BUSH FOR THE RECORD: IMMIGRATION
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008; Page A13

"America needs to secure our borders, and with your help, my administration is taking steps to do so. We are increasing work-site enforcement, we are deploying fences and advanced technologies to stop illegal crossings, we have effectively ended the policy of 'catch and release' at the border, and by the end of this year, we will have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents."

ANALYSIS: Bush's claim that his administration has boosted prosecutions of companies or company officials that have hired illegal workers is debatable. Such activity decreased during his first presidential term and remains relatively rare.

While federal immigration authorities arrested nearly four times as many people at workplaces in 2007 as they did in 2005, for example, only 2 percent of those arrests involved criminal charges against the employers responsible for hiring workers. Only 92 owners, supervisors or hiring officials were arrested in an economy that includes 6 million companies that employ more than 7 million unauthorized workers.

Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or other forfeitures. The number of illegal immigrants arrested in workplace enforcement cases fell from 2,849 in 1999 to a low of 445 in 2003 before rebounding.

The deployment of technology at U.S. borders to prevent illegal immigration is experiencing limited success.

The Department of Homeland Security in December installed a pilot 28-mile electronic fence along the Arizona border that uses cameras, radar and ground sensors to intercept illegal crossers, but it was six months late and requires additional testing. The department has not said whether the projected multibillion-dollar system is ready to be expanded as scheduled this year.

In his State of the Union speech, Bush repeated an assertion that the border cannot be secured against illegal crossers unless the United States increases channels for foreign workers to enter legally, but he did not make any specific new proposal for them to do so.

-- Spencer S. Hsu
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