AP photo/Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office/Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition
Posted on 03/02/2006 9:21:18 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - A south Texas rancher, Texas sheriffs, an Arizona district attorney and other law enforcement representatives urged Senate committee members Wednesday to heed their warning: The porous southern border of the United States is a national security risk.
Witnesses told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, at a hearing on border violence that without cooperation from Mexico, combined with federal support from the United States, the situation at the border will continue to deteriorate.
Cornyn focused the hearing on recent reports of Mexican military incursions into the United States, increasing border violence against law enforcement officials and the need for better border technology.
"Combating border violence will take a concerted and thoughtful effort by all parties involved," Cornyn said during the hearing. "I believe it is important that the federal government use all of its resources to gain control of the border."
The hearing comes on the heels of the well-publicized encounter in Hudspeth County in west Texas between law-enforcement officers and organized drug dealers dressed in Mexican military uniforms.
In January, the Daily Bulletin first published confidential Department of Homeland Security documents showing that Mexican soldiers had crossed the border into the United States more than 200 times.
"Regardless of what kind of story the Mexican government is making up, I can tell you this -- my deputies had an armed standoff with Mexican military," said Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, who attended the Senate hearing.
West testified on Feb. 7 before the House Subcommittee on Investigations that Mexican military personnel have been assisting narcotics traffickers.
"We even checked the VIN number of the Humvee vehicle used in the incursion and it belongs to the Mexican military," he said. "There is still an ongoing investigation into the incident."
Sheriff A. D'Wayne Jernigan, of Val Verde County, Texas, testified on behalf of the Texas Sheriff's Border Coalition, an organization formed to create cooperation among agencies to deal with growing numbers of crimes along the Texas-Mexico border.
Jernigan was not the only Texas county sheriff to attend the hearing, but he was the only one to give testimony.
The sheriffs are spending the week meeting with senators and administration officials in hopes of persuading Senate leaders to pass strict border legislation in the coming months. The coalition is also hoping to add a clause to the Sensenbrenner Border Security bill, which passed the House in mid-December, for funding to hire more deputies along the Southwest border, West said.
"The crisis that we face on our border is not a racial issue, or even one of politics," Jernigan said. "This crisis is a red, white and blue national security crisis."
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a member of the subcommittee, added that although progress has been made along a 150-mile stretch of the border in the San Diego area, serious security issues remain along the rest of the Mexican border.
Feinstein asked the witnesses what was needed from the federal government to ensure the safety of the border.
Marcy Forman, Immigration and Customs Enforcement director of investigations, said her agency launched many initiatives to combat escalating violence on the border. But when asked by Feinstein if ICE or U.S. Customs and Border Patrol had any regular law enforcement relationship with the Mexican law enforcement, the answer was no.
Border Patrol officials said that Mexico's lack of cooperation impedes security on both sides of the border.
"The United States needs to recognize that it cannot rely upon its southern neighbor to stop the flow of illegal drugs across the Southwest border and must stop supplying financial aid to Mexico for that purpose," said TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, who testified at the hearings on behalf of the council's more than 10,000 agents.
"Officials at the highest levels of our government must inform officials at the highest levels of the government of Mexico in clear and unambiguous terms that armed incursions across our border will no longer be tolerated," he said.
Texas rancher Lavoyger Durham, who lives 75 miles north of the Mexican border, told senators that the Border Patrol has told him that within a five-mile radius of his ranch, 200-300 illegal immigrants move through every night.
"In my county alone, over 40 illegal immigrants are known to have died last year," Durham said.
They died not only because of the exposure to harsh elements, including blazing heat and bitter cold, but also at the hands of human smugglers or coyotes, as they are called along the border, Durham said.
The testimony law enforcement officials are giving is expected to shape immigration legislation on Capitol Hill this year, Cornyn added after the hearing.
Today several immigration bills will be discussed at a Judiciary Committee hearing, the committee which oversees immigration-related issues.
The bills in discussion will be The Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2004, HR4437, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., which passed the House in mid-December, and the Senate's version of an immigration bill that will include a guest-worker program.
Some have called Sensenbrenner's bill draconian, but others think it's not strict enough. And the Senate's version of immigration reform isn't immune to criticism either.
The House bill would make illegal immigration status in the United States an aggravated felony. The bill also requires all 147 million U.S. workers to obtain work verification cards. Employers who fail to verify a worker's legal status would face fines of up to $25,000 for each hire. It would require mandatory imprisonment of illegal immigrants caught at the border.
The Senate's proposal would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for a three-year work visa, which is renewable only once, and then it would require them to go home. The Senate bill does not allow for permanent residence.
"What illegal alien in their right mind would apply for this type of work visa?" Bonner asked. "If they know they're going to be sent home and they've already lived here for years, why would they apply for a visa? This type of guest worker program will not bring illegal (immigrants) out of the shadows -- we have to strictly enforce laws on employers who violate the laws."
It is. Bush has been kissing Foxs' ass since day one. He's had 5 years to secure the border and refuses to do a damn thing.
We don't need more hearings. We don't need more hand-wringing. We don't need more debate.
As a result of a 2004 bill that Bush signed, we were supposed to get 10,000 more BP agents on the border. But his 2006 budget only funded a couple hundred of those positions.
So we don't have more agents in the pipeline. So we need National Guard troops. NOW. In force. With orders to use lethal force against any armed groups coming over the border. That would stop that problem immediately - these goons are acting with impunity because there is no force to counter them.
ping
AP photo/Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office/Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition
ping
Now we know how the Romans felt as Roma burned around them and the policicians in the Senate fiddled and fiddled..
Wasting their breath talking to Feinstein and Cornyn. They're part of the North American Community Club.
agreed. but, jus ain't PC to get down on illegals doing day labor, etc..
probably be awhile before 'joe six pack' sees that a deteriorating social environment is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY at the street level.
You are correct that Bush only asked for 210. But in their final spending bills last fall Congress coughed up enough dough to shove about 1600 of them down his unwilling throat. This was still short of the 2000 authorized but despite Bush, there was a little progress.
I'm fully on board with the idea that we need the National Guard on the Border until we get a 2000 mile triple fence built.
Press one for English. Press two to be deported.
BUMP
He's not. He doesn't want to "offend" illegals.
A JOKE!
When another country sends their military across our borders, our military needs to respond. That’s an act of war, and the response should be overwhelming force so they don’t try it again.
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
1. The act of invading; the act of encroaching upon the rights or possessions of another; encroachment; trespass.
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