Thread: US Senator Jon Kyl: A Case Study in Border Control

http://www.phxnews.com/fullstory.php?article=26091

US Senator Jon Kyl: A Case Study in Border Control, Expedited Removal and the Brazilians
Posted by PHX - U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl on Tuesday September 27, 2005 at 9:55 am MST

There are many who argue that America’s borders are simply too vast to comprehensively protect against illegal immigration, and that efforts to do so are a waste of resources better spent on “pragmatic� and “realistic� approaches to accommodating illegal aliens already here.

I’ve always thought this view is not just wrong, but dangerously so - defeatism actually encourages more people to risk their lives crossing parched desert in order to jump ahead of those waiting to enter the United States legally (or do something worse, in the case of a terrorist).

Of course, other developed nations seem to manage to keep their borders secure, so why can’t we? Historically, the answer has been a lack of political will to focus on the issue and commit the resources to get the job done. Slowly, but increasingly surely, that mindset seems to be changing in Washington. Politicians from around the country are beginning to realize what we border-states have known for a long time: that illegal immigration is a national problem, and that resolving it is primarily a federal responsibility.

Buoyed by this growing awareness, we’ve managed to bring significant new resources to Arizona’s border, including hundreds of new Border Patrol Agents, new technology and infrastructure, and reimbursement for part of the state’s costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. Most recently, Congress passed my amendment for $5 million to fund law enforcement officers who will focus exclusively on fighting the forgery of documents that illegal aliens need to travel and gain employment (and criminals use for other illicit purposes).

Now comes proof that with funding and determination, other sound policies can also make a dramatic difference, and quickly.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced plans to expand “expedited removal� authority from three Border Patrol sectors to the entire southwest border. In the past, “other-than-Mexican� (OTM) detainees were not quickly returned to their home countries because of bureaucratic delays - and in the cast of some countries, even a refusal to take back their citizens. So the OTMs had to be either put into detention or, because of a lack of detention space, more likely released into the U.S. to await their hearings. Most of them never showed up; they just melded into our society. I initially urged DHS to expand expedited removal after co-chairing a hearing months ago at which Border Patrol officials testified that the agency had apprehended 98,000 OTMs in FY 2005, 175 percent more than during the comparable period in FY 2004, which was itself a record year.

Despite the fact that many of the 100-plus countries from which these OTMs came are known to host terrorist organizations, 70 percent were released simply for lack of a place to keep them while they were waiting for the papers to be readmitted into their home countries. In the comprehensive immigration reform bill I introduced, 10,000 new detention beds would be authorized. In the meantime, I worked with DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to provide for expedited removal along the entire border and acquire temporary detention space for those awaiting removal.

This has dramatically reduced illegal immigration from some of these countries. Consider the case of Brazil.

Taking advantage of an agreement between their two governments to drop visa requirements in 2000, thousands of Brazilians began using Mexico as a springboard to illegally enter the United States. Apprehensions skyrocketed from virtually none a decade ago to 30,000 over the past year.

Once they got to the U.S., many Brazilians actually sought out agents of the Border Patrol, knowing they were almost certain to be simply processed and given a paper allowing them to stay in the U.S. pending a hearing for which most did not appear. The implementation of expedited removal on July 2 changed all that. Once word got out that the Brazilians were being sent home, rather than being released pending a hearing, they stopped coming. Apprehensions plummeted by 90% in just three months. Clearly this kind of success belies the notion that controlling the border is impossible. What we can do in one sector, surely we can do on the rest of the border. And surely we must.

One other thing that happened was that he Mexicans found that they too had a problem. The new relaxation on visas for tourist travel had made it all too easy for the Brazilians.

Some of the Brazilians who had the intention of going through came up unprepared for the extra cost of hiring a coyote to take them on the additional distance into the United States.

As a result Brazilians who had run out of money were starting to accumulate at various points inside Mexico. There they were becoming day laborers, beggars and prostitutes.

While we know the Mexicans want us to accept their citizens as day laborers without limit they feel god forbid that anyone do that to them.