Thread: Chertoff: Border Will Be Secure 2 Years After Bush Leaves

Chertoff: Border Will Be Secure 2 Years After Bush Leaves

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 8:10 AM

By: Penny Starr

Washington -- Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Monday blamed tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border for increased violence there, and he said the border probably will not be fully secured until 2011, two years after President Bush leaves office.

"(Increased violence) is what typically happens when you start to enforce and make it harder to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit the additional space that's left," Chertoff said at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

"That's a good sign," he said. "The bad news is, it's created a lot of violence and created a lot of havoc, particularly in Mexico."

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009.

"We have to recognize that both countries (U.S. and Mexico) have a common interest in securing the border," Chertoff said.

When asked by Cybercast News Service if the border will be secure by the end of the Bush administration, Chertoff was upbeat but implied that finishing the job will fall to the next president of the United States.

"I think we will have made a dramatic amount of progress," he said. "I think if we continue on the course we've set now we can get the border secure ... sometime in 2011."

Chertoff used several graphics at the press conference to demonstrate that progress, including a prediction of 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing in place by the end of 2008; the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which standardizes documentation for increased border security; and the success of the E-Verify program, a voluntary program for employers to check the legal status of their prospective employees. Chertoff said some 70,000 American businesses have signed up for the program.

Chertoff also announced that the federal government would "lead by example" by making E-Verify mandatory for any entity seeking a federal contract.

Chertoff was joined at the conference by Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, who said that immigration reform continues to be a top priority of the Bush administration and that it is vital for the future health of the U.S. economy.

"We simply do not have enough workers at both ends of the spectrum," Gutierrez said, "from low-skilled field laborers to high-skilled technology workers."

He added that immigration is a reality that "is not going to go away" and that a "thoughtful" approach to immigration policy would continue a fine American tradition.

"If you look back over our economic history, we would not have accomplished what we have accomplished were it not for the help and the work of immigrants."

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/Cherto ... 03170.html

"We simply do not have enough workers at both ends of the spectrum," Gutierrez said, "from low-skilled field laborers to high-skilled technology workers."
He added that immigration is a reality that "is not going to go away" and that a "thoughtful" approach to immigration policy would continue a fine American tradition.
"If you look back over our economic history, we would not have accomplished what we have accomplished were it not for the help and the work of immigrants."

They continue to mix "immigration' with "ILLEGALS" for their own agenda. Secure Our National Borders and Enforce Our Immigration Laws and both the "legal immigrants" and our problem with the ILLEGALS and their Anchor Babies will be on the way to a positive solution!

"I think we will have made a dramatic amount of progress," he said. "I think if we continue on the course we've set now we can get the border secure ... sometime in 2011."

Isn't that just a load of crap. The border could be secured tomorrow if their hearts were in it.

thats 10 years after Bush's Goony Goo A$$ was elected into office and 9 YEARS after 9 / 11

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009.





Hmmm, this will require some thought

Okay, I've thought about it and ummmm......NO!!!

Instead, how about we worry about THIS side of the border, let Mexico worry about that trash heap they call home, we taxpayers get to keep our money, and Mexico can go straight to Hell?

Originally Posted by azwreath

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009.





Hmmm, this will require some thought

Okay, I've thought about it and ummmm......NO!!!

Instead, how about we worry about THIS side of the border, let Mexico worry about that trash heap they call home, we taxpayers get to keep our money, and Mexico can go straight to Hell?

At the same time "our" Government wants to send $1,500,000,000 to the mexican government "our" Government is "willing" to send just $100,000,000 to "our" Border Law Enforcement Agencies, the people who want to Secure Our National Borders! JUST SECURE OUR NATIONAL BORDERS!!!!!!!!!! Do any of our Elitist Politicians care about United States Citizens or are they just concerned about their Elitist Political Contributors and their Special Interest Groups?????????

Originally Posted by lccat

Originally Posted by azwreath

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009.





Hmmm, this will require some thought

Okay, I've thought about it and ummmm......NO!!!

Instead, how about we worry about THIS side of the border, let Mexico worry about that trash heap they call home, we taxpayers get to keep our money, and Mexico can go straight to Hell?

At the same time "our" Government wants to send $1,500,000,000 to the mexican government "our" Government is "willing" to send just $100,000,000 to "our" Border Law Enforcement Agencies, the people who want to Secure Our National Borders! JUST SECURE OUR NATIONAL BORDERS!!!!!!!!!! Do any of our Elitist Politicians care about United States Citizens or are they just concerned about their Elitist Political Contributors and their Special Interest Groups?????????

I've given that a lot of thought myself lately and I'm sure that some of it probably has to do with the things you've mentioned. But I'm not convinced that all if it is.

To a very large degree, I seriously believe that our government has ended up in a situation that literally spiraled out of control while no one was paying attention leaving us not only in a very embarassing but diplomatically sensitive situation as to how to solve it, and how to solve it without full blown violence breaking out within our borders while our military is overseas fighting this senseless war we're in.

And I really think that's one of the reasons we have seen Calderon become so brazen. I don't think he'd be stupid enough to push us around the way he has if he thought for one minute that we are in any position to flex back militarily.

Remarks by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Commerce Secretary Gutierrez at the State of Immigration Address
Release Date: June 9, 2008

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
Washington, D.C.

Secretary Chertoff: Good afternoon everybody. I am joined here by Secretary Gutierrez, the Secretary of Commerce, who I am delighted to have with me. As you probably remember, last August we promised to provide regular updates to the American people on our efforts to secure the border, enforce immigration laws and meet the needs of our economy by reforming temporary worker programs to the extent the current laws permit us to do so.

This will be the third update since the administration announced our 26 immigration reform and transformation initiatives in the wake of the failure of comprehensive immigration reform to pass Congress last year. Today we are going to highlight three major areas: first our continued progress at the border, second our continued efforts to provide employers with better tools to maintain a legal workforce and third, our efforts to strengthen and make more efficient our foreign temporary worker programs.

In each area you will see clear evidence of our progress, and of our commitment to address the nation’s immigration challenges using the tools, resources and authorities at our disposal. But again we will remind you that the need to address this program more comprehensively by Congress remains. And we hope Congress will in the very near future turn to this issue once again.

As in the past, I would like to begin by highlighting our efforts at the border itself, specifically fence construction, border patrol hiring and technology. As you will see, we currently have slightly less than 330 miles of fencing that’s been built. And we are moving toward our goal of 670 miles of fencing by the end of calendar year 2008.

We continue to work with landowners on the southern border to gain the access we need to conduct surveys and make decisions about the right kind of infrastructure to deploy on our border. We have had several hundred meetings, including town halls and meetings with individual landowners. We continue to be open to good-faith discussion about alternatives. But what we are not open to is endless debate or delay. We have an objective that Congress has mandated. It is our intention to meet that objective and to fulfill our obligation to the American people to get this fencing built.

With respect to border patrol staffing, you will see a dramatic increase since the President took office in fiscal year 2002. We have gone from 9,800 border patrol to our current border patrol numbers of 16,471. That by the way, is an over-5,000 Border Patrol agent increase from where we were when we announced the beginning of this effort as part of our Secure Border Initiative.

And we are on track to meet our goal of over 18,000 border patrol agents by the end of this calendar year. Again we are going to continue to post on our web site on the metrics of our progress towards achieving this goal. And we are achieving the goal without compromising on the standard of training, which is so necessary for those agents who are going to be working the very demanding environment of our border.

One of the special initiatives I would like to highlight is Operation Streamline. And this is a particular initiative under which all aliens caught crossing the border in designated high-traffic zones are actually criminally prosecuted before they are deported as part of an administrative process. This of course is a project we undertake in partnership with the Department of Justice and particular prosecutors who work with us to present these cases to the courts.

We initiated Operation Streamline in the Del Rio sector of Texas in December 2005, expanded it to Yuma in December 2006, and further expanded it to Laredo sector in October 2007. The results of this criminal prosecution initiative have been striking. We have seen significant reductions and apprehensions, a decrease in the recidivism rate of aliens prosecuted under the program, meaning once they get prosecuted, they stop trying to come in again, and a reduction in smuggling -- in smuggling organizations and illegal entries in the relevant urban areas.

If you look at apprehensions, you could see a steady decrease from the time we began these initiatives to the present. The reason this works is because these illegal migrants come to realize that violating the law will not simply send them back to try over again, but will require them to actually serve some short period of time in a jail or prison setting. And will brand them as having been violators of the law.

And that has a very significant deterrent impact. In this regard, I want to thank the Department of Justice, which very recently announced a plan to higher an additional 64 prosecutors and 34 -- 35 support staff to help with our various immigration-focused law enforcement initiatives at the Southwest border.

Apart from fencing, apart from people, a very important enabler is technology. And we continue to invest resources to develop, install and integrate our SBInet technology solutions to help Customs and Border Protection and the Border Patrol get effective control of our nation’s border.

Some weeks back there was a lot of discussion about a prototype project known as Project 28. But contrary to some of the down-beat media reports, Project 28 produced a functioning prototype system that added value to the Border Patrol effort and that we are now prepared to actually operationally deploy in two parts of the border in Arizona.

In fact, as reported on May 8 in The Houston Chronicle, visits down to the border by two members of Congress, members of our Homeland Security Committee Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Representative Christopher Carney, actually had them observe with approval a lot of the progress that has been made and the value that has been added by this technology project. As a consequence, we plan to award the Arizona Deployment Task Order contract to Boeing to install the first operational configuration of this concept in two areas within the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol. This is, of course, a concept that envisions fixed towers with radar, sensors and remote-controlled camera equipment, unattended ground sensors, and common operating picture equipment and software.

In addition to this, we will continue to roll out our ground-based mobile surveillance systems. We have our four unmanned aerial vehicles operating, and we continue to deploy independent ground sensors. Do these efforts work? The answer is yes. We continue to see a decrease in apprehensions period as compared to the same period in prior years, 16 percent on the Southwest border and 15 percent overall.

Don’t take my word for it. The words of the San Francisco Chronicle on May 16: “The tightening of the border has made it increasingly difficult, dangerous and expensive for laborers to return to the United States if they leave, disrupting the traditional circular flow of farm workers from Mexico to California’s fields into Salinas’ central valleys.â€

These people just don't listen......

there is no shortage of high skilled or low skilled workers in this country we call the United States.......what there is, is hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work who can not find a job.....Hellloooo what does this tell you!!

STOP spewing the lies, the facts are as plain as the nose on your face stupids, how could we possible believe you when the facts tell us different.

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by lccat

Originally Posted by azwreath

Chertoff added that quelling the violence will require working with the Mexican government - and millions of dollars from American taxpayers if Congress funds the Merida Initiative. The multi-year proposal would give Mexico $500 million and $50 million to Central America in 2008 to fight the drug cartels - another $450 million and $100 million respectively will be given for fiscal year 2009.





Hmmm, this will require some thought

Okay, I've thought about it and ummmm......NO!!!

Instead, how about we worry about THIS side of the border, let Mexico worry about that trash heap they call home, we taxpayers get to keep our money, and Mexico can go straight to Hell?

At the same time "our" Government wants to send $1,500,000,000 to the mexican government "our" Government is "willing" to send just $100,000,000 to "our" Border Law Enforcement Agencies, the people who want to Secure Our National Borders! JUST SECURE OUR NATIONAL BORDERS!!!!!!!!!! Do any of our Elitist Politicians care about United States Citizens or are they just concerned about their Elitist Political Contributors and their Special Interest Groups?????????

I've given that a lot of thought myself lately and I'm sure that some of it probably has to do with the things you've mentioned. But I'm not convinced that all if it is.

To a very large degree, I seriously believe that our government has ended up in a situation that literally spiraled out of control while no one was paying attention leaving us not only in a very embarassing but diplomatically sensitive situation as to how to solve it, and how to solve it without full blown violence breaking out within our borders while our military is overseas fighting this senseless war we're in.

And I really think that's one of the reasons we have seen Calderon become so brazen. I don't think he'd be stupid enough to push us around the way he has if he thought for one minute that we are in any position to flex back militarily.

I agree, but I think GREED on the part of "our" Elitist Politicians fed by their Elitist Contributors is the reason for the invasion by the ILLEGALAS and their Anchor Babies. For the past 20 years "our" Presidents and the Congressional Leadership have been pushed around and led by the nose by any Special Interests willing to make Political Contributions both internal and external to our Nation. If in fact this is not all SHOW and they desire to Secure Our National Borders and Enforce Our Immigration Laws there are 30,000 United States Troops defending the National Borders of South Korea that could be moved to our bases along Our National Borders!