Border

The following story appeared in FAIR’s May 14 Legislative Update. To subscribe to FAIR’s Legislative Update click here.

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives passed several key immigration measures as part of broader bills.

First, the House adopted an amendment to H.R. 5326, the FY 2013 spending bill for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS), that defunds the Obama Administration’s lawsuits against several states that seek to strike down their immigration enforcement laws. The amendment, introduced by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), is based on a bill she introduced earlier this year (H.R. 3842) to defund the suits. (See FAIR Legislative Update, Jan. 17, 2012)

Second, the house adopted another amendment to the CJS appropriations bill that strips certain funding from sanctuary cities. The amendment, introduced by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), prohibits the Department of Justice from reimbursing sanctuary cities through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP). SCAAP provides federal funding to state and locals to defray the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens. (See Bureau of Justice Assistance Website, May 13, 2012)

Finally, as a part of a House budget reconciliation package aimed at saving hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, the House passed language proposed by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) that would prevent illegal aliens from receiving of the additional child tax credit (ACTC). (See H.R. 5652 § 611; see also CQ Today, May 9, 2012) The ACTC is a refundable tax credit that allows individuals with three or more children to reduce their federal income tax by up to $1,000 for each child who meets certain criteria. (See TIGTA Report 2011-41-061, July 7, 2011)

Currently, illegal aliens are eligible for the ACTC because the IRS only requires applicants for the ACTC to provide an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), which it indiscriminately hands out to illegal aliens. Last year, the Inspector General for the U.S. Treasury Department released a report revealing that illegal aliens annually receive $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits, primarily through the ACTC. (Id.; see also FAIR Legislative Update, Sept. 6, 2011)

Having passed both the CJS and budget reconciliation bills on Thursday, both bills are headed to the Senate. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the CJS appropriations bill because of various amendments made to the bill, and Majority Leader Harry Reid has indicated that the Democrat-controlled Senate is unlikely to take up the Republican House’s budget reconciliation package. (Fox News, May 10, 2012; Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2012)

Mexico’s drug cartels have been battling each other in a furious, violent, and bloody war that has been going on for the past decade. After a lull in the fighting during the late 1990s, the violence has steadily worsened since 2000.

The violence is at its worst right along Mexico’s northern border with the United States where drug cartels are at war in efforts to try to secure control to safe routes to the U.S. The increased level of violence and lawlessness even pressed our own State Department in recently declaring that parts of Mexico are not a safe travel destination for Americans.

While the many news stories of increased violence have been main topics of discussions among the media, the one story that came out of Mexico over the weekend should be most unsettling and disturbing to anyone valuing security of our nation. Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey (Mexico’s ninth largest city with over 1.1 million inhabitants) to the U.S. border in what appeared to be the latest blow in an escalating war of intimidation among drug gangs. (see AP story)

The Mexican government’s instability in its war against the drug cartels, especially so close to our southern border, is nothing short of a clear and present danger to the security of our nation.

President Obama and open borders advocates can poke fun at legislators and citizens’ groups who demand border security and enforcement of immigration laws, and DHS secretary Janet Napolitano can go on TV and claim that the border has never been so secure, but we know otherwise. The fact is that according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) less than half of the 2,000 miles separating the U.S. and Mexico is “operationally controlled” by the Border Patrol, and only 129 miles are under “full control.”

It’s time to get serious about securing our borders before it’s too late.

Border Patrol Chief Mike Fisher defended in a Congressional hearing on May 8 a new border control strategy plan. According to an Associated Press report, “Fisher was repeatedly asked why the new strategy didn’t include any specific ‘metrics’ that could help members of Congress and the public better understand if the border is secure.”

That was a critical question, because it highlighted this new effort of the administration to change the ground rules for measuring border control effectiveness. The administration has been confounded in its efforts to claim that the border is effectively secure by the current system of metrics which determine operational control – which, according to a 2011 Government Accountability Office report, showed that of the nearly 2,000 miles of our southern border, only 873 were under “operational control” and only 129 miles were under “full control.” The Obama administration’s new strategy is – if the terms of reference interfere with the administration’s rhetoric – change the terms of reference.

The announced new strategy did include other aspects of border control. One was the greater use of drone aircraft. That is not new, but does offer a pretext for lessening reliance on the continued involvement of National Guard units providing logistical assistance to the Border Patrol. Another part of the plan is prosecution of illegal entrants before deporting them. The effect of the prosecution and deportation is to expose a recidivist to imprisonment as a felon for reentering illegally after deportation. This, too, is not new. It is a program that has been operating for a couple of years in Arizona with reported success in deterring recidivist reentry after deportation. It is more expensive than just putting Mexican illegal entrants back across the border, but has long-term promise if it continues to reduce reentry of deported illegal entrants. An exception is made in the new plan for Mexican children and pregnant women who will still be put back across the border because they represent major costs if they are held in the United States, both in terms of detention and the possibility for the delivery of ‘anchor babies’ at U.S. taxpayer expense.