“At some point in the last two years, our debate over securing America’s borders became a debate over America’s immigration policy.  This change in point of view has troubled congressional efforts to add much-needed personnel and technology to the southern U.S. border.  Last week, I stood with my colleagues in the House of Representatives to shift the focus back where it belongs.

 

The Secure Fence Act is a straightforward legislative proposal to repair our broken borders.

 

The bill would add state-of-the-art technology to the barriers and surveillance along the U.S. borders, across which millions of illegal immigrants from nations around the globe and thousands of shipments of illegal narcotics (especially methamphetamine) cross into our country.  The Committee on Homeland Security earlier this year heard testimony that drug cartels, illegal smuggling rings and gangs are operating on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.  U.S. Border Patrol agents are being assaulted in increasing numbers.  Mexican organized crime is both growing more aggressive and becoming better equipped.  These facts demand a responsible solution.

 

One more thing to consider: The permeable borders between Mexico and the U.S. have become more than a policy problem for Americans; they are now a serious concern for U.S. Homeland Security.  Without the means to patrol and enforce the border, we expose a significant weakness to an unacceptable risk.

 

Short-term solutions, such as the deployment of U.S. National Guard troops to the border, do not begin to solve the long-term problem of border security.  Equally as counterproductive is using a debate over changing U.S. immigration policy to stymie critical attention to our broken borders.

 

The proposal for which I voted last week would add over 700 miles of two-layered reinforced fencing along the southwest U.S. border with Mexico.  Priority placement for the fencing would be along highly populated areas, such as the two-mile gap in the border fence in Arizona.

 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be responsible for constructing a “virtual fence,” comprised of cameras, ground sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other surveillance technologies.   In addition, U.S. authorities would be granted the same authority given to the U.S. Coast Guard to disable fleeing vehicles.  Our coastline is a border, just like the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders, and there is no reason to apply a lower standard to their policing.

 

Late last year, I supported another measure to add more then 2,000 border security agents to the U.S. boundaries we share with Mexico and Canada.  We tried to end the ridiculous practice of catch-and-release, by which some captured illegal immigrants are let go and told to return to a U.S. court for a hearing in 30 days.  The bill would have expanded the detention and deportation of illegal immigrants trying to “jump ahead in line” before others in the legal process.  Yet this bill has foundered because of a demand that immigration reform be included in this debate. 

 

The debate can wait.

 

Once we resolve the security problem and can enforce existing immigration laws now on the books, then we will be able to address illegal immigration.  Until such time as our borders are enforced, however, there can be no effective U.S. immigration policy of any kind.  Given the sad state of affairs along our borders now, it will not be a moment too soon.”