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 News from Around the Americas | July 2006 
Lawmakers Cast Doubt on US Strategy for Border Crackdown
 Lara Jakes Jordan - Associated Press
| | Pro-immigration protesters out number members of the Minuteman Project and New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement during a rally at ground zero Wednesday, July 26, 2006, in New York. The Minuteman Project is a group dedicated to restricting immigration to the United States and are most well known for their citizen observation patrols along the US-Mexico border. (AP/Seth Wenig) |
Washington - Lawmakers of both parties told the nation's homeland security chief yesterday that they doubt that plans for more agents, improved sensors, and other measures to tighten US borders against illegal immigrants and terrorists will work.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff agreed that his department is unlikely to completely curb the immigration flow, particularly at the Mexican border. But he said a crackdown this year appears to have deterred immigrants from trying to sneak in.
"If we're ever going to someday get to a comprehensive immigration policy, you have to succeed first at a border security plan," Representative John Sweeney, Republican of New York, said at a House Appropriations panel looking at immigration enforcement. "And no one that I know really has the confidence that you can do this, that we can do this."
Chertoff pointed to charts showing the number of non-Mexican immigrants caught at the southwest border has dropped compared with last year. Illegal immigrants from Latin American countries besides Mexico had been spiking in recent years.
The two-hour inquiry marked the latest congressional discussion of how to stem illegal immigration - a top election-year priority.
House leaders have planned 19 hearings on immigration, spanning 12 states and eight separate committees, for next month alone. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said one possibility might be to set a goal of cutting off up to 85 percent or 90 percent of illegal border traffic before officials focus on other immigration priorities.
Congress last month approved a spending bill that included about $1.9 billion to tighten US borders - including funds to put thousands of Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops along the Mexican border. The additional troops are part of a border crackdown that will eventually include more motion sensors, surveillance flights, and cameras.
The money will also pay for 40 miles of fencing and 140 miles of vehicle barriers on the US-Mexico border, Chertoff said. And the department is "finally bringing a big stick" to penalizing companies that illegally hire foreign workers and deporting immigrants already in the country. |
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