McCaul vows to unveil framework for border control in coming days

Wed, 2013-02-06 03:46 PM By: Mark Rockwell

Rep. Michael McCaul
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said he plans to frame his vision for “gaining control” of U.S. borders next week.

“Americans have seen that promises of border security are empty unless they are enacted before changes to our immigration system,” said Rep. Michael McCaul in a statement on Feb. 6. “This Committee bears the responsibility of ensuring that border security is a prerequisite to immigration reform.”

The president and a bi-partisan group of U.S. senators have proposed their vision of how the U.S. could overhaul the immigration system in the last two weeks. The senators' plan frames a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented aliens, but requires the border to be secured before that path is officially opened to them. The discussion on Capitol Hill over what constitutes a secure border and how to achieve that goal is beginning in ernest.

“As part of my agenda, next week I will lay out a framework for legislation to gain operational control of our borders. It is this Committee’s duty to oversee the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs and Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, and we must ensure they cohesively develop a long overdue comprehensive plan to secure our borders.

“The Administration has made clear that unless we force it to take border security seriously, immigration reform would occur without the security component,” said McCaul. “Until we have operational control of our borders, we will continue to be vulnerable to terrorists, drug cartels and criminal aliens who enter the United States undetected.”

http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/28474?c=border_security