Posted on 07/02/2013 4:59:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Thanks to the last-minute “border surge” amendment tacked on to the Gang of Eight immigration-reform bill, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) stands to nearly double its membership. They must be thrilled. Right?
Not exactly.
“I’m not sure where this idea came from, but we didn’t support it, and we didn’t ask for it,” Shawn Moran, the NBPC’s at-large vice president, tells National Review Online. “No one consulted us prior to this coming up. We don’t even have the infrastructure to handle 40,000 agents right now.”
The NBPC is an AFL-CIO–affiliated union representing more than 17,000 border-patrol agents and support staff. If the bill that passed the Senate last week becomes law, the number of border-patrol agents would nearly double, from about 21,000 to 40,000. The union has not taken a public position on the Gang of Eight legislation, opting instead to “work behind the scenes,” Moran says. But the union has “serious concerns” with the bill that it hopes the House of Representatives will resolve. Aides to Senators Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and John Hoeven (R., N.D.), the lawmakers who authored the border-surge amendment, did not deny that the NBPC was not consulted. “We felt we needed to craft an amendment — that was authorized and appropriated up front — that would produce a surge of resources at the southern border to give us and the American people a high degree of confidence that the border would be secured,” a Corker aide tells NRO. An aide to Senator Hoeven notes that he sought the advice of the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, as well as the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They said more fencing, more boots on the ground, and electronic surveillance [were needed],” the aide says.
Many of the bill’s supporters touted the massive personnel increase — 20,000 new agents who must be trained and deployed within ten years — as the most stringent border-security measure in the history of borders. Gang of Eight member Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said the Corker-Hoeven amendment “practically militarizes the border” and is the toughest possible solution “short of shooting everybody that comes across.” Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said it would “create a virtual human fence.”
“I can tell you from 30 years of being on the border, this bill secures the border, and anyone who says it doesn’t does not understand our security needs,” said Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.)
Others, however, were more skeptical about the plan. “If you’re asking me about the merits of this proposal, I think it’s overkill,” said Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.). Either way, it was good enough from a political standpoint to advance the Gang of Eight bill, which passed the Senate last week by a 68–32 margin.
Moran, for his part, is not convinced that doubling the number of border-patrol agents is an effective way to prevent illegal immigration. “If the goal is to build a human wall, then I guess that’s a step in the right direction,” he says. “It all depends on what kind of strategy they use.” The NBPC has argued, instead, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to “take the handcuffs” off the border-patrol agents currently in the field. “We’ve never been allowed to fully enforce the immigration laws, and if we did that, we think it would have a dramatic impact on illegal immigration,” Moran says.
The NBPC supported an amendment from Senator Jon Tester (D., Mont.) that would have reformed the way border-patrol agents are paid, offering greater flexibility with respect to shift changes and overtime pay, among other changes. That would have been a cheaper and more efficient way to increase security on the border, Moran argues. That amendment, however, never received a vote. The union is currently negotiating with the Obama administration in an effort to resolve its concerns about agent pay, as well as certain budget cuts blamed on sequestration. Some opponents of the Gang of Eight bill suspect that these negotiations may explain the NBPC’s reluctance to publicly oppose the legislation.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a strong opponent of the Gang of Eight proposal, says the NBPC’s skepticism highlights the absurdly political nature of the Corker-Hoeven amendment, the only purpose of which, he argues, was to push the bill across the legislative finish line. “They just pulled that 20,000 number out of a hat,” Krikorian says. “They should have just said we’re going to add a million border patrol agents and arm them with photon torpedoes.”
The Gang of Eight’s decision to back the Corker-Hoeven amendment was rather peculiar, given the scorn its supporters had heaped on an earlier proposal from Senator John Cornyn (R., Texas), which called for an additional 5,000 — not 20,000 — border-patrol agents. That would have been too expensive, Cornyn’s opponents argued, just days before embracing the Corker-Hoeven border-surge proposal, along with its price tag of $30 billion. It was all “paid for” with projected savings, about $200 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The NBPC was the only one of three major unions representing immigration law-enforcement officers not to publicly oppose the Gang of Eight bill prior to its passage in the Senate. The leaders of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council (ICE) and the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council (USCIS) issued a joint statement last week denouncing the Gang’s plan as an “anti–law enforcement bill” that “will make Americans less safe and . . . ensure more illegal immigration.”
Opponents of the Gang of Eight bill are not convinced that opposition from the NBPC would have had a significant impact on the outcome of the debate in the Senate, but they admit that the union’s silence is curious.
As it turns out, the Corker-Hoeven amendment contains a number of provisions that would specifically benefit border-patrol agents. For example, the revised version of the bill increases the caps on student-loan repayment benefits for full-time, active-duty border-patrol agents. It also stipulates that the DHS secretary’s authority to pay bonuses for the recruitment, relocation, and retention of DHS employees, which would include the 20,000 new border-patrol agents called for in the bill, is to be “exercised to the fullest extent . . . allowable in order to encourage service in the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Our lobbyists and our legislative committee are in D.C. pretty much full time trying to correct problems,” Moran says. Now that the House has begun work on its own version of Gang of Eight, these immigration-reform proponents are hoping that lawmakers in the House, unlike their Senate counterparts, will welcome their input.
— Andrew Stiles is a political reporter for National Review Online.
Just like the billions coming in from Saudi oil to off shore banks, billions are foreseen coming north through cartel lawyers, mules, and runner/overseers. They are well ingrained into the DOJ. Think Ramos/Campeon and go from there.
Deny all benefits and privileges to illegal aliens. Revoke 14th Amendment citizenship. One year hard labor for illegal aliens caught inside the US. Three years hard labor to anyone that employes illegal aliens.
If needed bring in temporary migrant workers under armed guard.
Good start followed by a most, mine fields and barbed wire.
I wondered how man troops were still in Europe and cut this from a recent article.
“Currently, about 80,000 U.S. troops are based in Europe. The changes outlined by the Pentagon will reduce that number by more than 11,000.”
Apparently, we use Europe as a training base. I suspect they’re not there to fight. I’m not certain why they can’t be trained here unless it’s interoperability training with our allies. Any knowledgeable freeper comments?
What border we don’t have a stinking border.
American troops were in Europe during the Cold War as a tripwire to make sure America had ‘skin in the game’ should Soviets attacks.
Since then, they are forward bases for intervention in the Middle East.
Forget the border.
1. Put a $500 bounty on illegal aliens that any citizen can collect by turning them in to the local authorities (who would be authorized to arrest them and hand them over for deportation).
2. Put a $1000 bounty on employers that hire illegals.
3. Require proof of legal residence and tax adherence to transport or wire money out of the country.
4. Deny all public aid, with the exception of truly emergency medical care, to illegals.
And the feds can't get the invaders out of the US and keep them out with the resources they already have? Nobody's that gullible.
We’ll never know. They don’t have to be deployed until 2021, and that can be reversed anytime between now and then.
Which is why the purported "increase" in border security will never, ever happen under the terms of this bill. There IS no intent to secure it. The only aspect of the entire bill that will be "secured" is a fast-track to citizenship for some 25-35 million illegals. But, if it does pass, in a year or so, expect the Repubs to gin up their obligatory tut-tuts as they express the required amount of contrived public outrage at the failure to secure the border. There'll be a lot of talking about securing the border, though... lots and lots of talking.
Most BP Agents are not dems and they certainly despise Nappy-Pants, The Big Zero and all those illegal-luving politicos out there.
BP Agents are not your usual federal employee. Far from it. And did I say most are not dems?
They work alone or in pairs, hours from back-up, using their brain and guts to take-down illegal aliens and drug smugglers. . .they are men of courage, not federal union/dem cowards/thugs.
They simply have no respect for weak people like this administration.
IF they ever materialize (a big if), I suspect most of them will be sitting around an office building in El Paso shuffling paperwork. Their main function will be as a conduit to launder more union dues into the Democrat Party.
...plus another 20k Dem voters for life.
Snipers mines and attack dogs are the “way to go”.
20,000 jobs. HA you give away 20,000 salaries made of tax money and get back 12% now that’s economics!
Opps you forgot about the 20,000 weapons, uniforms, and automobiles. Do we really need 20,000 people to watch 20,000 people cross the border weekly?
they don’t need 20,000 new agent and if they hired them in a rush they would probably slip up on background checks, lower standards and end up with rampant corruption like other PD’s years ago.
What they need is someone up top to say enough is enough and tall those here they have 6 months to leave or be formally deported and relinquish right to enter legally. Start enforcing current laws.
See Operation Wetback. Its all about attitude at the top.
A bounty would work better.
They are never going to do anything about the border but
open it up even more. I believe that somewhere in the
NAFTA, CAFTA and GAT treaties a secret pact was signed for
the creation of the North American Union and open borders.
There hasn’t been much difference in border policy
from Bush I to Obama and I don’t think it ever will be.
The day when illegal aliens literally have more rights than
law abiding American citizens is here and you can thank
Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Clinton, Obama and 80% of congress for
it. We have been sold out.
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