GovernmentExecutive.com

Outgoing Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson cited a number of border and immigration challenges the country faces in his final speech Monday before leaving government, including words of caution against a citizen effort to help guard the southern borders.

"If a president ever comes to you and asks you to set up a new department, come see me first," Hutchinson told an audience of mostly Washington interns and college students during his last speech as the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for border and transportation security.

In order to control the country's borders, Hutchinson said, the government needs strong law enforcement and a means by which noncitizens can legally come into the country to work.

Hutchinson was critical, however, of the Minuteman Project, which calls for U.S. citizens to converge in Tombstone, Ariz., in April "to assist the U. S. Department of Homeland Security by observing and reporting illegal activity on and around the southern border of the United States."

According to James Gilchrist, an organizer of the grassroots effort, the project is all-volunteer and especially seeks current and former members of any law enforcement organization, as well as military veterans or people with intelligence-gathering experience. The project says it is not a call to arms, but a call for citizens to peacefully assemble at the Arizona-Mexico border. As of Monday, 531 volunteers from 47 states had signed up, including pilots with aircraft.

"Our policy of passive activity will be to observe with the aid of binoculars - telescopes - night vision scopes, and inform the U.S. Border Patrol of the location of illegal activity so that border patrol agents can investigate," Gilchrist wrote in a call to action on the Minuteman Project's Web site.

"I hope to bring serious media and political attention to this event," Gilchrist added. "It will tune the American people into the shameful fact that 21st Century minutemen/women have to help secure U.S. borders because the U.S. government REFUSES to provide our dutiful U.S. Border Patrol and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the manpower and funding required to do so."

Hutchinson expressed concern that the volunteers do not have adequate training for the work.

"I'm very concerned that you're going to have people shot, people hurt," Hutchinson said.

With regard to DHS programs, Hutchinson said the department plans to deploy visa security experts to Indonesia and Pakistan this year to help U.S. consulates process visa applications.

Hutchinson said the department might also have to request an additional one-year extension for countries that are part of the U.S. Visa Waiver Program to comply with a new regulation that they issue machine-readable passports with biometric identifiers. Countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program have said they need more time to meet the deadline, which is this October.

Hutchinson said the United States needs to remain open to immigrants - whether they are business people, students or tourists - while respecting the rule of law. He also said that the United States should "enlist" Canada and Mexico to create a "North American security perimeter" to protect borders.

"The worst thing that could happen to our country," he said, "is if we seal off our borders and isolate the United States from international commerce."

COMMENTS

• What nonsense! Mr. Hutchinson equates keeping out illegal aliens with sealing off our borders to international commerce. If this is what he believes, he should never have been appointed to the job. He also frets about people being shot. Who is going to be shot and by whom does he think it will be done? Are the illegal aliens going to shoot their way in? His remarks are a good example of what is wrong with our government today. John T. Fisk Posted March 31, 2005 1:44 PM
• I'm glad Hutchinson is gone since his statement proves he didn't know his job. Since when is "international commerce" illegally sneaking across our borders. Neither political party will do anything to stop the flow of illegals because they are trying to attract the latino vote. We need a new political party and soon. Nick Posted March 8, 2005 1:38 PM
• To "Taxpayer, DOD": Maybe you should take a closer look at history. The previous immigrants to this country, including my grandparents from Italy, wanted to be AMERICANS. They came here LEGALLY, through Ellis Island, and wanted to achieve the American dream. They worked hard, learned English, and were proud to see their children grow up as American kids. Although they kept some of their old traditions and customs, they never forgot that they were now AMERICANS, unlike many of today's immigrants, who come here ILLEGALLY and make no effort to assimilate into America's "melting pot". These illegal aliens eagerly take all the benefits they can, but they break the law, don't learn our language, disrespect our history and traditions, don't assimilate, bring with them diseases from the Third World we thought we had conquered (such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, etc.), overwhelm our health care system, don't pay taxes, and then send billions of dollars back to their native countries, where their true loyalties remain. So wake up, and see what is really going on today. To compare today's illegal aliens with our forefathers is not only absurd, but historically inaccurate. And best of all, guess who is paying for all of this, "Taxpayer"?!! GovExec.com reader Posted March 7, 2005 2:51 PM