DHS' Napolitano touts border safety
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano speaks in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine hangar in El Paso, Texas, on immigration and border security. / AP Photo/The El Paso Times, Mark Lambie
EL PASO, Texas U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called Republican lawmakers' insistence that the border be secured before there is immigration reform a flawed argument.
At a stop to inspect border security in El Paso on Tuesday, Napolitano said the argument ignores gains made in illegal immigrant captures as well as seizures of drugs, weapons and currency.
She also said the argument's fundamental flaw is contending that border security is unrelated to interior enforcement such as verification of legal residence of job applicants.
Napolitano said the immigration "system as a whole is badly in need of reform." It is, she said, inextricably linked with interior enforcement, visa reform and the process for legal migration, a pathway to citizenship and earned pathway for those already here.
A bipartisan group of senators wants assurances on border security as Congress considers proposals that would bring the biggest changes to immigration law in nearly three decades. Last week, the group of senators released a blueprint that would bring a path to citizenship for people living in the U.S. illegally, but they demanded assurances on border security first.
President Barack Obama does not endorse such a linkage in his own immigration proposal. But Republicans in the Senate group, including John McCain of Arizona and Marco Rubio of Florida, say they cannot support an immigration bill that doesn't make a pathway to citizenship conditional on a secure border.
"I believe the border is secure. I believe the border's a safe border. That's not to say everything is 100 percent," Napolitano said Monday in San Diego during the first leg of her trip to the Southwest border.
The current administration has "deployed historic levels of personnel, technology and infrastructure to help secure the Southwest border," she said Tuesday. It has meant that attempts to illegally cross from Mexico are half of what they were in 2008 and a 78 percent down from their peak in 2000. "The numbers are the numbers," she said.
Last year only, the El Paso sector saw an increase of 71 percent in seizures of currency, 39 percent more drugs interdicted and a 139 percent of illegal weapons seized, the secretary said. The sector includes far West Texas and all of New Mexico.
And while the perception of security along the border has improved with increased Border Patrol presence, there are still some rural stretches where officials still complain of illegal crossings by drug smugglers and traffickers of illegal immigrants. "I would agree that it's better now than five years ago, but it still is a huge cat and mouse game with these guys," said Patrick Green, a sheriff's deputy in New Mexico's Hidalgo County.
Green talked about reports of vehicle and firearms thefts and break-ins in ranches along the borderland.
Napolitano said that while the Border Patrol launched large scale operations in sectors like San Diego, Tucson, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, there are still sparsely populated rural areas where they are increasing the presence of agents, deployed sensors and installed or outposts. "That's not to say there will never be an illegal crossing on the Southwest border. ... People with common sense understand that."
The Border Patrol made 356,873 apprehensions on the Mexican border during the 2012 fiscal year, up 8.9 percent from the previous year but still hovering near 40-year-lows. U.S. Customs and Border Protection's budget nearly doubled to $11.7 billion in 2012 from $6.3 billion in 2005, according to figures from the Migration Policy Institute.
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Nothing has been done, in reality, by this administration to seal our border with Mexico. Nothing.
That's why people and drugs are crossing it, every single day!
Tell that to your own border guards and see just what they say! I'll be willing to bet my pension to a donut that they would laugh in your nasty face and call you a liar.
You have absolutely NO UNDERSTANDING of what ranchers have to live with day after day after day. Why do these people need to be worrying about their own and their family members safety if the borders are so safe?
When you do put in an appearence at the border, what will you see? I've been in government all my working life and know perfectly well that a person in your position will be shown on positive things. Why? Because if those border officials were to show you reality they just might be deemed ineffective and either lose their jobs or be transferred to a little town out in the sticks of North Dakota. Hence, you have a distorted picture of reality bordering upon stupidity.
And I must include this: reading this article I became confused as to who was speaking. Is it obama or napolitana? My guess would be both due to her ability to be the best "political parrot" ever! She simply does not have the ability of independent thought. Obama: the borders are safe (Polly want a cracker. napolitano: the borders are safe (Polly want a cracker).
She should be taken out and beaten senseless.
Secure the border, shoot trespassers, ship the criminals home,
. . problem solved.
Bring our 38,500 troops home from S.Korea and put them on our border.
They will love being home and the locals will love having them.
What flavor of Kool Aid did you drink Janet?
Just before I left, we ran an enforcement operation in South Texas and in ninety days we seized near 300 thousand pounds of marijuana, four thousand pound of cocaine, and over nine million in cash.....
What needs to be done is to take every U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq and place them every one hundred feet along the border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego and shoot anyone who tries to cross. Then we'll have border security.....
Until then, anything Janet broadcasts about the border can be disregarded....
In addition to being booked in connection with several outstanding warrants, Espinoza also faces new charges of aggravated assault on an officer and resisting arrest." If you have multiple arrest records and can continue coming back into this country to continue to commit crimes, then the borders are not safe. Napolitano is delusional!
What we need to do is bring all the troops back from Afghanistan and Iraq and station them every 100 feet from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego and shoot anyone that tries to come across. Then we'll have border security. Until then, anything she or the administration says is a lie.