I remain convinced that immigration reform is nothing more than a trumped up voter magnet to distract the Republican base from mightier subjects. The President keeps aiming at illegal migration from south of the Rio Grande to the exclusion of more serious flaws in protecting all the country’s borders. That’s the clue.
Republicans’ summer series of hearings in the House began last week over border security. Talk is do-nothing cheap — hence, the hearings.
California congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, ranking Democrat of a Homeland Security Subcommittee (Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment), criticized their fake zeal.
With complete control of legislation and enforcement of the law for six years, you would think that a party that now calls so vigorously for border security and enforcement of immigration law could have solved the problem of illegal immigration by now.
…
[The list of hearings] looks like a political effort, not a serious government effort. And these hearings are all talk and no action.
Lofgren supplied details. The Intelligence Reform Act (or the 9/11 Act) was passed in 2004, but the President and Congress sabotaged it by providing insufficient implementation money. It mandated an additional 800 immigration enforcement agents over each of the next five years; only 350 were funded in FY 2006. It mandated an additional 8,000 detention beds; only 1,800 were funded for FY 2006. The Border Patrol is continually underfunded.
President Bush finesses these shortfalls, relying on general public ignorance of what is required to what Bush & Co. actually ponied up. In October, 2005, upon signing the FY2006 appropriations bill for Homeland Security, he said, “Since 2001, we’ve increased funding for immigration enforcement by 35 percent.” He confirmed Rep. Lofgren’s data, then, and in May 2006 in Yuma, AZ and in June in NM, with vague assurance: “I’m working with Congress to increase the number of detention facilities along our borders…”
The Canadian border is not completely forgotten. Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary for Homeland Security, compared before and after pictures:
Since 9/11, the number of Border Patrol Agents along the northern border has almost tripled from 340 agents in 2001 to 980 agents today. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has more than doubled the number of inspectors at the northern border from 1,615 to 3,391. …
We’ve also made substantial investments in security equipment at the northern border since 9/11.
Rep. Lofgren puts it into perspective:
Next to nothing has been done to secure our Northern border at a time when 17 suspected terrorists were arrested in Toronto, there are reportedly 50 terrorist groups in Canada, the “Millennium Bomber” was arrested as he attempted to cross the Northern border with explosives, and the Congressional Research Service says that Canada is a “favored destination for terrorist groups [as] a safe haven, transit point and place to raise funds.” While the Republican leadership in Congress focuses on the Southern border with 10,000 Border Patrol agents stationed along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, only 1/10th that amount is on the Canadian border, a border that is 2.5 times as long as the Mexican border.
Border security along the oceans, as well, lacks needed attention. The Coast Guard is responsible for such homeland security-related missions as (1) ports, waterways, and coastal security and (2) migrant interdiction, in addition to its traditional operations involving (1) marine safety and environmental protection, (2) search and rescue, (3) fisheries law enforcement, and (4) ice operations.
The increase in responsibilities has been accompanied by some budget increases. However, much more is required.
For several years now, the Coast Guard has been warning that the existing fleet–especially cutters–was failing at an unsustainable rate.
As the GAO reported:
For example, to help meet mission requirements, Coast Guard staff are performing more extensive maintenance between deployments, but even so, aircraft and cutters continue to lose mission capabilities.
In addition, turf differences with the FBI reduce the assurance of best response to the terrorist attacks which a Justice Department inspector reported analysts predict will be launched on ports or vessels. In a terrorism drill, for example, the Coast Guard charged the FBI with blocking Coast Guard plans to try out a new team in a mock assault on a ferry.
Port security became another controversy with the administration’s approval of a contract with international companies for certain port operations; the decision is now on hold.
Security is a top priority at the ports, but there’s concern the Bush administration has not provided enough funds to properly pay for it. [In February 2006] the president of the American Association of Port Authorities complained that the $708 million allotted for maritime security over the past four years amounted to only one-fifth of what the port authorities had identified as needed to properly secure the ports.
Maritime security is crucial. When I was a tourist in Israel eons ago, a small group of terrorists landed on the beach and destroyed a nearby busload of people. They had come by rubber raft, undetectable by the radar that extra-cautious Israelis used to patrol the coast.
The Republicans in Congress, rather than fund the 9/11 Act, would rather catch and deport undocumented people. Crackpots want to line the Mexican border with a fence. Why not the Canadian border? They don’t see Mexicans coming over the Canadian border.
Bush sees border security in terms of stopping illegal immigration. He claims it “undermines the rule of law” and “creates an underground economy.” He also declares it endangers national security.
Tell me another.
El diablo sabe mas por viejo que por diablo.
