In an effort to appease states infuriated over the lack of federal assistance in the area of illegal immigration, President Obama signed a $600 million border security bill to fund equipment and manpower along the southern border.
CBS News reports, “The bill is paid for by raising fees on foreign-based personnel companies that use U.S. visa programs, including the popular H-1B program, to bring skilled workers to the United States.”
New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is the bill’s sponsor and claims that the bill will place the “boots on the ground and the resources necessary to combat the crime and violence.”
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President Obama adds that the bill will “strengthen our partnership with Mexico in targeting the gangs and criminal organizations that operate on both sides of our shared border.”
The measure is expected to allow for the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, as well as 250 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and 250 Customs and Border Protection officers. Likewise, the bill will fund communications equipment and unmanned surveillance drones. Finally, some of the money will be allotted to assist the FBI, DEA, and ATF combat drug dealers and human traffickers.
Border security has been at the forefront of politics ever since Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer boldly passed SB 1070, the highly controversial, though admittedly successful, anti-illegal immigration law.
While Democrats are patting themselves on the back for finally taking steps to ensure border security, Arizona Republican Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl see the bill as only a small step in the right direction. However, they contend that the measure does not fund enough customs inspectors along the Arizona border, nor does it finance a program that would force illegal immigrant low-level criminals to serve a small amount of jail time.
Arizona’s Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick explained that the debate over the measure was long and difficult at times, but that she and others made sure that “Congress knows that we are fed up with the federal government’s failure along the border. At least this time, they are listening to us.”
The Christian Science Monitor voiced sentiments similar to those of Kirkpatrick. “A parade of states led by Arizona says the federal government is not doing enough to combat illegal immigration.”
Surprisingly, the one area in which the Obama administration has acquired some bragging rights is in deportations. According to the Christian Science Monitor, “In 2009, the United States deported a record 387,790 people — a 5 percent increase over 2008. Nearly two months before the end of the 2010 federal fiscal year, the deportation rate is down slightly from 2009, but the number of removals is still likely to be more than triple what it was in 2001.”
Critics of Obama’s handling of illegal immigration note that the administration’s focus has been on illegal alien criminals, and not illegal aliens as a whole.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, notes, “The problem isn’t just criminal aliens, it is a general lack of respect for our laws, and even noncriminal aliens do have a significant impact on state budgets, on unemployment, on all sorts of things.”
Mehlman is correct in his assessment of the financial impact. In fact, the United States spends an annual $36 billion on educating, incarcerating, and providing medical care for the millions of illegal aliens in America. This is only a fraction of the costs imposed on America by illegal immigrants: It does not include the healthcare costs of the illegals American-born children nor does it count federal Earned Income Tax Credit payouts the illegals receive, whereby people who pay no federal income tax can get cash assistance from the government nor the welfare dollars paid to Americans who have lost their jobs to cheap labor (illegal immigrants often get by in the United States by not buying health insurance or any other type of insurance, enabling them to live far cheaper than an American reasonably could).
Likewise, the American culture is beginning to suffer under the weight of illegal immigration, as noted by John Birch Society President John McManus during his speaking tour, “Stealing the American Dream.”
The federal government’s inept handling of illegal immigration was highlighted when signs were placed along the southern side of 1-8 between Case Grande and Gila Bend Arizona, across the Table Top Wilderness Area, to warn American citizens not to travel the area, as it is a known “active drug and human smuggling area.”
The $600 million bill may be the first of many steps to target the growing illegal immigration problem, but it is more likely that it is an Obama administration ply to show Americans that it is attempting to control the bborder so that it can push "comprehensive immigration reform" — a.k.a. amnesty. After all, evidence suggests that the administration is considering bypassing Congress to enact amnesty if Congress does not do so.
Jack Chin, law professor at the University of Arizona, asserts, “The administration is trying to gain credibility — with enhanced enforcement, troops to the border, and by other measures — to make clear it is taking action on immigration.”
Photo: AP Images
