A comprehensive immigration reform bill passed the Senate on Thursday after the "border surge" amendment was added in response to concerns from conservative senators that the bill did not do enough to secure the border. The amendment, sponsored by Republican senators John Hoeven and Bob Corker, puts $46 billion toward border security, including an additional 350 miles of fencing designed to frustrate potential crossers (to make 700 miles' worth in total), another 20,000 Border Patrol agents (doubling the number), and $3.2 billion of high-powered surveillance and detection technologies, including 18 drone aircrafts.
The Latin Times asked three opponents of the "border surge" three basic questions about the amendment and about border policy more generally.
The three are: Adam Isacson, regional security policy expert for the Washington Office on Latin America; Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU's Regional Center for Border Rights in New Mexico; and Cristina Parker, the communications director for the Border Network for Human Rights.
1. Why do you oppose the "border surge" amendment?
Isacson: "We oppose it because it is bad policy. Doubling Border Patrol and building hundreds of miles of new fencing is hugely costly ($46 billion!). It will reduce, but not stop, the number of people who try to cross the border. Those who cross will go to ever more remote and dangerous areas, and increased migrant deaths on U.S. soil will result.
"For Border Patrol, which has doubled in size since 2005 and quintupled since 1993, doubling again will bring huge managerial problems. The proportion of raw recruits to experienced agents will be very high, and corruption and abuse of migrants will likely increase as a result. Meanwhile, agents will find themselves with little to do: migration has plummeted lately, and the number of border-crossers apprehended per Border Patrol agent is at historic lows already."
Gaubeca: "The ACLU of New Mexico strongly opposes the "border surge" provisions of the Corker-Hoeven compromise amendment, which serves to hyper-militarize the U.S.-Mexico border without adequate accountability and oversight of border enforcement resources. This surge is extreme, excessive, expensive and irresponsible.
"As amended, S.744 calls for billions of dollars ($46.3 billion to be exact) of wasteful spending on border enforcement at a time when border communities are among the safest in the nation, net migration from Mexico is at or below zero, and apprehension rates are near historic lows. It will more than double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol at the Southwest border to more than 38,000 agents in 10 years at a cost of $30 billion.
"The proposal ignores the unprecedented level of investments already made to secure the border. Just last year alone, $18 billion in U.S. taxpayer's money was spent in border and immigration enforcement-more than all the principal federal law enforcement agencies combined.
"Put into perspective, $46 billion dollars is eight times the NM state budget and is twice as much as what we spend on federal Pell grants, which subsidize higher education for over 9 million students across the country. When America's school budgets, safety nets, and other vital programs are being cut, we abhor this massive increase in already bloated border enforcement resources.
"Most importantly, this proposal does not provide basic protections that are necessary to prevent the continuation of human and civil rights violations in the border region, which include families being torn apart, rampant racial profiling and systemic excessive use of force."
Parker: "We oppose it completely. Down here in Texas, our senator John Cornyn proposed his RESULTS amendment with more metrics for border security. We opposed that, thinking it was too much. We've already done enough. We've got all the security, all the troops, all the drones, all the walls that we need. The current Corker-Hoeven amendment multiples that many times over. They're calling for $46 billion, more than anyone else has ever asked for. We think it's just too much."
2. How should the United States go about ensuring there aren't large numbers of undocumented people living here?
Gaubeca: "Creating a common-sense immigration system that provides a road to citizenship for those already contributing to the vitality of our communities and a means for individuals to immigrate in search for work opportunities or to reunite with their families will do more for America than expensive and impractical approaches like trying to deport millions of people or create an airtight, two thousand mile border."
Isacson: "People come here illegally because the legal process is too restrictive or prohibitive. The immigration reform bill will address this somewhat, both by easing the legal path and by cracking down on the border and on employers. But as long as there are more people seeking to come here than the United States is willing to accept -- and as long as those who seek to come here are willing to take the risks associated with illegal entry -- there will always be a large number of undocumented people living here."
Parker: "I think the way to do that is to make sure there's a way for them to come in the first place. Right now there's no reasonable, legal way for what they call low-skilled workers to come here, and so people desperate to feed their families will do it any way they have to. I do think there's some things in the bill right now that allows for that, but we do have to address the problem so that people in the future can come legally...whatever it takes to make sure that people can come legally and there isn't any need for people to overstay their visas and live in the shadows in the first place, as they do right now."
3. Do you believe a nation has the right to monitor the flow of people over its borders? What does "border security" mean to you, and what sorts of government action would be necessary to achieve it?
Isacson: "A nation absolutely has the right to monitor the flow of people over its borders, and should do so to the greatest extent that is practical. But along a 1,969-mile border with vast, empty stretches, "the greatest extent practical" is never going to be an absolute "zero illegal crossers" situation. To build up our border security to the extent that all crossers are either apprehended or turned back would require an astronomical expense and a Berlin Wall-style situation along nearly 2,000 miles. (The Berlin Wall was only about 100 miles.)
"The goal instead has to be reasonable "containment": realizing that the problem can never be extinguished fully, but that it can be brought down to manageable levels and that security resources can be flexibly focused on problem areas."
Gaubeca: "While the United States, and any nation, has the right and authority to monitor its borders, investment in border security resources at the U.S.-Mexico border has not been met with corresponding investment in oversight.
"CBP has roughly doubled from a $6 billion agency in FY 2006 to a more than $11.7 billion agency in FY 2012, with an accompanying increase in Border Patrol agents from approximately 12,000 in 2006 to more than 21,000 today. As early as 2008, the National Border Patrol Council itself warned of the potentially 'disastrous' consequences to rapidly doubling the size of the force, which resulted in poorly vetted, poorly hired, and poorly supervised agents.
"Without the needed oversight, there has been a corresponding increase in instances of corruption and reports of abuse. Deputy Commissioner Thomas Winkowski acknowledged before Congress in 2012 that more than 2,000 CBP employees were charged in criminal misconduct since October of 2004. In 2009, while CBP grew by 34%, complaints lodged against CBP increased nearly 50% from the previous year. And since January 2010, at least 19 individuals have died in use of force incidents at the hands of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, including seven minors under 21 and five U.S. citizens.
"Now is the time to shift focus toward creating a common-sense pathway to citizenship that protects and preserves family unity and investing in appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms. Congress should learn from past mistakes and embrace its responsibility to impose checks and balances to ensure that Border Patrol acts responsibly and professionally. Until it imposes meaningful oversight and accountability, Congressional proposals to drastically increase the number of border enforcement agents are not only expensive, but irresponsible."
Parker: "Of course we have the right to make sure our borders are controlled. What we have now isn't that. We've created a situation where people will do anything they can. There's no deterrence for those people. They have to contract criminals to come here. It doesn't serve the national security interests of anyone.
"So what real border security would mean for me, if you look at the example of my hometown, and where I live currently: El Paso, Texas. We are a city that is filled with immigrants and we live right on the border. We are the safest city in the US. Sociologists are working very hard to figure out why that is. There's some theories out there: one is that as a city of immigrants, these are people who would want nothing more than to never have to see a police officer, right? They're not inclined to commit crimes for fear of deportation.
"The other thing we have in El Paso is an incredible amount of cooperation between our many, many federal agents and our local police and sheriff. But we also have a local police chief and sheriff who do not believe that it is their job to enforce the immigration laws. This is something that makes communities safer because immigrants are willing and able and not afraid to call and report a crime. So that to me is what border security is. It's communities on the border which are secure, as El Paso is. That's national security. How could we argue that we have national border security if we don't have safe border communities, and community security?"
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