The border between the United States and Mexico is a critical issue in the raging political debate on immigration reform on Cinco de Mayo 2010. On the border, the U.S. Border Patrol has doubled in size given that 2004. Hundreds of miles of a high-tech U.S. border fence project, costing billions of dollars, doesn’t work as advertised. The Obama administration wants to divert any money advance from extending the U.S. border fence to spend it on a lot more U.S. Border Patrol. This leads Republicans to charge that Democrats are cutting funding for border security.
No clue on the border – GOP
On the 2,000-mile border that is between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection (CPB) has completed around 650 miles of the U.S. border fence project as of Cinco de Mayo 2010. The barrier, meant to keep out people, is not working. The U.S. border fence project is also interfering with migrating wildlife, blocking access to water and threatens to divide tribal lands for three Indian nations. Part of the border fence project is a “virtual fence” which is made of towers and sensors. NPR reports that Boeing may have built a 28-mile test section in the Southern Arizona desert. After $ 1.4 billion and 3 whole years of waiting, it isn’t working.
The border fence debate
Politifact.com says within the border fence debate, most immigration experts say adding personnel to the U.S. Border Patrol is much a lot more effective than building fences. In March Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she will spend $ 50 million of stimulus funds at first intended to build the virtual fence on other, more proven and cost-effective security technology. Yet Mike Coffman, a Republican congressman from Colorado, writes within the Daily Caller that the border is not secure “because the federal government currently prioritizes safeguarding ecosystems and wildlife along the border over controlling access and preventing illegal entry”.
U.S. border fence cost
Clouded further is the situation on the border by politicians who use the shift in funding from the US border fence project to lie within the border fence debate. On Sunday, the U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Conference, told NBC’s Meet the Press “This administration and this Congress have been systematically cutting funding to border security given that the Democrats took control,” He then went on to present “the numbers”. Pence said in 2007 the Republicans wrote a $ 1.2 billion budget for border control and fencing. He also says the Democrats had pulled it down to $ 800 million.
Spending on all the US border security
Republicans say what is happening on the border is false as outlined by that politifact.com report on the debate. $ 6.3 billion was in the discretionary spending on border security in 2007, which happens to be the last year of Republican control. Seems like that under Democrats, spending has increased to $ 7.9 billion in 2008, $ 9.8 billion in 2009, and $ 19.1 billion within the fiscal 2010 year. President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget calls for only a slight decrease in discretionary spending on border security, but even at this proposed level of $ 9.8 billion, that’s a 55 percent increase between 2007 and 2011.
Sources for the article
NPR reports
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124758593
Politifact.com
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/05/mike-pence/republican-says-obama-cut-budget-illegal-immigrati/
NBC’s Meet the Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
