June
1, 2006
If We Build It …
Immigration Bricks in the border wall
By
Jack D. McNamara
Last week the U.S.
Senate did indeed vote a “comprehensive” immigration reform bill (S
2611). That bill now goes to a conference committee with the House of
Representatives’ bill (HR 4437).
The two bills are very different. Intense negotiating is underway in an
effort to reconcile differences. But skeptics abound. David Broder of
the Washington Post, the nation’s senior pundit, wrote in a Sunday
column: “Immigration Deal? Don’t Bet on It!”
Only five months before the 2006 Congressional elections and the
majority Republicans are split down the middle. The Senate bill passed
with a coalition of Democrats and a minority of Republicans. Our U.S.
Senator, John Cornyn, voted against the bill but he will be on the
conference committee nevertheless.
The House could endorse the Senate’s bill except for a standing
practice adopted by the current Speaker of the House Representative
Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican. Hastert requires that for any
bill to come to the floor of the House it must be acceptable to a
majority of the majority Republicans. The House includes perhaps 100
Republicans who are steadfast (as of Tuesday) against any compromise
for “earned citizenship” or “amnesty.” That is, any prospective bill
which regularizes the presence of about 12 million people now in the
U.S. without a documented status … that bill will fail because the
House will not even bring it to a vote.
All members of the House must face election this year. In their public
statements they indicate that the immigration issue is suddenly very
hot among their constituents. All probably want a bill before November
so they can say they did something. But the hardliners are solidly
against any bill that perpetuates features of the failed 1986
legislation, which included an amnesty for several million persons
illegally in the U.S.
We now have about 11,500 Border Patrol Agents, double what we had in
1995. The senate bill proposes to increase that number by 2400 annually
through 2011 or to double again the strength of the Border Patrol. The
senate proposal is more or less consistent with the President’s, which
provides for the assignment of 6,000 National Guardsmen to the border
for the time needed by the Border Patrol to expand.
The National Guard’s commander, LtGen H. Steven Blum, thinks this is a
fine idea. He says a
Guardsman costs the taxpayers about $13,000 annually for his part-time
service from 45-53 days a year (“Guard Chief says having fewer active
duty GIs can save money for Pentagon” by Sig Christenson, San Antonio
Express online, May 29). An active duty soldier costs $130,000 a year,
he says.
Ahhh … in the end it comes down to money. How much border security do
we want to buy?
The President and the Congress have already provided about $2 billion
in “supplemental” spending passed in the past few weeks. Because the
senate bill is more “comprehensive” it is more expensive. Last week’s
projections were $50 billion-plus over a period of 10 years.
Integral parts of the bill have their own price tags, such as a
“fence/wall,” high technology enhancements, etc. But the most
expensive, ever, will be the attempt to identify, process, track and,
in some cases, deport those 12 million people already here.
We can’t possibly incarcerate them, a realization acknowledged somewhat
reluctantly by House’s leader, Representative James Sensenbrenner of
Wisconsin. He just wants them to go home voluntarily, which they won’t
do, so the debate returns to Square One. We can’t, or won’t, arrest
them but we can, and do, threaten that we will. The House hardliners
are thus demonstrated to be Oz-like in their threats.
We are left with a problem we cannot fix. None of the politicians are
going to actually follow up on their most draconian threats. But all
will be fully prepared to tinker around the edges and hope the problem
solves itself.
Our most sophisticated entrepreneurs understand this particular model.
It is the same one we followed during the Cold War. We will appear to
be bravely manning the border against illegal entrants … but we will
also be accommodating in providing for immigrant workers; but we will
not really enforce sanctions against all who do so.
What
the American political system really wants here is for the problem to
go back into the shadows. Those 12 million illegally here were quietly
working along picking fruit and washing dishes and no one paid any
attention until the Minutemen set up their umbrellas and parked their
Winnebagos along the border.
Regrettably, what Washington wants desperately to remove from view is
clearly in view here on the border. The Minutemen are now voluntarily
building a fence in Arizona.
And here in Alpine dirt has begun to fly at the location just north of
the Highway Department, south of the hospital. That is the site of the
planned federal “courthouse” so tirelessly promoted for decades.
Alpine is already home to a large federal law enforcement, legal and
administrative establishment. We already have more federal prosecutors
and public defenders than existed in Pecos in the late 1980s. We are
now home to federal marshals and a full time U.S. Magistrate, Durwood
Edwards. More than 20 years ago that position was a part-time job held
in Big Bend National Park by a man who wasn’t a lawyer. Then it was a
part-time job for lawyers. Now it is a full time lawyer who was
previously a full time magistrate in the larger city of Del Rio. He
does a lot of business and it appears he will do more, whether or not
the Congress passes an immigration bill. •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas June 1, 2006.)
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