Posted on 04/11/2005 8:20:21 AM PDT by Happy2BMe
CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – BORDER SECURITY
April 8, 2005 – 8:28 p.m.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is thinking about resuming a program to transport illegal aliens back to their hometowns in Mexico, rather than the present practice of expelling them at the Arizona border.
The main clue that it might renew a program that was tried out last year was an unheralded notice from the department’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection that it is looking for a firm to provide charter flights from Tucson to Mexico, posted online April 6.
Queried about the initiative, DHS officials, legally barred from releasing details of a procurement before an official solicitation, would not confirm that the notice referred to last year’s interior repatriation program. But the similarities are uniform.
Last year’s pilot program, which ran from July 16 through September, allowed detained illegal immigrants from Mexico to volunteer for flights from Tucson to Mexico City and Guadalajara, where buses would return them to their hometowns.
The presolicitation notice posted online last week called for a contractor that could operate the charter flights, provide security and medical services on the plane, and have staff, buses and other “facilities” to help Mexican authorities unload and transport the passengers.
DHS officials cautioned that the announcement — like all presolicitation notices — does not mean a formal request will be released. But the announcement itself says “it is anticipated that the solicitation for this requirement shall issue on or about April 21, 2005.”
The pilot program was the only one of its kind in the nation.
DHS officials last year touted the pilot program as a way to deter illegal immigration and cut down on the cycle of violence surrounding Southwestern border crossings.
These days, if a Mexican national detained for illegal entry volunteers to return to his home country without going through formal deportation proceedings, he is escorted across the border and left in the immediate border area, which, in Arizona, often means long stretches of desert.
In such cases, the migrant commonly turns again to the smugglers who helped him the first time and tries again, Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora said.
There were 340 deaths in the Tucson sector alone last year.
The charter flight program repatriated more than 14,000 illegal immigrants last year, Zamora said. But it also cost more than $15 million.
“It’s a very costly project,” said Jose Matus, director of the Arizona-based Human Rights Coalition. “And if the idea was to deter illegal immigration, it didn’t help at all.”
“We believe there’s other, better ways of using that money,” he added.
According to an August report by United Press International, the number of participants in last year’s pilot program decreased over time.
DHS’ goal was to fly back 300 Mexican nationals a day, Zamora said. The presolicitation notice called for a firm that could offer charter flights for “up to 300 people per day.”
The repatriation program was begun as a supplement to the Arizona Border Control Initiative — a pilot program that used aerial drones and increased manpower to monitor Arizona’s southern border. It is available only to detainees without criminal records.
DHS unveiled a new, expanded version of the pilot project on March 30, but did not say whether the charter flights would be continued.
Last year’s flights were based on a memorandum of understanding between DHS and the Mexican government. According to that agreement, the program had an expiration date of Sept. 30, Zamora said.
A new solicitation, if it comes, would be a total small-business set-aside, meaning only firms with 1,500 employees or fewer could win the award, according to the announcement.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is thinking about resuming a program to transport illegal aliens back to their hometowns in Mexico, rather than the present practice of expelling them at the Arizona border.
In related news, the ACLU objected to flying illegals back to Mexico because the flights violated the civil rights of the deportees by not providing sufficient packets of honey-roasted peanuts and free sodas.
Too costly?? For about $12 billion you could deport by air the entire illegal population. That's how much illegal immigrants cost California alone every year...
Wonder if the government will give me free plane rides to Mexico? Would make vacations a heck of alot cheaper.
Stop em at the border and send em walking back the same way they came.
I am sick of taxpayers (mine) being spent on illegals in any way except thru enforcement, both interior and border.
They should fly them to Cancun. There are lots of flights available and it will take them a long time to get back to the border.
LOL yeah this worked so well in the past they are trying it again..brought to you by the same govt that thinks Social Security is secure...
They need to build some self sufficient work farms and tent cities to house these illegals and keep them for 30 days the first offense, 60 the next etc until the incentive to come to the US is gone, oh yeah arrest and catch some of the employers and send them there to think about their cheap labor for awhile also...whatever happened to criminal aliens serving their time in their home countries jails? why isn't that agreement being used?
Presidente Bush the buck stops with you, do something now!
fly them back....just don't land do a fly by..and let em jump out the back...
Maybe Phuket Airline will step up here.
OK, as long as we bill the Mexican government for the cost.
(Good luck!)
Said before, but...to repeat; collect a shipload of illegals and drop them off at Tierra Del Fuego. It's a long walk back from there!
There's a whole fleet of retired C-141s in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. Reactivate the newer ones and turn the mission over to an Air National Guard unit . . .
If we want to deter them from trying again, we should be dropping them off at the Mexico/Guatemala border.
It could be done a lot cheaper and much more efficiently by rail. Would have to have a few detention camps though. Take a while to get a train load of em. Find a bunch of old auto-racks and you would have three tiers of illegals headin back south per car.
ping
ROTF....
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