http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_3960826

'We have to take pressure off border'
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times


Comprehensive immigration reform would relieve the pressure on the borders, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said Tuesday in El Paso.
Gutierrez said security is "job number one" but "we have to recognize that we have to take the pressure off the border. It has to go beyond securing the border."

Gutierrez, who visited the cargo facility, agricultural laboratory, the passport control and vehicle inspection areas at the Bridge of the Americas, mentioned employer enforcement and a guest-worker program with tamper-proof ID card as solutions to lighten the burden of border enforcers.

Gutierrez is touring the border to push the Bush immigration overhaul proposal, whose details are included in the Senate immigration bill passed last month. The bill was expected to be reviewed in conference committee soon, but lawmakers
in Washington, D.C., are predicting that the vast immigration overhaul legislation may be dead this year.

Gutierrez, a Cuban refugee who became a U.S. citizen in 1966, also spoke about concerns about local enforcement agencies apprehending undocumented immigrants.

"That's exactly the problem that's going to surface if all we focus on is border enforcement. We'll have these incidents where local governments make decisions that should be done by the federal government," he said.