There are few issues as important to Arizonans as securing the border and restoring integrity to our nation’s immigration system.
Insufficient resources dedicated to border security, coupled with a lack of will to effectively enforce the law, have allowed an estimated 500,000 individuals each year to cross our borders illegally or remain illegally in the country after overstaying their visas. The effects are felt throughout our state, with public schools, health-care delivery systems, the criminal justice system, and even our precious desert environment all suffering serious adverse consequences.
Since 1994, when I was first elected to the Senate, I have tried to educate Senators and cabinet officials about the challenges facing our state and nation as a result of illegal immigration. I brought members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to Arizona to see firsthand the effects of illegal immigration on our communities. In recent years, I brought representatives of the Secretary of Homeland Security to the state to help win support for additional resources to secure the border and enforce the law.
These efforts have resulted in measureable progress. For example, in 1996, I won approval of an amendment that began the surge in the number of Border Patrol agents assigned to fight illegal immigration at the border. When the surge began, the number of Border agents totaled about 4,000. By the end of this year, the number will have grown to over 20,000. Comprehensive, new enforcement programs, like Operation Streamline, have been implemented and have led to substantial declines in the number of apprehensions, particularly in the Yuma sector.
I have worked every year to increase personnel, high-technology equipment, and other resources along the border, securing, among other things, increased funding for:
- Border Patrol vehicles, patrol stations, equipment, technology, and other infrastructure in Arizona;
- border fences;
- vehicle-barrier construction;
- additional attorneys to process criminal aliens;
- improved technology to speed legal border crossings, while helping to identify those who have overstayed their visas or entered the country illegally;
- records modernization;
- interior enforcement;
- ports of entry infrastructure, customs and immigration inspectors, agents, and equipment;
- SENTRI lanes;
- Entry-Exit system to be implemented at all ports of entry;
- Customs Service inspectors, agents, and equipment; and
- detention facilities and bed space.
As a leader of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security and a member of the immigration subcommittee, I have fought for and will continue to fight for additional resources to better secure the border and enforce the law, as well as make needed changes in immigration policies to stop illegal immigration.
Comprehensive immigration reform legislation was defeated in 2007, largely because many Americans demanded that the federal government get serious about enforcing existing laws and better securing the border, including with fencing and other barriers, before considering whether to provide legal status to illegal immigrants who are already here.
After the legislation was defeated, I urged President Bush to more effectively utilize all existing authorities to enforce the law and thereby demonstrate to a skeptical public that our government is indeed committed to enforcement. The President subsequently announced that his administration would mandate expanded use of E-Verify to enable employers to check the work status of new hires, expand worksite investigations to identify those operating in flagrant violation of immigration laws, and increase fines imposed on those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. President Obama should continue these policies.
I also introduced a tough enforcement-only bill to authorize additional Border Patrol agents, additional fencing on the southern border, new ground-based radar stations, more detention bed spaces to detain illegal border crossers, and a new electronic employment verification system. I authored an amendment, which was subsequently adopted and became law, to provide $3 billion in FY2008 to implement such improvements.
More recently, I met with the new Secretary of Homeland Security – our former Governor, Janet Napolitano – to encourage her to continue tough enforcement policies, including Operation Streamline (sometimes known as “Zero Tolerance”), which has proven to be one of the most important enforcement efforts, having helped dramatically decrease the number of illegal immigrants who are crossing the border. In the Yuma sector alone, there has been an 80 percent decline in the number of apprehensions, largely because Operation Streamline has led to more effective prosecution and incarceration of illegal border crossers.
Securing the border requires the commitment of substantial resources. With that in mind, I helped win funding in this year’s Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill for a number of important border security programs, including an additional 4,400 Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel and $775 million for border fencing and technology. The bill increased total CBP funding by more than four percent over the prior year – to a total of $9.8 billion. It also increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) funding by five percent – to a total of $5 billion – to provide an additional 1,400 detention beds and enhance efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants with criminal records.
Last year, I helped win funding to enable the Justice Department to assign additional prosecutors to handle immigration-related offenses, and am able to report that an additional 21 prosecutors were added in Arizona to handle immigration-related cases.
Another bill I cosponsored in 2008 with California’s Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein, authorized $950 million for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) to help offset the costs that states bear to detain criminal illegal immigrants. The bill passed and became law as part of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization legislation.
In 2007, I sponsored an amendment with Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain to provide an additional $3 billion for Border Patrol agents, detention space, radar and camera towers, fencing, the implementation of the E-Verify program, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The funding, which was included in the FY2008 DHS and Justice Department funding bills, supplements funding provided for a number of other enforcement initiatives, including:
- $475 million for US-VISIT, a program that allows the use of biometric technology to establish and verify the identity of visitors to the United States;
- funding for an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents;
- $348.3 million for Border Patrol construction;
- $178.8 million for the ICE Criminal Alien Program (to identify criminal aliens in federal, state, and local jails), plus an additional $200 million for comprehensive identification and removal of criminal aliens;
- $1.6 billion to increase ICE detention capacity to support a daily detained population of 32,000;
- $15 million for ICE Worksite Enforcement;
- $410 million for SCAAP; and
- $30 million for the Southwest Border Prosecutor Initiative to reimburse state and local governments for criminal cases that the U.S. Attorney’s Office declines to prosecute.
I supported the Secure Fence Act in 2006, as well as the subsequent appropriations to fund fencing construction on an expedited basis. As of the end of January 2009, the Department of Homeland Security had completed construction of 602 miles of fencing, including more than 300 miles of fencing in Arizona.
Data indicate that these efforts to improve enforcement and better secure the border are beginning to pay off, but we must be equally diligent in our efforts to fight cross-border violence and the flow of illegal drugs into the country.
In December 2006, President Calderon of Mexico launched a sweeping initiative to crack down on the drug cartels that operate in that country and supply a great deal of the illegal drugs used throughout our state. The cartels are fighting back, leading to a dangerous uptick in violence on both sides of the border. In fact, Phoenix has become the kidnapping capital of the United States because of illegal immigration, and human and drug smuggling.
It is imperative that the United States support President Calderon’s efforts to fight these criminal enterprises and the violence they spawn on both sides of the border. Although levels of cooperation had not been as high as we had hoped in the past, things have changed dramatically, and Mexican officials are now more cooperative as they are in a serious fight to control the drug cartels in their country.
With that in mind, I supported the Merida Initiative in 2008 to provide Mexico with military and law enforcement training and equipment, as well as technical advice and training to strengthen its national justice systems and to weed out corruption.
I supported funding increases amounting to 20 percent over the last five years for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to bolster its ability to fight the violence. In February 2009, after a two-year investigation, the DEA, working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and agencies within the Department of Homeland Security cracked down hard on the Sinaloa cartel, which is believed to be responsible for much of the violence erupting along the U.S.-Mexican border. Federal authorities arrested more than 750 people, and seized more than $59 million in cash, substantial amounts of marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy and other drugs, nearly 150 vehicles, as well as aircraft and ships used by the cartel.
The Southwest Border Violence Reduction Act, which I cosponsored, funds other important initiatives, including Project Gunrunner, which is aimed at stopping the trafficking of arms between U.S. sources and the cartels in Mexico. I also supported the Byrne Grant Program to help fund multi-jurisdictional drug task forces throughout Arizona, and have led efforts to combat the methamphetamine trade in the state.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in April scheduled hearings in both Washington, D.C. and in Arizona to identify additional steps that can be taken to fight the problem. Senator John McCain serves on that committee. As a leader on the Judiciary Committee’s Homeland Security subcommittee, I will work closely with him to develop further legislative responses.
E-Verify – a voluntary program that allows employers to check the work status of new hires on-line – has been funded through the end of fiscal year 2009, but the program must still be reauthorized in separate legislation if it is to continue beyond that. Over 90,000 employers are currently enrolled in E-Verify, and the program is considered over 96 percent accurate. I support an extended authorization of the program, along with additional funding to improve the E-Verify process, ensure accuracy, and expand the program.
During the peak growing season, the wait times at Arizona’s ports of entry can extend for many hours. To reduce those wait times and facilitate legitimate cross-border commerce, new ports of entry must be built and others improved significantly. Much of that work has been fast tracked. In fact, the economic stimulus bill that the President signed into law in February included $300 million to construct and improve border stations.
Please visit the Crime & Justice page of my website for more information about my work on law enforcement initiatives, including drug-related violence and gang abatement and prevention.
