contractors were putting up the rust-colored barrier. “You can still see the flags we put on the old barbed wire fence,” says Spencer. The new fence curves west to a low mountain range where Spencer and other watchers used to spot migrants, clambering up old mining paths on ATVs. Going east the fence tapers off, replaced by a “Normandy fence.” It’s a run of X-shaped metal girders, about five feet high, hard but not that hard to clamber over. Grazing cows meander on the other side of the barrier. More of them stroll along the shallow river where the fence stops. A border patrol agent keeps his eye on the river. He waves at us as we take some photos.
When we’re done, Spencer and White set up the dry run of the seismic test. The drone test won’t happen, because they flew it yesterday, and after a few minutes the helicopter banked too hard and plummeted to the ground. The designers speculate that a flawed battery placement brought it down, something that can be easily fixed once they get more material for the 3-D printer.
When we’re done, Spencer and White set up the dry run of the seismic test. The drone test won’t happen, because they flew it yesterday, and after a few minutes the helicopter banked too hard and plummeted to the ground. The designers speculate that a flawed battery placement brought it down, something that can be easily fixed once they get more material for the 3-D printer.
So we wait for the seismic test, as a stiff wind whips the high desert. “Normally the sensor would work within 600 feet,” says Spencer, “but this might cut to 400. If it’s raining, you’d see it get cut to 300.” Three of Spencer’s some-time employees, including the guy who landscaped the lovely guesthouse pond, stroll out to the border fence past markers denoting every 200 feet. They wait for the signal.
“Go now,” says White.
They walk at a normal pace and barely hit the 600-foot marker before the foghorn sensor goes off.
“That’s great, that’s better than I thought,” says Spencer. “Isn’t that amazing? That seismograph was buried for two years. The manufacturer says it can work for 10 years without maintenance. I’m telling you, when we have this thing ready, in another 30 days, this sensor will work and the chopper will pop up, fly, and take pictures. We will do that. We will do that.”
“That’s great, that’s better than I thought,” says Spencer. “Isn’t that amazing? That seismograph was buried for two years. The manufacturer says it can work for 10 years without maintenance. I’m telling you, when we have this thing ready, in another 30 days, this sensor will work and the chopper will pop up, fly, and take pictures. We will do that. We will do that.”
It’s time to check out of the guesthouse. I add my name to a rundown of foreign journalists, state senators, and Tea Party activists who’d stayed in the house since the renovation, and I drive to the suburbs of Tucson two hours up the road. Sen. John McCain is holding the second of two town halls in mostly-hostile territory. One high schooler asks him why we should let border-crossers become citizens “when one in five has a criminal record.” (McCain points out that this isn’t true.) But he disarms the critics.
“In Iraq, we developed incredible technology, Gen. Petraeus did, because of the IED problem,” says McCain. “They developed a radar which not only surveils the types of people doing things, but believe it or not, this radar tracks them back to where they came from. We need to have this radar all across our border, and the sensors and the drones, so we can assure the people of this country, the people of Arizona, that we have effective control of our border.”
McCain keeps coming back to that point. Mike Wilson, an activist with the Tohono O’odham nation near Tucson, listens politely. He’s “wearing his tribal hat” today, he tells me, but he works with the Border Action Network, one of several groups that tries to assist immigrants crossing from Mexico by leaving supplies for them in the desert. He is about as far away from Glenn Spencer’s worldview as anyone can get. He supports what McCain’s doing—“we need to get the immigration train out of the station.” And although he’s not convinced that the militarization of the border is the answer, his nation is convinced.
“They live in fear of drugs coming across,” says Wilson. “I have to acknowledge that. I have to honor those fears. When I go down there and try to talk to human rights violations, they tell me: You don’t live here. You live comfortably. You don’t have to worry about your kid getting off at a bus stop in the desert and walking half a mile as drug cartels are moving past them.” They don’t have any problem with border drones or militarization? “They want it,” says Wilson.
Spencer wants it, too. He wouldn’t mind if his technology becomes the backbone for the barrier, and he scores a contract. (“You want to know how to make a small fortune on the border?” he says. “Start with a large fortune.”) But he’s most interested in getting illegal border crossings below 20,000 per year, down from the high six figures that try crossing now. There are supporters of pure open borders, sure, but in politics there’s no real disagreement anymore about locking down the border with whatever technology it takes. Either the restrictionists win, and the solution stops there, or the legalizers win, and the immigrants who’ve made it to Spencer’s side of the border get to stay there.
*Correction, May 6, 2013: This article misstated the name of the Arizona highway David Weigel turned off to get to Glenn Spencer's property on the U.S.-Mexico border. It is Arizona Route 92. It also misstated the name of the homemade video Spencer delivered to members of Congress. It is called Immigration: Threatening the Bonds of Our Union, not Bonds of Our Nation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/05/glenn_spencer_s_american_border_patrol_is_waging_a_high_tech_campaign_to.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/05/glenn_spencer_s_american_border_patrol_is_waging_a_high_tech_campaign_to.html
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
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
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
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
In Arizona, border security in spotlight amid immigration-reform efforts, sequester cuts
Washington Post
March 17, 2013
by Pamela Constable
NACO, Ariz. — With the winter sun’s glare bouncing off his old red pickup, John Ladd drives slowly along the 10-foot wall of iron stakes and steel mesh that crosses his 14,000-acre cattle ranch, dividing his great-grandfather’s land from the Mexican desert but not always keeping intruders out.
“Here’s where the drug smugglers cut through the wall in January,” Ladd says, pointing to a large jagged square in the metal that has since been rewelded. “They use blowtorches and hydraulic grinders. They can get a truck through in minutes, and as soon as they reach the highway they’re gone.”
Ladd’s ranch in the southeastern corner of Arizona is dotted with cameras on stilts, and U.S. Border Patrol trucks cruise the range daily, scattering his Herefords and Angus. Beyond the wall, Mexican soldiers patrol in Humvees. Before it was erected in 2007, illegal migrants constantly camped in his bushes on their way north. These days, fewer make the attempt, but a more sophisticated and dangerous threat has replaced them.
“There’s less people but more drugs,” Ladd says. “The cartels control everything that crosses. The Border Patrol has a huge presence, but it’s not enough, and it’s not the answer. No matter what they say in Washington, the border is not secure.”
The issue of border security — hard to measure but easy to manipulate — has long been a sticking point in the debate over illegal immigration. The Obama administration, hoping to win congressional support for an overhaul of immigration law, increased spending on customs and border enforcement to a record $12 billion in 2012, and it claims to have reduced infiltration of the 2,000-mile U.S.-
Mexico border to its lowest level in decades.
But now, with the across-the-board sequester cuts expected to take a $500 million bite out of the immigration enforcement budget and cut the equivalent of 5,000 jobs from a Border Patrol force of 21,000 agents, new concerns over border violence and drug smuggling are being raised by administration critics, immigration officers and some border-area residents.
Back at center of debate
Arizona, a Republican-led border state, has long played an outsize role in the immigration wars. It enacted the nation’s toughest law against illegal immigrants in 2010, has spawned vigilante border-watch groups and has elected officials such as Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, icons of a national movement to seal the border and fight “amnesty” for the undocumented.
Today, as the Obama administration seeks lawmakers’ backing for steps that would legalize millions of undocumented residents, Arizona’s conservative forces are rallying for another fight. This time, they have new ammunition from sequester cutbacks and reports of Mexican drug gangs muscling in on what was once a routine cat-and-mouse game between federal agents and poor migrants.
The new battle pits Brewer against another high-profile Arizona figure, Democratic former governor Janet Napolitano, now U.S. secretary of homeland security. Napolitano insists that the U.S.-Mexico border remains more secure than it has been in years, even as she warned that Border Patrol cuts would leave fewer agents to cover rugged rural areas where most illegal crossings take place. Meanwhile, Brewer has accused the White House of using the sequester for political gain at the expense of public safety.
Asked about Arizona and its most porous border segment, a 120-mile stretch that crosses ranches such as Ladd’s and the north-south highway between Tucson and Nogales, Napolitano asserted that once-heavy illegal traffic there had fallen to its lowest level in years. The government estimates that border-area arrests across Arizona, mostly in the Tucson-Nogales region, dropped 80 percent to 125,000 between 2000 and 2012.
But some members of the border enforcement community charge that officials in Washington have deliberately exaggerated the drop in illegal crossings and unfairly focused budget cuts on their mission. They warn that smugglers of drugs and of humans will take advantage of the sequester, which is expected to reduce thousands of hours of overtime and has already led to the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention.
“The real truth is not getting out. The Border Patrol is only catching 5 percent of what crosses, and they are being told not to report getaways,” charged Zack Taylor, a Nogales resident and leader of the national association of former Border Patrol employees. “Arizona is already a lawless area, and with those cuts in manpower it’s going to be wide open.”
Several law enforcement observers said illegal migrants are starting to cross in larger groups, anticipating a more tolerant U.S. government policy to result from talks in Washington. “The numbers of illegals have really picked up since they heard amnesty is coming,” Taylor said.
Ranchers such as Ladd also remain skeptical of administration claims of success. They often mention violent incidents such as the 2010 shooting death of border rancher Robert Krentz and constantly swap stories of the latest fence cuttings, of drugs being abandoned by couriers and of smugglers using empty barns as hideaways and lookout posts.
Yet now there are voices in Arizona sending different messages on immigration. A growing Hispanic electorate is feeling new muscle, some police officials are disgusted with the state’s polarized politics, and a loose fraternity of liberal business and civic leaders, many of whom benefit from cross-border commerce, is expressing discomfort with extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric and the militarization of the border region.
One of those voices belongs to Nan Waldon, a lawyer and horse breeder who co-owns a 7,000-acre pecan farm south of Tucson that employs several hundred Hispanics. In a recent interview, Waldon denounced the controversial 2010 law as a “horrible and racist” measure. The law, the toughest aspects of which were upheld by the Supreme Court last year, requires police to report suspected illegal immigrants to federal officials.
“It’s wrong for people to stereotype Mexicans and Mexican Americans as criminals and drug smugglers and ignore the fact that they are the backbone of our economy,” Waldon said. “Many people in Arizona are still afraid to speak out, but there is a silent majority who have had enough of the rhetoric that plays on the fears of ignorant people.”
Roberto Villasenor, the Mexican American police chief of Tucson, said he worries about the upswing in drug smuggling but complained that the political hijacking of border security has made it much harder to find practical solutions.
“Making the border more secure needs to be a priority, but we keep getting into a political circus, with both sides making outlandish claims to advance their agenda,” Villasenor said wearily. “The issue has been so distorted that whatever you do, the other side screams it is political. Nobody knows what to believe anymore.”
In the border boomtown of Nogales, officials are cultivating close relationships with their Mexican counterparts and business leaders are lobbying for expanded inspection services to speed the passage of Mexican trucks. Industry officials said more than $6 billion in tomatoes, peppers and other produce from Mexico enters the United States each year, nearly half of it through Nogales.
“Things have changed since the last time Congress tackled this issue,” said Doris Meissner, a former federal immigration commissioner and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “The border is not the same place it was five years ago, and the American electoral picture is different. I don’t think the Arizona mind-set is going to have the same traction it had in the past.”
An economic entry point
The scene at Ladd’s cattle ranch, with its stark evidence of severed steel bars and high-
powered invaders, is an ominous prism through which to view the border. But just a dozen miles east, at the busy, legal Port of Entry between Douglas, Ariz., and Agua Prieta, Mexico, the picture is more complex.
On a gray winter afternoon, hundreds of Mexicans hurried home through narrow inspection lanes after another day in the United States — schoolchildren, mothers with shopping bags, and men returning from long days in a tomato processing plant 80 miles from the border.
Heading through a separate maze of wide northbound lanes were a dozen tractor-trailers carrying refrigerated crates of Mexican tomatoes, peppers and squash to supermarkets across the United States.
To Daniel Ortega, the Mexican American mayor of Douglas, the border is not a menace but a crossroads of commerce and culture. Trade with Mexico provides 80 percent of the town’s commercial revenue, while federal jobs in border-related security have helped revive the community of 18,000 since its once-dominant employer, a copper mine and foundry, shut down in the 1990s.
“Our communities are very dependent on each other,” Ortega said, noting that Douglas is now an official “sister city” with Agua Prieta. He said his main concern is trying to streamline the border inspection process, something that sequester cutbacks could easily derail. “People in the East talk about how bad the border is,” Ortega said, “but here our future depends on it.”
At one point in the afternoon, a barred government bus crossed from Douglas to Agua Prieta and two dozen Mexicans straggled out. Most carried plastic bags labeled “Department of Homeland Security” that contained wadded clothes, water bottles and other remnants of their failed attempts to sneak into the United States.
The little group shuffled into a dingy little building, run by an American volunteer group, which said “Welcome Brother Migrants” in Spanish. Slumped dejectedly in plastic chairs, they said they had been caught soon after crossing into the United States in February, briefly jailed and then bused back to Mexico.
There were couples and middle-aged men and a weeping woman who said she might never see her children again. All had borrowed heavily to pay guides and protection fees to drug mafias, hoping to reach a construction job in Chicago, a grape harvest in California or a spouse and children in Nebraska.
Gabriel Sosa, a 47-year-old factory worker, said he had paid $2,000 for a guide who led him and two other men to the open border at Naco. The guide told them to climb the 10-foot fence and wait for a cellphone call, then vanished.
“We hid in the grass all night and nobody called. We could hear the cattle nearby,” Sosa said. “It got colder and colder. Finally we decided to walk to the highway, and as soon as we saw a Border Patrol truck we turned ourselves in.”
The thwarted travelers said they knew U.S. penalties for illegal entry were stricter now and that Arizona was especially tough on border crossers. They complained about the fees demanded by the drug mafia, the cold cells in U.S. jails and the dense Border Patrol presence in populated areas that forced them to risk dangerous desert crossings.
Still, all said their desperation to find a job with a living wage was stronger than any of those worries. Asked what would be the best way to stop illegal immigration, several people spoke up at once, saying they would much rather work legally, even for a few months of the year, than endure the expense and hazards of crossing on their own.
“If the Americans want to stop illegal immigration, why don’t they give us work visas?” demanded a young man named Julio, who had paid $2,000 and been caught almost as soon as he crossed into Arizona. “This way we are just bait for the mafia.”
Then he shouldered his plastic bag and followed his companions to the Agua Prieta bus station and the empty-handed trip home.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-arizona-border-security-in-spotlight-amid-immigration-reform-efforts-sequester-cuts/2013/03/17/d866858c-8801-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend
March 17, 2013
by Pamela Constable
NACO, Ariz. — With the winter sun’s glare bouncing off his old red pickup, John Ladd drives slowly along the 10-foot wall of iron stakes and steel mesh that crosses his 14,000-acre cattle ranch, dividing his great-grandfather’s land from the Mexican desert but not always keeping intruders out.
“Here’s where the drug smugglers cut through the wall in January,” Ladd says, pointing to a large jagged square in the metal that has since been rewelded. “They use blowtorches and hydraulic grinders. They can get a truck through in minutes, and as soon as they reach the highway they’re gone.”
Ladd’s ranch in the southeastern corner of Arizona is dotted with cameras on stilts, and U.S. Border Patrol trucks cruise the range daily, scattering his Herefords and Angus. Beyond the wall, Mexican soldiers patrol in Humvees. Before it was erected in 2007, illegal migrants constantly camped in his bushes on their way north. These days, fewer make the attempt, but a more sophisticated and dangerous threat has replaced them.
“There’s less people but more drugs,” Ladd says. “The cartels control everything that crosses. The Border Patrol has a huge presence, but it’s not enough, and it’s not the answer. No matter what they say in Washington, the border is not secure.”
The issue of border security — hard to measure but easy to manipulate — has long been a sticking point in the debate over illegal immigration. The Obama administration, hoping to win congressional support for an overhaul of immigration law, increased spending on customs and border enforcement to a record $12 billion in 2012, and it claims to have reduced infiltration of the 2,000-mile U.S.-
Mexico border to its lowest level in decades.
But now, with the across-the-board sequester cuts expected to take a $500 million bite out of the immigration enforcement budget and cut the equivalent of 5,000 jobs from a Border Patrol force of 21,000 agents, new concerns over border violence and drug smuggling are being raised by administration critics, immigration officers and some border-area residents.
Back at center of debate
Arizona, a Republican-led border state, has long played an outsize role in the immigration wars. It enacted the nation’s toughest law against illegal immigrants in 2010, has spawned vigilante border-watch groups and has elected officials such as Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, icons of a national movement to seal the border and fight “amnesty” for the undocumented.
Today, as the Obama administration seeks lawmakers’ backing for steps that would legalize millions of undocumented residents, Arizona’s conservative forces are rallying for another fight. This time, they have new ammunition from sequester cutbacks and reports of Mexican drug gangs muscling in on what was once a routine cat-and-mouse game between federal agents and poor migrants.
The new battle pits Brewer against another high-profile Arizona figure, Democratic former governor Janet Napolitano, now U.S. secretary of homeland security. Napolitano insists that the U.S.-Mexico border remains more secure than it has been in years, even as she warned that Border Patrol cuts would leave fewer agents to cover rugged rural areas where most illegal crossings take place. Meanwhile, Brewer has accused the White House of using the sequester for political gain at the expense of public safety.
Asked about Arizona and its most porous border segment, a 120-mile stretch that crosses ranches such as Ladd’s and the north-south highway between Tucson and Nogales, Napolitano asserted that once-heavy illegal traffic there had fallen to its lowest level in years. The government estimates that border-area arrests across Arizona, mostly in the Tucson-Nogales region, dropped 80 percent to 125,000 between 2000 and 2012.
But some members of the border enforcement community charge that officials in Washington have deliberately exaggerated the drop in illegal crossings and unfairly focused budget cuts on their mission. They warn that smugglers of drugs and of humans will take advantage of the sequester, which is expected to reduce thousands of hours of overtime and has already led to the release of hundreds of illegal immigrants from detention.
“The real truth is not getting out. The Border Patrol is only catching 5 percent of what crosses, and they are being told not to report getaways,” charged Zack Taylor, a Nogales resident and leader of the national association of former Border Patrol employees. “Arizona is already a lawless area, and with those cuts in manpower it’s going to be wide open.”
Several law enforcement observers said illegal migrants are starting to cross in larger groups, anticipating a more tolerant U.S. government policy to result from talks in Washington. “The numbers of illegals have really picked up since they heard amnesty is coming,” Taylor said.
Ranchers such as Ladd also remain skeptical of administration claims of success. They often mention violent incidents such as the 2010 shooting death of border rancher Robert Krentz and constantly swap stories of the latest fence cuttings, of drugs being abandoned by couriers and of smugglers using empty barns as hideaways and lookout posts.
Yet now there are voices in Arizona sending different messages on immigration. A growing Hispanic electorate is feeling new muscle, some police officials are disgusted with the state’s polarized politics, and a loose fraternity of liberal business and civic leaders, many of whom benefit from cross-border commerce, is expressing discomfort with extreme anti-immigrant rhetoric and the militarization of the border region.
One of those voices belongs to Nan Waldon, a lawyer and horse breeder who co-owns a 7,000-acre pecan farm south of Tucson that employs several hundred Hispanics. In a recent interview, Waldon denounced the controversial 2010 law as a “horrible and racist” measure. The law, the toughest aspects of which were upheld by the Supreme Court last year, requires police to report suspected illegal immigrants to federal officials.
“It’s wrong for people to stereotype Mexicans and Mexican Americans as criminals and drug smugglers and ignore the fact that they are the backbone of our economy,” Waldon said. “Many people in Arizona are still afraid to speak out, but there is a silent majority who have had enough of the rhetoric that plays on the fears of ignorant people.”
Roberto Villasenor, the Mexican American police chief of Tucson, said he worries about the upswing in drug smuggling but complained that the political hijacking of border security has made it much harder to find practical solutions.
“Making the border more secure needs to be a priority, but we keep getting into a political circus, with both sides making outlandish claims to advance their agenda,” Villasenor said wearily. “The issue has been so distorted that whatever you do, the other side screams it is political. Nobody knows what to believe anymore.”
In the border boomtown of Nogales, officials are cultivating close relationships with their Mexican counterparts and business leaders are lobbying for expanded inspection services to speed the passage of Mexican trucks. Industry officials said more than $6 billion in tomatoes, peppers and other produce from Mexico enters the United States each year, nearly half of it through Nogales.
“Things have changed since the last time Congress tackled this issue,” said Doris Meissner, a former federal immigration commissioner and a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “The border is not the same place it was five years ago, and the American electoral picture is different. I don’t think the Arizona mind-set is going to have the same traction it had in the past.”
An economic entry point
The scene at Ladd’s cattle ranch, with its stark evidence of severed steel bars and high-
powered invaders, is an ominous prism through which to view the border. But just a dozen miles east, at the busy, legal Port of Entry between Douglas, Ariz., and Agua Prieta, Mexico, the picture is more complex.
On a gray winter afternoon, hundreds of Mexicans hurried home through narrow inspection lanes after another day in the United States — schoolchildren, mothers with shopping bags, and men returning from long days in a tomato processing plant 80 miles from the border.
Heading through a separate maze of wide northbound lanes were a dozen tractor-trailers carrying refrigerated crates of Mexican tomatoes, peppers and squash to supermarkets across the United States.
To Daniel Ortega, the Mexican American mayor of Douglas, the border is not a menace but a crossroads of commerce and culture. Trade with Mexico provides 80 percent of the town’s commercial revenue, while federal jobs in border-related security have helped revive the community of 18,000 since its once-dominant employer, a copper mine and foundry, shut down in the 1990s.
“Our communities are very dependent on each other,” Ortega said, noting that Douglas is now an official “sister city” with Agua Prieta. He said his main concern is trying to streamline the border inspection process, something that sequester cutbacks could easily derail. “People in the East talk about how bad the border is,” Ortega said, “but here our future depends on it.”
At one point in the afternoon, a barred government bus crossed from Douglas to Agua Prieta and two dozen Mexicans straggled out. Most carried plastic bags labeled “Department of Homeland Security” that contained wadded clothes, water bottles and other remnants of their failed attempts to sneak into the United States.
The little group shuffled into a dingy little building, run by an American volunteer group, which said “Welcome Brother Migrants” in Spanish. Slumped dejectedly in plastic chairs, they said they had been caught soon after crossing into the United States in February, briefly jailed and then bused back to Mexico.
There were couples and middle-aged men and a weeping woman who said she might never see her children again. All had borrowed heavily to pay guides and protection fees to drug mafias, hoping to reach a construction job in Chicago, a grape harvest in California or a spouse and children in Nebraska.
Gabriel Sosa, a 47-year-old factory worker, said he had paid $2,000 for a guide who led him and two other men to the open border at Naco. The guide told them to climb the 10-foot fence and wait for a cellphone call, then vanished.
“We hid in the grass all night and nobody called. We could hear the cattle nearby,” Sosa said. “It got colder and colder. Finally we decided to walk to the highway, and as soon as we saw a Border Patrol truck we turned ourselves in.”
The thwarted travelers said they knew U.S. penalties for illegal entry were stricter now and that Arizona was especially tough on border crossers. They complained about the fees demanded by the drug mafia, the cold cells in U.S. jails and the dense Border Patrol presence in populated areas that forced them to risk dangerous desert crossings.
Still, all said their desperation to find a job with a living wage was stronger than any of those worries. Asked what would be the best way to stop illegal immigration, several people spoke up at once, saying they would much rather work legally, even for a few months of the year, than endure the expense and hazards of crossing on their own.
“If the Americans want to stop illegal immigration, why don’t they give us work visas?” demanded a young man named Julio, who had paid $2,000 and been caught almost as soon as he crossed into Arizona. “This way we are just bait for the mafia.”
Then he shouldered his plastic bag and followed his companions to the Agua Prieta bus station and the empty-handed trip home.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-arizona-border-security-in-spotlight-amid-immigration-reform-efforts-sequester-cuts/2013/03/17/d866858c-8801-11e2-999e-5f8e0410cb9d_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend
Monday, February 25, 2013
Senate immigration draft rejected by Arizona Republicans
Politico
February 19, 2013
by Ginger Gibson
February 19, 2013
by Ginger Gibson
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Obama Will Seek Citizenship Path in One Fast Push
The New York Times
January 12, 2013
by Julia Preston
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week.
January 12, 2013
by Julia Preston
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to push Congress to move quickly in the coming months on an ambitious overhaul of the immigration system that would include a path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, senior administration officials and lawmakers said last week.
Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats will propose the changes in one
comprehensive bill, the officials said, resisting efforts by some
Republicans to break the overhaul into smaller pieces — separately
addressing young illegal immigrants, migrant farmworkers or highly
skilled foreigners — which might be easier for reluctant members of
their party to accept.
The president and Democrats will also oppose measures that do not allow
immigrants who gain legal status to become American citizens one day,
the officials said.
Even while Mr. Obama has been focused on fiscal negotiations and gun
control, overhauling immigration remains a priority for him this year,
White House officials said. Top officials there have been quietly
working on a broad proposal. Mr. Obama and lawmakers from both parties
believe that the early months of his second term offer the best
prospects for passing substantial legislation on the issue.
Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his plan in the coming weeks, perhaps in his State of the Union address
early next month, administration officials said. The White House will
argue that its solution for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty, as
many critics insist, because it would include fines, the payment of back
taxes and other hurdles for illegal immigrants who would obtain legal
status, the officials said.
The president’s plan would also impose nationwide verification of legal
status for all newly hired workers; add visas to relieve backlogs and
allow highly skilled immigrants to stay; and create some form of
guest-worker program to bring in low-wage immigrants in the future.
A bipartisan group of senators has also been meeting to write a
comprehensive bill, with the goal of introducing legislation as early as
March and holding a vote in the Senate before August. As a sign of the
keen interest in starting action on immigration, White House officials
and Democratic leaders in the Senate have been negotiating over which of
them will first introduce a bill, Senate aides said.
“This is so important now to both parties that neither the fiscal cliff nor guns will get in the way,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat who is a leader of the bipartisan discussions.
A similar attempt at bipartisan legislation early in Mr. Obama’s first
term collapsed amid political divisions fueled by surging public wrath
over illegal immigration in many states. But both supporters and
opponents say conditions are significantly different now.
Memories of the results of the November election are still fresh here.
Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing electorate, turned out in record
numbers and cast 71 percent of their ballots for Mr. Obama. Many Latinos
said they were put off by Republicans’ harsh language and policies
against illegal immigrants.
After the election, a host of Republicans, starting with Speaker John A.
Boehner, said it was time for the party to find a more positive,
practical approach to immigration. Many party leaders say electoral
demographics are compelling them to move beyond policies based only on
tough enforcement.
Supporters of comprehensive changes say that the elections were nothing
less than a mandate in their favor, and that they are still optimistic
that Mr. Obama is prepared to lead the fight.
“Republicans must demonstrate a reasoned approach to start to rebuild
their relationship with Latino voters,” said Clarissa Martinez de
Castro, the director of immigration policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino organization. “Democrats must demonstrate they can deliver on a promise.”
Since the election, Mr. Obama has repeatedly pledged to act on immigration this year. In his weekly radio address
on Saturday, he again referred to the urgency of fixing the immigration
system, saying it was one of the “difficult missions” the country must
take on.
Parallel to the White House effort, Mr. Schumer and Senator Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, have been meeting with a group
of at least four other colleagues to write a bill. Republicans who have
participated include John McCain of Arizona, who has supported
comprehensive legislation in the past; Jeff Flake, also of Arizona, who
is newly elected to the Senate; and Mike Lee of Utah. Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida participated in one meeting last month.
Democrats in the meetings include Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No.
2 Senate Democrat; Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of
Colorado.
Basic tenets for the bill, Mr. Schumer said, were that it would be
comprehensive and would offer eventual citizenship for illegal
immigrants who follow a prolonged process to correct their status.
“This is a bottom line,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview on Thursday.
“The Democrats have made it clear we will not accept a bill without a
direct path to earned citizenship.” He said senators from both parties
had been “pleasantly surprised” at how rapidly the talks had proceeded.
Mr. Rubio, a Cuban-American who has emerged as a star in his party, is
making immigration one of his primary issues. He has advocated taking
changes in pieces, arguing that lawmakers will get better results if the
politically and practically tangled problems of the immigration system
are handled separately.
Mr. Rubio has been preparing a bill that would provide legal status
specifically for young illegal immigrants, known as Dreamers, who came
to the United States as children.
Mr. Rubio said Thursday that the piecemeal approach was “not a line in
the sand” for him. But he said he would insist that any legalization
measure should not be unfair to immigrants who played by the rules and
applied to become residents through legal channels.
His proposals would allow illegal immigrants to gain temporary status so
that they could remain in the country and work. Then they would be sent
to the back of the line in the existing system to apply to become
permanent residents, without any special path to citizenship.
Mr. Rubio said he hoped to rally Republicans to support changes.
Speaking of Latinos, he said, “We are going to have a struggle speaking
to a whole segment of the population about our principles of limited
government and free enterprise if they think we don’t want them here.”
In the Republican-controlled House, the future of a comprehensive bill remains unclear.
Representative Phil Gingrey, a Georgia Republican who follows
immigration issues, said he remained opposed to “amnesty of any kind.”
He said that the Obama administration had been lax on enforcement, and
that he would “continue working to secure our borders and enforce
existing immigration law.”
But groups backing the overhaul say they are bigger and better organized
than in the past. Last month, the labor movement, including the
A.F.L.-C.I.O. and other sometimes-warring factions, affirmed a common
strategy. Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it would work
with labor, Latino and church organizations to pass the overhaul this
year.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Huge Amounts Spent on Immigration, Study Finds
New York Times
January 7, 2013
by Julia Preston
The Obama administration spent nearly $18 billion on immigration enforcement last year, significantly more than its spending on all the other major federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report published Monday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
January 7, 2013
by Julia Preston
The Obama administration spent nearly $18 billion on immigration enforcement last year, significantly more than its spending on all the other major federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report published Monday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
Based on the vast resources devoted to monitoring foreigners coming into
the country and to detaining and deporting illegal immigrants,
immigration control has become “the federal government’s highest
criminal law enforcement priority,” the report concluded.
In recent years, it found, the two main immigration enforcement agencies under the Department of Homeland Security
have referred more cases to the courts for prosecution than all of the
Justice Department’s law enforcement agencies combined, including the
F.B.I., the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Total spending on those agencies was
$14 billion, official figures show.
The 182-page report was an opening salvo in a contentious debate over immigration that President Obama
has pledged to lead this year. Its purpose was to marshal publicly
available official figures to show that the country has built “a
formidable enforcement machinery” since 1986, the last time Congress
considered an overhaul of the immigration laws that included measures
granting legal status to large numbers of illegal immigrants. Spending
on immigration enforcement was 15 times greater last year than in 1986,
the report found.
The report responds to lawmakers, mainly Republicans, who have argued
that federal authorities must do much more to strengthen enforcement
before Congress can consider any legalization for an estimated 11
million illegal immigrants in the country.
“The ‘enforcement first’ policy that has been advocated by many in
Congress and the public as a precondition for considering broader
immigration reform has de facto become the nation’s singular immigration
policy,” the report concluded.
Although the institute includes both Democrats and Republicans and did
not offer any recommendations in this report, it has previously
supported policies to bring illegal immigrants into the legal system,
rather than expelling them.
According to the report, financing, staffing and technology investments
for the Border Patrol have reached “historic highs,” while apprehensions
of illegal border crossers have plunged by 53 percent since 2008. As a
result of huge increases in spending, deportations have also “increased
dramatically,” the report says, with far more immigrants removed in
expedited proceedings that do not involve any formal proceeding before
an immigration judge.
The budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
which handles interior enforcement and detention, has increased by 87
percent since 2005, to nearly $6 billion, according to the report. The
number of foreigners the agency detains annually increased to 429,247 in
2011. In December, the agency announced it had deported 410,000
foreigners in 2012, giving Mr. Obama the record for the highest number
of removals during his term.
“As a result of 25 years of investment,” said Doris Meissner, an author
of the report who is a senior fellow at the institute, “the bulwark is
fundamentally in place.” She said the existing system made it unlikely
that an immigration overhaul could unleash a new wave of illegal
migration, like the surge since the amnesty of 1986.
Ms. Meissner, who served as commissioner of the immigration service in
the Clinton administration, said public perceptions of uncontrolled
migration across the border with Mexico “have not caught up with the
reality.”
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal law enforcement agencies
have revamped and coordinated databases for monitoring the movement of
foreigners into the country. An immigration databank that federal
authorities have created is the “largest law enforcement electronic
verification system in the world,” said Donald Kerwin, another author of
the report.
Some critics said the report’s figures were misleading because they
include the entire budget for Customs and Border Protection, another
Department of Homeland Security agency, which also oversees cargo
inspections on land and at seaports.
“A large amount of that spending has nothing to do with immigrants,”
said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for
Immigration Studies, a research organization that supports tough
measures against illegal immigration. Immigration enforcement still has
“gaping holes,” he said.
One of them, Mr. Krikorian said, is the lack of a national system for
employers to verify that new hires are legally authorized to work. He
also noted that the United States still has no system to confirm that
foreigners leave the country when their visas expire.
Other experts said the report was an accurate summary of a recent
transformation in immigration control. “There is no question that there
has been a big, big increase in enforcement across the board,” said
Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Immigration Enforcement Cost Higher Than FBI, Policing Drugs, Guns Combined: Report
The Huffington Post
January 7, 2013
by Elise Foley
WASHINGTON -- The United States spends more money on immigration enforcement -- nearly $18 billion in the 2012 fiscal year -- than on its other law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report released Monday from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
That spending went to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and US-Visit, a program that helps states and localities identify undocumented immigrants.
By contrast, the U.S. spent $14.4 billion -- combined -- on its other prime law enforcement agencies: the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
There's a reason for the high cost. The Migration Policy Institute found that ICE and CBP also refer more cases to prosecution than those other agencies combined, and the immigration agencies also held more individuals in fiscal year 2011 than the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Still, the numbers are striking. Immigration enforcement has expanded rapidly since 1986, when Congress passed the enforcement-heavy Immigration Reform and Control Act. Since then, the U.S. has spent nearly $187 billion on immigration enforcement, according to the report. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security that now houses immigration enforcement, made the spending surge even more marked.
The government spends about 15 times more on immigration enforcement than it did in the mid-1980s, adjusted for inflation, the report found.
At the same time, deportations have exploded. The U.S. deported about 30,000 people in the 1990 fiscal year; in the 2012 fiscal year, it removed a record 409,894. A majority of those people were deported without an order from an immigration judge, instead using DHS' discretion, the Migration Policy Institute found.
Immigration enforcement is more in focus than ever this year, as Congress and the White House begin work on a bipartisan agreement for reform of the system. The Obama administration, while deporting a record number of people, has put in place some reforms to focus more on high-priority immigrants, such as convicted criminals. It also implemented the deferred action program to stop deporting some undocumented young people. Those policies were met by some on the right with the claim that the administration doesn't care to enforce immigration law, a possible sticking point as the two sides seek to find an agreement.
The Migration Policy Institute found that border enforcement is, for the most part, working. Doris Meissner, director of immigration policy at the institute and a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, told reporters on a conference call that she is somewhat baffled by the insistence that the U.S.-Mexico border is out of control, sometimes brought forth by people who want to block reform.
"I really don't know," Meissner said when asked why so many people say border enforcement is failing. "I do think a lot of it is just old, the standard imagery of people coming across the border, of the revolving door, of border patrol feeling besieged. Things just haven't caught up -- it's a disconnect."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/immigration-enforcement-cost_n_2425647.html
January 7, 2013
by Elise Foley
WASHINGTON -- The United States spends more money on immigration enforcement -- nearly $18 billion in the 2012 fiscal year -- than on its other law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report released Monday from the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
That spending went to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol and US-Visit, a program that helps states and localities identify undocumented immigrants.
By contrast, the U.S. spent $14.4 billion -- combined -- on its other prime law enforcement agencies: the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
There's a reason for the high cost. The Migration Policy Institute found that ICE and CBP also refer more cases to prosecution than those other agencies combined, and the immigration agencies also held more individuals in fiscal year 2011 than the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Still, the numbers are striking. Immigration enforcement has expanded rapidly since 1986, when Congress passed the enforcement-heavy Immigration Reform and Control Act. Since then, the U.S. has spent nearly $187 billion on immigration enforcement, according to the report. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, which led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security that now houses immigration enforcement, made the spending surge even more marked.
The government spends about 15 times more on immigration enforcement than it did in the mid-1980s, adjusted for inflation, the report found.
At the same time, deportations have exploded. The U.S. deported about 30,000 people in the 1990 fiscal year; in the 2012 fiscal year, it removed a record 409,894. A majority of those people were deported without an order from an immigration judge, instead using DHS' discretion, the Migration Policy Institute found.
Immigration enforcement is more in focus than ever this year, as Congress and the White House begin work on a bipartisan agreement for reform of the system. The Obama administration, while deporting a record number of people, has put in place some reforms to focus more on high-priority immigrants, such as convicted criminals. It also implemented the deferred action program to stop deporting some undocumented young people. Those policies were met by some on the right with the claim that the administration doesn't care to enforce immigration law, a possible sticking point as the two sides seek to find an agreement.
The Migration Policy Institute found that border enforcement is, for the most part, working. Doris Meissner, director of immigration policy at the institute and a former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, told reporters on a conference call that she is somewhat baffled by the insistence that the U.S.-Mexico border is out of control, sometimes brought forth by people who want to block reform.
"I really don't know," Meissner said when asked why so many people say border enforcement is failing. "I do think a lot of it is just old, the standard imagery of people coming across the border, of the revolving door, of border patrol feeling besieged. Things just haven't caught up -- it's a disconnect."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/immigration-enforcement-cost_n_2425647.html
Sunday, November 18, 2012
McCain, Hatch, Rubio offer optimism on immigration on return for lame duck
The Hill
November 13, 2012
by Cameron Joseph
Three key Senate Republican players on immigration returned to a lame-duck session of Congress on Tuesday offering optimism that a deal on immigration could be made next year.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believes it’s “very likely” the Senate will come up with a comprehensive immigration bill that could include enforcement and a way of dealing with illegal immigrants in the country.
A pathway to residency or citizenship for those illegal immigrants was the major stumbling block to immigration reform efforts in the last decade.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said “everything ought to be on the table” in the immigration talks, while McCain said there’s a “sense of urgency” in the GOP to deal with the issue.
Sen. Marco Rubio said he was “hopeful” lawmakers would be able to work on something, but added his position remains that Congress should take action on strengthening border security first.
“As I've said, in my opinion, the first steps in all of this is to win the confidence of the American people by modernizing the legal immigration issue and by improving enforcements of the existing law,” he said. “And then, obviously, we're going to have to deal with 11 million people who are here in undocumented status.
“I think it'll be a lot easier to figure that out if we do those other steps first. But like I said, there are going to be a lot of opinions on this.”
Republican soul searching on immigration has stepped up after President Obama’s victory in last week’s presidential election. Obama soundly defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney among Hispanic voters.
In the wake of the election, conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity and pundit Charles Krauthhammer have both urged Republicans to work on an immigration plan that would include a pathway to residence for those in the country illegally.
“There's a sense of urgency in the Republican Party for obvious reasons, and I'm sure that everybody's ready to deal. But the specifics? Too early,” McCain said Tuesday when asked about a comprehensive bill that included a pathway to citizenship.
“There are a lot of very important legal considerations that have to be made, but I've always been empathetic towards resolving this problem one way or the other,” said Hatch.
McCain had abandoned his support for a comprehensive bill during a 2010 primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.).
But on Tuesday, he sounded more like the McCain who championed a comprehensive immigration reform plan backed by President George W. Bush.
“Oh, I think it's very likely that we get it resolved, but there are going to be some tough negotiations," he said.
Rubio, a Hispanic who is trusted and beloved by the GOP base, could be the most important player to watch in the negotiations.
He seemed more hesitant to embrace the concept of a big package than McCain or Hatch but didn’t close the door on a single, comprehensive bill. In the past, that’s usually meant a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S., stricter border enforcement, a temporary worker program for industries such as agriculture and a crackdown on those who hire undocumented immigrants.
“People are interested in it. It's going to take some time,” he said. “It's an important issue for the country economically, it behooves us to have a 21st century immigration policy.”
Rubio said he “didn’t have anything to announce today” on how involved he’ll be with the issue, but said he was “hopeful we’ll be able to work on something.”
The Florida senator had begun to work on a Republican version of the “DREAM Act” last year before President Obama ordered temporary visas be given to some undocumented immigrants brought here as children.
Hatch, an original sponsor of the DREAM Act, voted against it in 2010, largely because of concerns about a 2012 Tea Party primary challenge.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/267763-rubio-mccain-hatch-ready-to-negotiate-on-pathway-to-citizenship
November 13, 2012
by Cameron Joseph
Three key Senate Republican players on immigration returned to a lame-duck session of Congress on Tuesday offering optimism that a deal on immigration could be made next year.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believes it’s “very likely” the Senate will come up with a comprehensive immigration bill that could include enforcement and a way of dealing with illegal immigrants in the country.
A pathway to residency or citizenship for those illegal immigrants was the major stumbling block to immigration reform efforts in the last decade.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said “everything ought to be on the table” in the immigration talks, while McCain said there’s a “sense of urgency” in the GOP to deal with the issue.
Sen. Marco Rubio said he was “hopeful” lawmakers would be able to work on something, but added his position remains that Congress should take action on strengthening border security first.
“As I've said, in my opinion, the first steps in all of this is to win the confidence of the American people by modernizing the legal immigration issue and by improving enforcements of the existing law,” he said. “And then, obviously, we're going to have to deal with 11 million people who are here in undocumented status.
“I think it'll be a lot easier to figure that out if we do those other steps first. But like I said, there are going to be a lot of opinions on this.”
Republican soul searching on immigration has stepped up after President Obama’s victory in last week’s presidential election. Obama soundly defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney among Hispanic voters.
In the wake of the election, conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity and pundit Charles Krauthhammer have both urged Republicans to work on an immigration plan that would include a pathway to residence for those in the country illegally.
“There's a sense of urgency in the Republican Party for obvious reasons, and I'm sure that everybody's ready to deal. But the specifics? Too early,” McCain said Tuesday when asked about a comprehensive bill that included a pathway to citizenship.
“There are a lot of very important legal considerations that have to be made, but I've always been empathetic towards resolving this problem one way or the other,” said Hatch.
McCain had abandoned his support for a comprehensive bill during a 2010 primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.).
But on Tuesday, he sounded more like the McCain who championed a comprehensive immigration reform plan backed by President George W. Bush.
“Oh, I think it's very likely that we get it resolved, but there are going to be some tough negotiations," he said.
Rubio, a Hispanic who is trusted and beloved by the GOP base, could be the most important player to watch in the negotiations.
He seemed more hesitant to embrace the concept of a big package than McCain or Hatch but didn’t close the door on a single, comprehensive bill. In the past, that’s usually meant a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S., stricter border enforcement, a temporary worker program for industries such as agriculture and a crackdown on those who hire undocumented immigrants.
“People are interested in it. It's going to take some time,” he said. “It's an important issue for the country economically, it behooves us to have a 21st century immigration policy.”
Rubio said he “didn’t have anything to announce today” on how involved he’ll be with the issue, but said he was “hopeful we’ll be able to work on something.”
The Florida senator had begun to work on a Republican version of the “DREAM Act” last year before President Obama ordered temporary visas be given to some undocumented immigrants brought here as children.
Hatch, an original sponsor of the DREAM Act, voted against it in 2010, largely because of concerns about a 2012 Tea Party primary challenge.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/267763-rubio-mccain-hatch-ready-to-negotiate-on-pathway-to-citizenship
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