Thread: National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents

Today�s Letter: A Reader Announces A National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents Forming To Fight Amnesty
Kent Lundgren writes:

My name is Kent Lundgren. I am coordinating the formation of a fledgling organization called the National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents. We are not as yet formally organized, but we are in the process of doing so. Events are driving us, though - there is bad law on the horizon, and we are attempting to have an impact before our feet are firmly set, so please bear with us if we are a little ragged around the edges organizationally.

This is our mission statement:

"Our paramount mission is to contribute to the security and stability of the United States. To that end, we shall propose and be advocates for immigration policies and laws that we believe serve those national interests, and we will oppose those that do not contribute to the national well-being."

Does the country need another immigration control organization? That's debatable, but we see ourselves as what I'll call "tribal elders" in these discussions. Our knowledge of these issues is not narrowly-focused, for many of our members were Border Patrolmen who went on to high positions in the old INS. We have a unique institutional knowledge, and an outlook tempered by experience, for we've been intimately involved in the debacles of the last fifty years and more, and many of us have the scars to show for it.

This is our credo:

"If we didn't live it, if we don't know it, if we can't prove it, we won't say it." It is our intention to become an unimpeachable source, the gold standard for information about what has actually happened on the ground as a result of the immigration laws and policies of the last half of the twentieth century. We will also apply our expert knowledge to form judgments about what is likely to flow from proposed legislation and policies.

I'll not go into details of how we have come to be, but it started with a position paper one of us wrote back in October to draw signatures as a letter to . . . whomever might listen. Over two hundred and fifty former Border Patrol officers signed on to it, including four former Chiefs of the Border Patrol, and the numbers continue to increase. That paper, those signers, and events have brought us to this point.

The paper sets forth four positions, with a page or two of justifications based on our experience for each position. The positions are:

We oppose illegal immigration;

We oppose amnesty, by any name;

We favor enforcement of existing employer sanctions laws, and we need no others;

We are in favor of statutory creation of a temporary worker program, to operate only when the Dept. of Labor certifies a labor shortage in a particular industry of area.
(This is a particularly complex issue, and we are not yet fully of one mind about the details).

If you are interested in the position paper and supporting material, please visit our interim website here.

Eight of us (what I call the Core Group) are meeting in El Paso this coming weekend (1/13 & 1/14) to finalize our charter and firm up our plans. If you have any interest in any part of that, let me know, [email] please.



Position Paper On

Proposals for Immigration Reform

Oct. 23, 2006

We, the undersigned former officers of the United States Border Patrol, offer our views on the following matters now under debate in the nation.

� Illegal immigration.

We believe that aliens residing in the United States must be here with the nation�s permission or they should leave or be removed. That begins by having a secure border and meaningful processes for screening those who wish to enter legally.

� Amnesty � by any name placed on it.

We absolutely oppose any legislation that would allow aliens to remain in this country who have entered illegally or who have entered legally and remained here illegally.

� Employer sanctions.

We support meaningful employer sanctions. Laws presently on the books are adequate tools for the purpose. Their use, though, has been subverted to meaninglessness through political and legal pressure initiated by those who benefit from the presence of illegal aliens. Those subversions must be minimized by a statement of purpose from the Congress and clear direction from the administration to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice that those laws be aggressively enforced through administrative action and criminal prosecution.

� Guest worker program.

We support a guest worker program in principle, believing that it can serve the national interest. However, we also believe that �

o Guest workers must be limited in what they may do, what they may benefit from under immigration law, and the program must be tightly controlled.

o No alien in any illegal status should be allowed to participate in it.

o Application for the program must take place outside the United States.

o The applicant must remain outside the U.S. while his application is pending.

We do not delude ourselves, nor would we try to fool the American people into believing that the border can be made completely secure: it can�t. But it can be made secure enough.

Nor will we ever succeed in removing every illegal alien from this country.

What we can do, through the adoption and use of well-considered and effectively enforced laws, is gain control of a situation that now, in our opinion, threatens the national well-being. It will not happen overnight, or easily, but it can happen. To do less is to invite further chaos.

http://www.freewebs.com/nafbpa/ourpositionpaper.htm

Our Justifications:

Arguments Against Illegal Immigration
Every sovereign nation, in order to protect its citizens, has the right and the duty to control who enters, passes through, or remains within its borders. Only United States citizens have a right to enter and remain in the United States. All others are granted this privilege through various acts of the Congress.

We wish to state immediately that there is no bias, ethnic, racial, or national, in our position. We recognize that those from Mexico who are in the United States illegally,while highly visible, are only a part of the problem.

The U.S. has traditionally adopted immigration laws aimed at protecting us in four areas. To the nation�s demonstrable detriment, we have ignored those reasons for forty years and more. We now pay the price.

� Public safety � Criminals (variously described over the years) may not enter the U.S. legally or remain here absent extraordinary permission.

Alien criminals have become so common that they contribute heavily to crime statistics, and they are a very expensive portion of the population of all our prisons (statistics available upon request). If our immigration laws were rigorously enforced we could reduce the impact of criminal aliens on our society. A secure border is the first line of defense. However, there must be vigorous follow-up with interior enforcement.

� Public health � At one time carriers of contagious diseases, or those afflicted with diseases affecting their ability to support themselves, were not allowed to enter the U.S.

Now we see aliens with diseases seldom found among Americans in recent history working in service positions, such as waiters, cooks, housekeepers, or even domestic servants. Aliens by the thousand avail themselves of U.S. medical care, with the burden borne by the taxpayer � many come here specifically for that purpose. While it may be good for them, and for us that they be healthy, it is not good that they be here at all.

� Jobs �Like any other commodity, sweat becomes cheaper as it becomes more available. A surfeit of cheap labor cannot help but depress wages.

At this time illegal aliens are filling, not just traditional jobs in agriculture (which is no small thing � within our recollections Americans did that work, until they were priced out of the market), but unskilled or low-skilled jobs in service, construction, and industry. This is happening at a time when tens of thousands of jobs are being sent overseas.

Employers argue that they need to have cheap labor to compete with foreign companies. Well, perhaps � that is a subject for discussion beyond the scope of this paper, and if it is true it can be addressed by law. But there are products and services that do not face foreign competition � drywall for an American house, for example, cannot be hung in China. Those jobs are becoming all the more precious in our country, and those employers should pay what the untainted domestic labor market would demand. American workers should not have their wages depressed by foreign competition within their own borders, but they do.

� National Security � Need we say anything other than �September 11, 2001�? While that was a spectacular, tragic example, it is far from the only example - but it should be enough to make this point: We must guard our borders closely.

Arguments Against Amnesty
Backers of a plan to permit aliens who are here illegally to remain here wish that their program were not referred to as �amnesty�. However, the term is commonly understood by both the public and those who would benefit from it, so we will use it.

All of us who are endorsing this position paper have vivid recollections of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. We note that most of the arguments made now for reform echo precisely those made then.

Many of us participated in its administration, and saw first-hand its defects. We list them here.

� Rampant Fraud. Then, as is similarly proposed now, applicants for amnesty had to have been in the U.S. for certain periods, or had to have worked in the U.S. for certain periods.

o By the literal hundreds of thousands they submitted fraudulent documents showing presence in the U.S. or employment in agriculture during the requisite periods. No statistics on how much fraud there was were kept, but anecdotal evidence at the time from some offices indicated that it was as high as thirty percent.

o Absent absolute proof of fraud, which in practical terms meant an admission from the applicant, it was expected by program management in Washington that applications would be approved. An office with too many denials was subject to close scrutiny.

o Fraud discovered in an application was not grounds for deportation. An applicant was, to all intents and purposes, immune from enforcement action based on fraud in his application or anything discovered in the amnesty process. There were cases where a criminal background was discovered, but that could not form the basis for deportation proceedings because the process was privileged.

o Thousands of people went into the lucrative, low-risk business of creating and selling fraudulent documents. Thousands of employers provided fraudulent documents to alien employees to enable them to stay here to continue working, and still other thousands provided documents to aliens in what they saw as a humanitarian gesture.

We leave it to the reader to decide what the impact of such illegality has on the fabric of the nation, especially when it forms the basis for an individual�s legal status here.

� Judicial extension of the program. Congress passed the 1986 Act anticipating that certain defined classes of aliens would benefit. Those decisions were made through political compromises, which is how the nation runs.

However, interest groups who believed their interests were not adequately served took dozens of cases to court, shopping carefully for judges whom they believed would be sympathetic to them. Those lawsuits became class actions that resulted in the benefits of amnesty being extended far beyond what Congress defined. The results were so far-reaching that it was not until last year, 2005, that the final cases went to rest.

We see no reason to suspect that a new amnesty would be any different.

Chain migration. This is the phrase used to describe the practice of immigrants coming legally to this country based on their relationship to someone already here legally. Anecdotes indicate that the U.S. Department of State, which issues visas, believes that six family members ultimately follow to join each alien who achieves legal status here. An amnesty for ten million people may, over time, increase our population by seventy million.

Argument in Favor of Employer Sanctions
Recognizing that jobs are the primary factor drawing aliens illegally to our country, in 1986 the Congress wrote employer sanctions into the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

In brief, the law requires (it is still in effect, although moribund as a practical matter) that every employer confirm, by examination of documents, two things about any person before he is hired; his identity, and his eligibility to work legally in this country. He must make record of the documents examined. If the job applicant cannot prove both, he is not to be hired. Failure to examine those documents is grounds for enforcement action from warnings to criminal prosecution.

The theory is stronger than the actual effect. As we see nationwide, illegal aliens by the millions have jobs. This is due to a number of factors:

� Easy availability of fraudulent documents. For a near-nominal fee (commonly under fifty dollars; often closer to ten), an illegal alien can purchase documents purporting to identify him and prove legal status in the U.S. They present them to employers with impunity, knowing that their chances of being detected are slim, and if it happens, their chances of being arrested are slimmer still, and their chances of being prosecuted or otherwise penalized for it are nil.

� Inability of employers to verify validity of documents. There is no mechanism in place that allows an employer to verify that documents presented to him are valid. At best, he may, months later, receive a report from the Social Security Administration that a number and name on a card presented to him do not go together, but that is not an effective deterrent.

� Reckless disregard of the law by employers. As a practical matter, due to low enforcement priorities, an employer need not fear being discovered violating the law. And if found out he will not be penalized unless the violation is by demonstrable design, and involves large numbers of aliens on a repeated basis.

� Judicial or political interference with enforcement. This is the major factor, for it affects all the others. Time after time the agency has undertaken effective actions against one employer or another, or even classes of employers, who are flagrant violators of the law. And far too often that very effectiveness is a death warrant for the effort. Congressmen or Senators representing the affected party suggest to the agency that it desist, or face unpleasant bureaucratic or budgetary consequences. Judges tie officers up in court and enjoin elements of the effort, or the effort itself. Finally one gets the message: lay off. The wise officer turns his efforts to more fruitful, less painful operations, and a program dies.

The problem then, is not law; there are all the legal tools needed, dating back to 1986.

What the nation must do is:

� Increase the risks for presenting fraudulent documents.

o Make it possible, quick, and easy for employers to check the eligibility for employment of a job applicant. Legislators should support HR 98 and the REAL ID ACT, HR418, which establish a means to do that.

o Levy administrative fines against aliens who present fraudulent documents. We note that that law is on the books, it has been since 1990, but in our collective recollection, it was never used to any significant degree. This is potentially a very valuable tool, in that it removes the profit from illegal employment.

� Increase the risks for employers who willfully or recklessly ignore the law. That will require increased enforcement personnel in the interior. It will also be necessary in some way to reign in judicial activity in civil cases filed with the design of inhibiting the program. And members of Congress must become less active in protecting their constituents who do wrong from legitimate enforcement actions.

As with any law, it is not the severity of sanction for violation, but the certainty of it that makes it effective.

As an aside, we note here that much has been made of the point that the nation cannot deport ten or eleven or twelve or however many million illegal aliens. That is probably true, considering the nature of our society (which we treasure no less than anyone else), but it is also a straw man in the argument.

We do not have to deport each and every one. There need not be massive sweeps and knocks on doors at midnight. Remove the impetus for the illegals to be here and most of them will eventually go home. It requires, not a severe blow, but relentless, gentle pressure to bring it about. Jobs are the most effective pressure point.

Arguments in Favor of Guest Worker Program
First, we wish to say emphatically that we find the phrase �Work Americans won�t do� demeaning to the American worker. Americans have done every type of work now done by illegal aliens (including some of it done by signers of this document), and Americans would do it again if they were paid a decent wage. They have been priced out of the labor market in many fields by cheap sweat, and that is a national disgrace made worse by insulting statements.

That being said, the United States is in a period of full employment now, even allowing for the presence of numbers of illegal aliens variously estimated to be between nine and twelve million. Labor is in short supply.

What this means to the American employer is that he must find willing hands where he can. This economic pressure has led to him hiring without due regard to the immigration status of his employees. If employer sanctions are to function as desired, then the ethical employer must be given an economic safety valve when he finds himself in genuine, demonstrable need of workers.

That safety valve should take the form of a guest worker program.

There is precedent. In 1942 the U.S. government allowed the entry of Mexican workers (called braceros) to work in agriculture and on railroad track repair crews, critical jobs left vacant by Americans who went to war. The railroad program terminated with the end of the war in 1945, but the agricultural program was carried on until 1964. It died amid claims of fraud in payment of wages and mistreatment of workers. Its legacy of cheap agricultural wages is with us still.

There is further precedent in the H-2A agricultural labor program, which has been used primarily to support agriculture on the east coast.

Each of those programs had flaws, weaknesses, and abuses by all parties. Carefully crafted legislation can deal with each problem � we can learn from experience if we will.

So, in general terms based on knowledge of what has gone before, we believe:

� An employer who can credibly demonstrate that he cannot obtain unskilled workers in adequate numbers to fill his needs at a reasonable, living wage, should be allowed to bring them to this country under contract to work for him, and him alone. This will not be a simple program to design or administer, but with regard to previous experience, it can be done.

� He must post a bond with the government for each worker, guaranteeing that it will not fall to the government to locate and remove the individual.

� He must provide a living wage to assure that his employees do not become a public burden. For the same reason, he must provide health insurance and pay into the workman�s compensation program for each employee.

� An alien worker is admitted to work for a particular employer for a specified time, with the understanding that he must depart upon completion of the contract. To maintain a degree of control over that, a significant portion of his wages must be paid into an escrow account in a U.S. bank, to be released to him only after he reports to a U.S. consulate abroad.

� He is ineligible to draw upon any public source of income or support under any circumstances except workman�s compensation.

� His presence here does not provide any justification for the entry of family members to join him.

� Failure to abide by the terms of his contract and terms of admission to the U.S. will result in his deportation and disqualification for any legal status for some specified period of time.

Such a program must not be seen as a source of cheap labor for the employer, but simply as a stopgap to fill his need when workers are otherwise unavailable at a reasonable, living wage.

At such time as employment should fall below the full level, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, (and it will, eventually), this program should be reexamined.

http://www.freewebs.com/nafbpa/whydowebelieveit.htm

I believe that any meaningful reform must rescind birthright citizenship rights to people in the US illegally who give birth.

Originally Posted by olivermyboy

I believe that any meaningful reform must rescind birthright citizenship rights to people in the US illegally who give birth.

I support your statement about rescinding citizenship to illegal immigrants children. I think it is now time to try to do something about this!

Originally Posted by nittygritty

Originally Posted by olivermyboy

I believe that any meaningful reform must rescind birthright citizenship rights to people in the US illegally who give birth.

I support your statement about rescinding citizenship to illegal immigrants children. I think it is now time to try to do something about this!

I think these former border agents are doing a good thing.

I believe that any meaningful reform must rescind birthright citizenship rights to people in the US illegally who give birth.

I support this as well. For that matter I even support going back to 1986.

One legislator who seems to be willing to push this is state rep Leo Berman from Tx. I not sure if what he proposes is the best way to go about it but I support his intentions 100%

A bill by Berman would deny automatic access to state programs for children – U.S. citizens – born in Texas to undocumented immigrant parents. Berman wants the bill to be used to test birthright citizenship in the federal courts.

He said "anchor babies" should not have automatic citizenship because the 14th Amendment requires the baby must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

"We want to show the illegal aliens here have no desire at all to accept our culture or speak our language," Berman said. "They owe allegiance to Mexico. Therefore, they are not qualified for U.S. citizenship."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 29ba6.html