GovernmentExecutive.com

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to add more border agents, investigators and fencing to stem rising illegal immigration as it worked its way through a major immigration reform bill.

In its third day of marking up the bill, the committee discussed nearly 30 amendments, approving a dozen of them by voice vote and postponing the rest for action next week.

In action during the day, the committee agreed to authorize over five years more than 10,000 new customs and border patrol agents, 1,000 investigators, and 1,250 port of entry inspectors. There was a dispute between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., principal author of the amendment to boost the number of border agents, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., over exactly how many border patrol agents would be added in addition to the 11,300 border agents now. Committee staff said they would have to resolve the exact numbers later.

In addition, the committee adopted also by voice an amendment by Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., to replace some existing fencing in Arizona and add more than 200 miles of barriers to improve border security in Arizona only. Sessions has said he planned to offer an amendment on the Senate floor to put up some 700 miles of fencing to block off some of the 2,000 miles of U.S. border with Mexico. The committee also agreed to an amendment by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for a study to study the feasibility of more fencing along the entire border.

The committee made more progress than it did Wednesday when only three relatively minor amendments were adopted after spending all day with many senators absent, preventing a voting quorum.

"We're on our way," said Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Thursday. "We had a good session." Specter is trying to meet a target set by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to start debate on an immigration bill on March 27. Specter indicated yesterday it might not meet that goal because of the slow pace of deciding on amendments.

The committee is working its way through a 306-page draft proposed by Specter to beef up enforcement and deal with the estimated 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States by allowing qualified undocumented workers to continue working as a way to earn eventual citizenship. He also has proposed a separate guest worker program allowing foreigners to enter the country for up to six years to take jobs that cannot be filled.

Both provisions are highly controversial and are considered the heart of the bill but debate on those matters will not take place until next week at the earliest. The committee plans to work next Wednesday and Thursday on immigration.

The House passed a bill last year that deals mainly with enforcement and does not address the thorny guest worker issue.

In other amendments, the committee agreed to a Feinstein amendment to allow immigrants to stay in the United States if it was discovered their papers or passports were falsified. The immigrants would have to prove there was "a credible fear of prosecution" as the reason passports were forged to get out of countries with dictatorships.

A Sessions' plan was approved that would jail immigrants found to be illegal instead of releasing them pending immigration hearings. He argued many of those released never show up for immigration hearings and disappear. Sessions also won committee endorsement to make it a crime to run a vehicle past a customs checkpoint without stopping.

Three amendments by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, met no opposition. One would require the Department of Homeland Security to make public foreign ownership of management operations that involve national security as a way to prevent officials being surprised by situations like the Dubai port management controversy.

A Grassley proposal to allocate more immigration investigators to inland states like Iowa won easy approval. So did one to make immigrants convicted of drunk driving one of the crimes subject to deportation.

An amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., extending a law allowing foreign doctors to practice in mainly rural areas with physician shortages, also gained approval.

And an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for expedited deportation instead of incarcerating convicted illegal immigrants was also accepted. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., won approval of his proposal to bar violent criminals from sponsoring foreigners seeking entry into the United States.

COMMENTS

• I think an overlooked aspect of the illegal immigration problem is asset forfeiture laws. If proceeds from other criminal acts are forfeitable, then why aren't the assets of deported illegal aliens forfeited? Money is the incentive for them to violate our laws, just like money is the incentive for drug smugglers and robbers to violate our laws. I think that if the government would make the forfeiture of the assets of the deportable aliens part of the authority of the immigration judges, we would significantly reduce the number of illegal aliens in this country, we would significantly reduce the cost to the government for the housing, feeding, processing, and deporting these aliens. Federal employees and other U.S. citizens can lose their pensions and social security if they violate certain laws and/or are wanted for crimes. Why should illegal aliens be any different? I once asked an illegal alien why he did not depart when the immigration judge gave him a Voluntary Departure (90 percent don't leave as ordered). His reply was, "Why? The longer I stay in the United States, the more money I make. If I get caught I am still ahead." As for training requirements for the new border patrol, there is nothing wrong with On the Job Training. Assign a new border patrol agent to an experienced agent. They will learn what they need to know within a few days. Send them to formal training after they have been on the job for at least two years. This will save the expense of training someone who realizes (within days or hours) that this is not the job for them. GovExec.com reader Posted March 10, 2006 11:26 AM
• Remember the great quote about this being a nation of laws, not men? Well, those fine days are gone. Today the Congress of the United States is trying to reconcile two diametrically opposed principles; homeland security through tighter border security and economic disaster of almost uncontrolled immigration. Will all of those 11 million illegal infiltrators go home, apply for legal status, then return? I don't think so. Will this (if enacted) nonsense produce more illegal infiltration, yep! How about spending the money on our poor citizens post-Katrina, instead of supporting the Third World? GovExec.com reader Posted March 12, 2006 10:09 AM
• I don't expect this bill to get very far. However, it would be a total waste to spend even one extra dime on adding extra personnel, let alone what is being spent on existing personnel, to enhance immigration controls when there are about a dozen illegals pouring over the border for every one rounded up. You can't add extra personnel to take on the futile task of rounding up illegals without stopping the current inflow at the border. There is absolutely no point. Stopping the inflow means just that -- stopping it. It doesn't mean wasting money on extra personnel so we can now catch three out of every 20 illegals as opposed to one out of every 20. Adding more personnel without putting up a fool-proof control at the border (i.e., something that extends across the entire border and is impenetrable) is the equivalent of wasting millions to increase a city police department’s supply of pepper spray to deal with the emergence of a city-wide gang equipped with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers. And then there are the problems associated with the job for officers charged with immigration enforcement. For one, what is the motivation to spend all day trying to round up a few illegals when dozens more have snuck in over the same time period? There is absolutely no sense of accomplishment or job satisfaction. Secondly, seeing as immigration enforcement is primarily administrative and non-criminal in nature, it is the equivalent of writing traffic tickets. The only difference is that an officer doesn't have to spend hours of processing and complete an endless supply of paperwork to write a traffic ticket like he does to process an illegal alien. Why on earth money is wasted to task trained criminal investigators with rounding up illegals is beyond me. What's next, tasking the military with playground supervision at public schools? Lastly, there are the countless hours that could've been spent on criminal investigations that go to waste to enforce immigration when the result can only be complete failure. This is not a personnel problem. It’s a border containment problem. GovExec.com reader Posted March 13, 2006 6:49 PM