Congress Inhabits Border Security Fantasy Land

Feb 5, 2015 10:58 AM EST
By Francis Wilkinson

It was inevitable that border security would be commandeered by immigration restrictionists in Congress. But the change of direction on border security has been even more abrupt than the transition from the Senate bill providing a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the last Congress to the deport-'em-all posture Republicans have embraced in the past month.

In 2013, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul steered a bipartisan border-security bill through his committee. It was a pretty good bill. Instead of throwing money in the general direction of Texas, it set a goal of "operational control" of the border, which it defined as "a 90 percent probability that illegal border crossers are apprehended and narcotics and other contraband are seized in high traffic areas." The caveats -- "90 percent probability" and "high traffic" -- made the goal credible. The bill required the Department of Homeland Security to devise a strategy to achieve it.

The proposal departed sharply from a previous, dead-end House bill, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which defined "operational control" as "the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband." The act effectively demanded a sealed border. In a nation with 7,000 miles of land border, 95,000 miles of shoreline and thousands of airports, a sealed border would require a police state more ambitious (and more effective) than North Korea, which, despite considerable effort, has not accomplished the task.

A written explanation from a McCaul aide, justifying McCaul's 2013 bill, appeared last July on National Review Online. It made the case for border realism:

The 100 percent standard in the Secure Fence Act is not realistic. This is like a mayor asking his police chief to prevent 100 percent of crime in his town.

McCaul said much the same when he criticized an amendment to the 2013 bill that would have required a 100-percent-secure border. "Putting a 100 percent number in there makes it not only unachievable but unrealistic," McCaul said, "and I believe, less credible."

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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-05/congress-inhabits-border-security-fantasy-land