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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Border Overhaul Planned: Security Chief Vows Crackdown on Smuggling
 Eric Lipton - New York Times
| | Michael Chertoff, right, is seen with Attorney General John Ashcroft before a House committee just 13 days after the Sept. 11 attacks. At the time, Chertoff was assistant attorney general for criminal enforcement. |
Washington - Acknowledging public frustration over undocumented immigrants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that the federal government's border control efforts must be significantly strengthened.
"We have decided to stand back and take a look at how we address the problem and solve it once and for all," Chertoff said at a breakfast meeting with reporters. "The American public is rightly distressed about a situation in which they feel we do not have the proper control over our borders."
The unusually blunt assessment by the nation's top immigration official follows border-related emergency declarations by the governors of New Mexico and Arizona, who cited a surge in smuggling and violence associated with a steady flow of undocumented immigrants.
The strategy that Chertoff said his department is preparing goes far beyond hiring more Border Patrol agents and installing more surveillance cameras, infrared and motion detectors, and fences, initiatives that are already planned or under way.
In addition to those apprehension efforts, the secretary intends to bolster the deportation process so that an overwhelmed detention system does not cause undocumented immigrants to be set free instead of being sent home. He plans to add beds for detainees, expedite deportations by making more judges and lawyers available, and try to track down more undocumented immigrants who do not appear for deportation hearings.
Over the past decade, the number of Border Patrol agents has climbed to about 11,000 from 4,000. Meanwhile, the number of arrests of undocumented migrants along the border, a figure that had dropped after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has surged in the past couple of years and again tops more than a million annually.
So many undocumented immigrants from countries other than Mexico are being caught - 142,500 so far this fiscal year, compared with 39,555 in all of 2000 - that thousands are released within the United States before deportation proceedings because there is not enough space at detention centers.
"If you have not arranged for the beds, you have not arranged to remove them; you are going to have to release them," Chertoff said. "That is completely a waste of time."
Homeland Security officials have provided no estimate of how much the secretary's new initiatives will cost. The government is already spending $7.3 billion a year in border-related expenses, they say, a 58 percent increase since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor and judge who took over the Homeland Security Department in February, is far from the first Washington official to promise a solution to the border control problem. But he said Tuesday that his staff is mapping every mile of the Mexican border and preparing estimates of how many undocumented immigrants use each of the various entry corridors, so he can best decide how to deploy 1,000 or so new Border Patrol agents Congress appears likely to provide for the coming year.
The department will also identify where it should place as many as 2,250 new detention beds that will be financed in next year's budget, a 10 percent increase. It also plans to place immigration judges closer to detention centers and allocate more money for lawyers who argue deportation cases on behalf of the government, increasing capacity in part by simply deporting undocumented immigrants faster, a Homeland Security official said after Chertoff spoke.
The new campaign also entails an eventual doubling of the number of fugitive search teams to track down those who do not show up for deportation hearings, the official said. Further, the Homeland Security Department is working with the State Department to speed action on visa applications by students, workers and tourists, in an effort to reduce the incentive to enter the country illegally.
Last week, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano sent a scathing letter to Chertoff complaining about a lack of government cooperation on crucial border issues.
Chertoff responded Monday with a letter to Napolitano outlining a plan to crack down on the smuggling of immigrants across the border into Arizona, ease overcrowding in Arizona prisons and beef up immigration training given to Department of Public Safety officers.
The governor praised the proposal, saying she considers it promising.
New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he spoke with Chertoff earlier in the morning and was encouraged by what he was hearing.
"I am a bit more optimistic," Richardson said. "It is the first time I have gotten attention to my previous pleas."
Chertoff said he opposes the creation of citizen militias like the one that patrolled the border in Arizona earlier this year.
"The border is a very dangerous place," he said. "This is not a place for people to play as amateurs."
He also again urged Congress to pass President Bush's proposal establishing a new temporary-worker program, which would legalize entry of some migrant workers who now cross the border illegally. Enactment would almost certainly reduce the flow of undocumented immigrants, he said, allowing Border Patrol and immigration enforcement officials to focus on more serious offenders, or perhaps even terrorists, trying to enter the country. |
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