A new report highlights some of the positive results of the Obama Administrations strategy to improve safety and commerce along the Southwest Border while also highlighting work to be done.
Any reasonable look at the data from the past several years makes clear that the new joint Mexican-US strategy is improving the region. Deportations of criminal immigrants, southbound seizures of bulk cash and illegal guns are way up. We have seen a steady decrease in the number of migrants crossing the border, the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. Finally crime rates along the US side of the border are all down. Just last year El Paso, a border city across from Ciudad Juarez one of the most dangerous cities in the world, was named the safest city in the country with a population of 500,000 or more.
While the violence on the Mexican side of the border is still at unacceptable levels, there has been no measurable spillover of the cartel violence into the United States. So while the things we don’t want happening along the US side of the border are decreasing, the things we do want – trade and legal traffic of people – are increasing.
The Texas Border Coalition’s recent report on the need to fund our ports of entry more fully gets much right in its acknowledgement that the trade relationship between Mexico and the U.S. is of profound significance for the both of our countries. NDN recently released a report on this important relationship. We also agree that we absolutely need to do more to staff our ports of entries in order to facilitate the movement of legal commerce, people and stop narcotics from entering the country.
However it is factually incorrect to say that the federal government does not have a strategy for the ports of entries along the southwest border.
In July, 2011 Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano traveled to Nogales Arizona to announce a National Southwest Border Counternarcotic Strategy. The strategy increases coordination and information sharing between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, and calls for continued close collaboration between the Government of Mexico and the United States in combating the cartels at the border.
The Counternarcotic Strategy has an entire section devoted to the Ports of Entry. The background section of the report notes that the focus for the future will be on an increase in, “staffing needs, inspection, equipment improvements, canine resources, and automation enhancements.”
Upon careful inspection there is little disconnect between The Texas Border Coalition Reports recommendations and the Federal Governments own plans for the ports of entries. The Border Coalition’s one and only recommendation to alleviate the problems facing the ports, that Congress and the Obama Administration pass emergency funds of $6 Billion dollars is completely out of the reality of Congress. Congress is not allocating funds for any new projects that are not deficit neutral, let alone to the tune of $6 billion dollars.
Just ask Congressman Silvestre Reyes who has been trying to pass legislation to enhance our ports of entry to the tune of $5 billion dollars for some time and points out that the President Obama’s 2012 budget include increase in CBP officers:
“I understand that true border security is not achieved through higher fences, but by combining needed changes in immigration laws with additional resources and personnel to staff the border and ports of entry. Expanded funding is also needed to accommodate trade and commerce to increase jobs and opportunity in our region.” Congressman Reyes continued, “I have also urged the White House and the House Appropriations Committee to further increase the number of CBP officers, and both President Obama’s 2012 budget proposal and the Fiscal Year 2012 House Homeland Security Appropriations bill included funding for an additional 300 CBP officers.“
Which is perhaps what is so frustrating about the Texas Border Coalitions report: it gets so much right, but ultimately its conclusions and recommendations are counterproductive. Staffing ports of entry and increasing legal trade and the movement of people is important as is the need to stop narcotics from entering the country.
As the Texas Border Coalition report notes the administration has had tremendous success on the border, between the ports, apprehension rates are at 90%. What we should be concentrating on now is getting Congress to give the Department of Homeland Security and the Administration the funding they need to finish executing the plan they have in place.
For supplemental information on how the administrations Southwest Border Strategy has been successful please click here.
