Posted on 04/19/2008 7:14:19 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
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Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has issued two waivers of laws hindering barrier construction and security improvements on the border with Mexico. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already built 309 miles of border obstacles, and these waivers will facilitate improvements on about 500 miles of border infrastructure. One waiver addresses environmental and land management laws that applied to about 470 miles across four border states; the other addresses a 22-mile levee-border project in Hidalgo, Texas. The waivers were issued on April 1, 2008, and will become effective upon their publication in the Federal Register. These DHS efforts reflect longstanding recommendations by The Heritage Foundation. Border infrastructure is an important part of the effort to interdict illegal crossings, and that interdiction is vital to restoring the integrity of America's borders and immigration laws. With these waivers, the Secretary shows that he is following through on the George W. Bush Administration's commitment to make border security, protecting the homeland, and enforcing immigration laws a top priority. Congress should fully support these efforts. More needs to be done to achieve border security, which cannot be fully accomplished until all components of an effective national policy are in place. The Administration must vigorously enforce immigration laws in the workplace, and Congress must provide for temporary worker programs and visa reforms to get employers the workers they need. Doing What Is Right During the 2007 immigration debate, Heritage experts traveled to the U.S.–Mexico border to gain a firsthand understanding of the situation. They met with the various stakeholders in the border communities, including men and women from local law enforcement, local businesses, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, state and local governments, and Mexico. Heritage's experts found a broken border, ravaged by transnational crime including drug smuggling and human trafficking. Despite this, they also found that cooperation among federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies could make a difference. In Texas, for example, Operation Rio Grande reduced crime in border counties by 60 percent. The Heritage experts concluded that enhancing security and community policing in the border areas was essential. Waiver Authority Progress at the border has been stalled repeatedly stalled because some barrier projects are complicated by environmental and land-use disputes. Some advocacy groups, communities, and individual land owners have used endless litigation to thwart the Administration's efforts. Congress therefore gave the DHS Secretary the authority to waive federal laws in order to expedite border security improvements. Lesson Learned The litigation that DHS faced while trying to implement a congressional mandate to secure the border is an example of what could have happened if the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348) had been enacted. The bill combined an amnesty "first" with the promise of enforcement "after." That enforcement would have met with legal obstacles similar to the ones faced by the other DHS efforts. A Strategy That Works Existing congressional mandates and appropriations for enforcement at the border are sufficient to accomplish the task. Congress has appropriated funds to implement border security measures, and DHS has demonstrated the commitment to follow through. More must be done to finish the job. Congress and the Administration should do the following:
There is no need for a massive comprehensive immigration and border security effort by the Congress. However, additional measures are needed to restore the integrity of America's borders and immigration laws. James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is Assistant Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Senior Research Fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, and Diem Nguyen is a Research Assistant in the Allison Center, at The Heritage Foundation. |
It’s 2008, 6-1/2 years later, and they’re still dragging their feet.
“Get up and bar the door!”
And bragging about what a great job they are doing.
Skeletor is such a useless, obstructionist do-nothing.
Except when he’s not, I suppose.
And bragging about what a great job they are doing.
But the useless POS of TV and he brags as if he had hung the moon, certoff is the most incompetent public administrator I have ever seem.
The Secure Fence Act was passed in late 2006, and even then Congress failed to appropriate funds for it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
All this whining about Chertoff is getting us nowhere.
I have yet to see substantial evidence that he’s not.
I’d call Heritage substantial, but that would require actually reading my post.
I read it.
Baby steps. Nothing more than tiny, tiny little baby steps. And how freakin’ long did it take to FINALLY do just these little things?
Congress needs to take some of the blame, but Chertoff is the head of Homeland Security, for pete’s sake, and could have been pushing a LOT LOT harder than he has been.
Near useless.
Just like all the incompetence of jerkoff is getting us nowhere., He's reduced the fence to a couple of feet of dirt and a two metal pips in many places. The jerk is an incompetent clown and that is a fact, not a whine.
Where? How?
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already built 309 miles of border obstacles.”
Finding out what’s actually been done seems to be a problem. Obstacles? Legislation specified what type fencing was to be built in some areas, but DHS never seems to tell us exactly what they’ve done and where.
“George W. Bush Administration’s commitment to make border security, protecting the homeland, and enforcing immigration laws a top priority. Congress should fully support these efforts.”
Bush had no intention of protecting the borders. He spent the first six and one-half years of his two terms trying for amnesty for illegals and other programs that pandered to the interests of US business and the Mexican government. His proposals were always DOA in the Republican controlled House. His enforcement record was worse than Clinton’s during those years, and he only started any increased enforcement at all as a result of political pressure and to pretend that he was serious in an attempt to get amnesty passed.
So, hows that big National Guard effort working out on the border? Oh, I forgot, they’re no longer there. I guess the heightened concern about border crossings during last year’s amnesty debate just petered out.
I posted what I found on Heritage because I trust them as a source for numbers . . . and no one has posted anything to dispute them here.
Don't read much do you!
Apparently, it’s a matter of faith with you. I was just curious if you had anything more specific than an opinion.
County moves closer to combined levee-border fence, from http://www.themonitor.com/articles/border_10955___article.html/county_allow.html
But the Heritage article tells us nothing about what the 309 miles of “obatacles” are. Some of the legislation called for double fencing and I think there’s little of that.
I occasionally listen to talk radio from California and they have tried to identify where the new fencing is and haven’t been able to find it.
Somebody credible needs to be shown exactly what’s been done.
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