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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Sheriffs testify (in US Senate) that border overtaken by criminals Sheriffs testify that border overtaken by criminals Lilly Rockwell Cox News Service Mar. 1, 2006 04:11 PM WASHINGTON - The number of border patrol officers assaulted has doubled in the past fiscal year. More illegal immigrants are dying in the deserts of Arizona and Texas. And sophisticated smuggling rings are using tunnels and military-style uniforms to bring drugs into this country. That's the dire picture of life along the border between the United States and Mexico painted by border patrol and customs officials, a Texas rancher and sheriffs at a Senate hearing Wednesday on border violence. "The problems along the border will continue unless our federal government does something about it soon," said A. D'Wayne Jernigan, a Texas sheriff for Val Verde County. "Must we wait until an officer gets killed or until another terrorist attack occurs?" advertisement U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officials pointed the finger at Congress for not providing enough funding to maintain control of the porous southern border, while some members of the Senate panel blamed the clogged federal bureaucracies for failing to put a dent in the number of illegal immigrants who enter this country every year. An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants are living in the United States, with another estimated 500,000 entering every year. "Obviously we're overwhelmed," said T.J. Bonner, the president of the National Border Patrol Council. "You shouldn't be able to do a 50-yard dash and you're free." Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, criticized the government for ignoring problems at the border for too long. Border officials say they don't have enough officers and money to stem the onslaught of illegal immigration and organized crime that has taken over the border over the last five years. "It is not possible to separate the increase in border violence and incursions from our broken immigration system," said Cornyn, chairman of the subcommittee on immigration, border security and citizenship that hosted the hearing. "When half a million illegal aliens can come across our border each year ... it's no wonder criminals and drug traffickers believe they are immune from the law." The hearing comes on the heels of several high-publicity encounters along the border, including a sophisticated tunnel that drug smugglers were using underneath the California border with Mexico, and a videotape of men in Mexican military-style uniforms helping drug dealers smuggle drugs into the United States, and increased violence towards border patrol officers. Investigators from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are investigating whether members of the Mexican Army are helping drug smugglers along the border. Bonner said he believes Mexican officials purposefully fire on Border Patrol officers and do not do enough to stop organized crime. Congress is in the midst of a heated debate this year about how and whether to curtail the number of people illegally entering the country. Leading Senate proposals focus on guest worker programs, endorsed by President Bush, that would allow illegal immigrants to work in this country legally. But a House measure passed in December focuses on border control, including a proposal to extend fencing along 700 miles of the 2,000 mile border. Debate on the Senate proposals began Wednesday. Immigration reform has become a highly charged political issue in Congress, exposing a rift within the Republican Party over whether to favor border control over a guest worker program. Immigrant rights groups and labor and business leaders also advocate a guest worker program. If some type of work program passes, it will be the first major immigration reform since 1986. The Texas and Arizona sheriffs, in town this week to lobby legislators, have largely endorsed worker programs for immigrants. Jernigan said attention needs to be on the criminals, not on illegal immigrants coming to the United States to work. Many solutions were offered up at the hearing, ranging from building barriers, to a guest worker program to a national ID and employment card to allowing more local law enforcement officers to detain illegal immigrants . Cornyn said he supports a virtual fence - using surveillance technology - over a physical barrier along the border. Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., was more supportive of fencing. Immigration in Arizona now accounts for half of total immigration along the southern border, Kyl said. Fencing in the San Diego area has pushed immigrants into entering through Arizona. "We know that fencing works," Kyl said. "Much of our border with Mexico just has a rusty barbed wire fence." Mexican ambassador Carlos de Icaza told The Washington Post last Friday that more barriers are not the answer to the immigration problem. De Icaza said he supports a guest worker program that addresses "the reality of the problem." Cornyn said regardless of what Mexico does to help or hinder the immigration situation, that the United States has "an independent obligation to do that ourselves." "We've heard some testimony about withholding foreign aid," Cornyn said after the hearing. "But we're joined by a common border and we are in effect married and can't get a divorce. So we're going to have to work it out." Attention on border security in Congress was heightened after the Sept. 11 attacks. Some senators argued Wednesday that tighter control over the border is essential to thwart another terrorist attack. However, immigrants rights groups have criticized Congress for only considering increased security along the southern border and not the northern border with Canada. "People have not realized we are seeing unprecedented illegal immigration from countries all around the world, including special interest countries that are state sponsors of international terrorism," Cornyn told reporters. "Now that this realization is there, now that people understand that the same border that allows a worker to come in could also be exploited by terrorists, that's why you see the attention we're giving to it and that's why I expect we'll be acting finally to solve the problem." Documents provided by Jernigan show that from October 2003 to June 2004, 20 people from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran were captured trying to illegally cross the border. The number of immigrants caught from countries other than Mexico more than doubled from 75, 389 in fiscal year 2004 to 165, 175 in fiscal year 2005, U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar said. Illegal immigrants have also become more brazen, according to the sheriffs, and less likely to run back to Mexico when caught crossing. Kyl said last year 10 percent of illegal immigrants captured have a criminal record. "My deputies and the border patrol are facing a different problem than they did 10 or 15 years ago," Jernigan said. "We are dealing with a much different class of people. They are determined. They are going north, come hell or high water." Texas rancher Lavoyger Durham, a third generation rancher who lives 75 miles north of the Mexican border, told the Senators that when night falls, ranch owners leave food and water for the immigrants to use to avoid being burglarized. Thousands of migrant workers cross through South Texas on a daily basis, he said. "The Border Patrol has told me that within a five-mile radius of my ranch, two- to three-hundred illegal immigrants move through every night." Stories of ranchers being fired upon, security guards being beaten and held at gunpoint and women threatened near their homes by immigrants abound, Durham said. He added that immigrants are dying from the heat, exhaustion or at the hands of human smugglers. "In my county alone, over 40 illegal immigrants are known to have died last year," Durham said.
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