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Senate Action in 2006 | Senate Action in 2007 | Enforcement First | Securing the Border | Fencing and Manpower on the Southern Border | Mitigating the Costs of Illegal Immigration
There are few issues as important to Arizonans as securing the border and restoring integrity to our nation’s immigration system. Our public schools, health-care delivery systems, criminal justice system, and even our precious desert environment are all feeling the strains of the influx of millions of illegal immigrants and our federal government’s failure to stop it. Securing the border is one of my highest priorities.
Senate Action in 2006
 In 2006, Senator John Cornyn and I sponsored tough enforcement legislation. It would have authorized significant increases in personnel and resources to control our borders and to enforce immigration laws. It would have ensured that dangerous criminal aliens are detained until they are removed from the U.S.; attacked the problem of document fraud; increased the amount of detention space available to get illegal immigrants off the streets; and reimbursed Arizona for what it spends enforcing federal immigration laws. It would have put in place an electronic verification system to ensure that only employees who are legally eligible to work in the country can get jobs, and it would have implemented a temporary worker program tied to the needs of our economy. When the need for additional workers arises, more could be admitted, but when jobs are scarce, even for Americans, temporary work visas would not be issued or renewed.
Regrettably, this tough enforcement approach did not muster sufficient support and, over my objection, a far more permissive bill passed the Senate. I was one of just 36 Senators to vote against that bill. Forty-one votes would have been required to block the bill through a filibuster. The bill later died in the House of Representatives.
SENATE ACTION IN 2007
Recognizing that immigration reform would be on the Senate’s agenda in 2007 – and recognizing that the American people elected new, more liberal majorities to both the Senate and House – I had a choice: remain on the sidelines and let a permissive bill like the 2006 Senate bill pass once again, knowing the President was ready to sign it into law, or participate in negotiations to ensure as much as possible that Arizonans’ views were represented in any new legislation.
The bill that resulted was the product of extensive negotiations in which I participated along with Senators of both political parties and the President. Our goal was to develop consensus legislation that could appeal to a broad cross-section of the Senate and win the support of the American people.
This consensus legislation required that both sides make concessions, so the bill that resulted from the negotiations understandably had something for everyone to love, and hate. For conservatives, the bill included unprecedented additional resources to help secure the border (including the dollars upfront to pay for them), an end to chain migration, an effective employee verification system to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining employment, a temporary worker program that was truly temporary, and reform of work visas and green cards based on merit. For liberals, it offered a way to deal with illegal immigrants who are already here, though the automatic pathway to citizenship they wanted was eliminated.
As the Senate debated the bill, thousands of Arizonans contacted my office with their comments and suggestions. Many offered constructive suggestions, and I tried to turn those into meaningful amendments to improve the bill. For example, the bill required that probationary status be granted to individuals within 24 hours of their applying for it, assuming that the appropriate background checks could be completed within that time. However, some interpreted that to mean that probationary status must be conferred regardless of whether or not the appropriate background checks were completed. Senator Lindsey Graham and I offered an amendment to eliminate the 24-hour requirement, just in case the background checks took longer to complete. Our amendment would have ensured that background checks are completed before probationary status is conferred.
Our amendment also would have bolstered resources at the border and elsewhere in the country, adding over 10,000 additional personnel to enforce immigration law. It would have made it easier to bar those who pose health and safety risks to Americans, those with gang affiliations, and child molesters, and to deport such people who are already here. It included a series of changes to crack down on visa overstayers, who account for more than 40 percent of illegal immigrants. Regrettably, the Senate voted to end debate on the bill before our amendment could be put to a vote. I am confident that it would have passed.
Some questioned whether Congress would really fund the various promises of improved enforcement being made in the bill, so I helped secure an advance appropriation of $4.4 billion in the legislation to ensure that border security was fully funded, not left to the uncertainties of future legislative action. The unprecedented step of including the money up front demonstrated that we have not only learned from the lessons of the past – when promises of increased security went unfulfilled when it came time to actually provide the funding – but also that Congress was serious about implementing the promised border security before any other parts of the bill would take effect.
Senators from both ends of the political spectrum ultimately united against the middle to defeat the bill, albeit for different reasons. Some thought the bill was far too focused on catching illegal immigrants and on law enforcement, while others thought it did not go far enough. Only 46 Senators voted to advance the 2007 bill to a final vote.
The failure of the immigration bill may be attributable, in large part, to the American people’s rightful criticism of the federal government for failing in the past to enforce the law and deal effectively with the problem of illegal immigration. I agree with them. And they understandably look skeptically on our current efforts to strengthen the law, even while they demand that Congress act. But we will not be able to solve the problem by saying “no” to new legislation because of past failures. And we cannot simply say “enforce the law.” Many parts of the current law need to be strengthened in order to be effective.
For example, the law requiring employers to verify eligibility for employment needs to restrict the number of documents that employers can accept as proof of identity and work authorization, as well as improve the security of those documents, because the current system makes it too easy for illegal immigrants to find work with counterfeit documents. Furthermore, the data-sharing that needs to be in place for government agencies to identify illegal immigrants in the workforce cannot be accomplished without additional legislative changes.
Following the failure of the immigration bill, I publicly commented that Congress did not have the trust of the American people on the issue of illegal immigration, and I suggested to the Administration that it earn that trust through dedicated efforts to enforce existing laws. For my part, I introduced a bill in August that identifies a wide variety of changes in law that should be considered the next time Congress takes up immigration reform. The bill would help gain control of our borders; enforce immigration and related criminal laws in the interior of the country; and implement an advanced employment verification system to deter the hiring of unlawful aliens.
The bill contains some 72 separate provisions, which represent the ideas and insights of numerous Members of Congress, a variety of federal and state agencies, and members of the public. Some of these provisions represent positions adopted by the Senate in the last immigration bill, and others represent tough new enforcement measures. Each of the provisions contained in this bill can stand alone on its own merit, or be combined with any other immigration bill.
The bill directs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to gain operational control of the borders and by so doing prevent unlawful entries of terrorists, aliens, instruments of terror, narcotics and other contraband. To accomplish this goal, the bill devotes significant resources to DHS, including allowances for personnel, physical barriers, infrastructure, and technology.
The bill specifically calls for a continuation of Operation Jumpstart, which has dedicated 3,000 to 6,000 members of the National Guard to our southern border from 2006 to 2008. Operation Jumpstart resulted in a dramatic reduction in the amount of illegal immigration across that border.
We’ve learned through experience that there’s no deterrent value to the practice of releasing illegal border crossers into the United States after charging them and asking them to show up in immigration court, so my bill mandates that all illegal immigrants who cannot be immediately returned to their home countries must be detained until they are removed. The bill would assign DHS 45,000 detention beds to meet that objective. The bill would also deny criminal gang members admission to the United States and deport those who are here.
We know that the federal government lacks sufficient resources and legal authorities necessary to enforce immigration laws in the interior of the United States. To correct that, my bill would substantially increase the number of personnel to enforce and administer immigration and criminal laws. For example, delays in the immigration courts are extensive because we lack the immigration judges and trial attorneys to process and adjudicate cases. The bill would add 100 immigration judges and 1,000 prosecutors over five years to reduce that backlog.
The United States does not currently track and remove foreign nationals who lawfully enter the country on visas, and who illegally remain here. To address that problem, my bill would make overstaying a visa a crime (it isn’t now) and require that individuals be detained until removed. It would require DHS to track the entry and exit of all visitors to the United States, so that we know who has come and gone, and to share information about visa overstayers with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
Today, illegal aliens convicted of homicide, manslaughter, or drunk driving may not be identified as aggravated felons, even if they injure or kill others. My bill recognizes the severity of these offenses and would classify them as aggravated felonies, which would prevent aliens convicted of such offenses from obtaining legal status in the United States.
Under present law, sex offenders who target children may not be found to be aggravated felons if their conviction records do not include the age of the victim. My bill seeks to keep our children safe by ensuring that other evidence of a victim’s age can be introduced during an alien’s removal proceeding so that the sex offenders can be removed from the United States.
Finally, most experts now agree that the measures discussed above will still be insufficient to stop all illegal immigration unless there is also a mandatory employment verification system for employers to ensure they’re hiring people who are legally authorized to work in the United States. As mentioned previously, the present system is neither mandatory nor adequate to deter fraud and identity theft. Among other things, it allows too many forms of identification (many of which can be easily counterfeited) to be used in obtaining a job. It also does not allow DHS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to actively exchange information about workers who are using fraudulent Social Security numbers. This is one of the key areas in which the law must be changed — we can’t just say “enforce existing law.” In fact, because of the inadequate federal law, states like Arizona have already adopted their own employee verification laws. Obviously, it is preferable to have one effective federal law.
My bill would implement a new employment verification system that would limit the documents establishing identity and work eligibility to passports, immigration documents, driver’s licenses, identity cards, and Social Security cards. The system would permit DHS to obtain from issuing agencies in the federal and state governments the photographs contained on those documents and transmit them via the Internet to employers, so that an employer examining a worker’s document can easily and accurately match the photograph on the document to the image transmitted by DHS to ensure they are identical. To ensure the smooth operation of the new employment verification system, the bill calls for 5,000 additional personnel at DHS to oversee and enforce the system.
Because the Social Security card is one of the most commonly counterfeited cards in circulation, the bill requires the SSA to issue a more secure card that is tamperproof and wear resistant, and contains a photograph. My bill would allow SSA to notify DHS when a worker’s name and Social Security number don’t match, or when use of the number appears improper, so that DHS can investigate.
In addition to these proposed legislative changes, I will continue to urge the Administration to enforce those parts of existing law that are enforceable in order to demonstrate to a skeptical public that our government is indeed committed to enforcing the law. Clearly, the American people want more enforcement before doing anything else. And, I’ll keep fighting for additional resources in upcoming appropriations bills for more Border Patrol agents, the construction of border fencing and other barriers, and improved technology along the border.
SECURING THE BORDER
As a result of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the President in recent years, efforts to secure the border and stem the flow of illegal immigrants into our country have begun to show results.
Legislation I authored in 1996 first began the buildup of Border Patrol strength from just 4,000 to over 15,000 now. I have worked every year to increase funding for personnel, high-technology equipment, and other resources along the border, including:
- Border Patrol vehicles, patrol stations, equipment, technology, and other infrastructure in Arizona;
- border fences;
- vehicle-barrier construction;
- additional attorneys to process criminal aliens;
- improved technology to speed legal border crossings, while helping to identify those who have overstayed their visas or entered the country illegally;
- records modernization;
- interior enforcement;
- SENTRI lanes;
- Entry-Exit system to be implemented at all ports of entry;
- Quick Response Teams;
- Customs Service inspectors, agents, and equipment; and
- Detention facilities and bed space.
Legislation recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the President included funding that Senator Lindsey Graham and I had proposed to hire an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents and provide $1.2 billion for fencing, infrastructure, and technology on the border. The funding bill also improves interior enforcement by providing $200 million for DHS to identify criminal aliens in federal, state, local jails. And it provides $2.3 billion to detain and remove illegal immigrants. It allocates $80 million to DHS to help employers verify employees’ legal status and to enforce immigration laws at the worksite. Finally, the bill includes $410 million to reimburse states for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens.
I worked to ensure that appropriations legislation approved for the previous fiscal year provided DHS over $1.1 billion for border fencing, infrastructure, technology, and other elements necessary to enhance control of the border. The legislation also provided $1.98 billion for DHS to increase detention capacity by 2,700 additional bed spaces and to hire more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. This has been key in eliminating the counterproductive practice of “catch and release” by giving DHS additional room to detain illegal immigrants.
FENCING AND MANPOWER ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER
In 2006, I supported several border security-related bills that help improve our control of the border. One such bill, the Secure Fence Act, requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to build fencing along 700 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. DHS plans to have 370 miles of fencing built on the entire border by the end of 2008 (165 miles had been built by early 2008). And there are now nearly 15,000 Border Patrol agents patrolling our borders (compared to 4,000 in 1996 when I began fighting for an increase in the number of Border Patrol agents), and DHS continues to hire more.
In addition to fencing, the Secure Fence Act instructs the Secretary to use personnel and technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, sensors, satellites, radar, cameras, and physical infrastructure enhancements to help prevent unlawful border crossings. I also helped secure approval of a bill to criminalize the construction of cross-border tunnels for the purposes of smuggling and illegal immigration. That measure was signed into law in October 2006.
MITIGATING THE COSTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
When the federal government fails to secure the border, immigration-related costs to state and local governments – and American taxpayers – can skyrocket. Communities must bear the costs of arresting, prosecuting, and jailing illegal immigrants who commit other crimes. According to a study by the University of Arizona, those costs amount to at least $125 million per year – and that is just in the 28 southwestern border counties in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. Several bills, now law, that I sponsored with Senator Dianne Feinstein have reimbursed states and localities for some of the millions of dollars in costs they incur dealing with such criminals. Most recently, I supported $410 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and over $30 million to fund the Southwest Border Prosecutors Program, which Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I helped establish, in the omnibus appropriations bill that was signed into law in December of 2007.
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