WASHINGTON – In an attempt to woo Republicans on immigration reform, a group of U.S. senators drafted a “border surge” plan Thursday that would beef up patrols and expand the fence along the Southwest border.
The amendment, drafted by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would nearly double the size of the current border patrol to 40,000 agents and expand 700 miles of border fencing to the existing 42 miles. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the bipartisan group of senators known as the “Gang of Eight” who have been working on the bill since December, spoke on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon. He said new technology could include armed drones and night-vision technology.
The Corker amendment comes on the heels of Republican criticism that the immigration bill did not do enough to tighten border security. The bill also has made concessions to conservatives with the hope of appeasing the Republican-controlled House.
“Republicans in the Senate had two main concerns: cost and border security,” said Adam Bozzi, spokesman for Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., a member of the Gang of Eight. Bozzi said they hope to gain about a dozen key Republicans with this amendment and obtain a majority needed to pass the bill. “A vote of 70 (Senate) members would send a message to the House.”
But sweetening the deal for the House could be a gamble. House members also killed the Farm Bill on Thursday afternoon, after debates about cuts to the food stamp program and spending divided members.
When asked whether Corker’s amendment would make the bill more palatable for the House, Bennet echoed the sentiments of the unpredictable legislative body.
“You can’t predict anything around here, and, unfortunately, the House was unable to pass the Farm Bill for the second time. They didn’t pass their own Farm Bill, much less the bipartisan one that the Senate passed,” Bennet said.
Bozzi said while the Farm Bill was important to many in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, the immigration bill will affect businesses in not only agriculture, but also tourism and the tech sector.
The Senate already has moved the bill to the right, abandoning an earlier amendment proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that would have allowed same-sex couples to sponsor a foreign-born spouse for a green card. Rubio said the amendment would kill the bill, and he himself would walk away.
Still, the Corker amendment concerns some immigration-reform proponents, who say the money could be directed in other ways. Nicole Mosher, executive director of Compañeros, an immigrant-rights group in Durango, said that the $30 billion in the amendment should be directed toward improving processing. Mosher said the backlog for immigrants can be 20 years.
“I don’t believe a pathway to citizenship should be contingent on border security,” Mosher said. “I think there’s a misguided belief that putting thousands more border patrol (agents) and a huge wall will make a difference.”
An article in The Atlantic said while the number of border agents has increased during the last decade, the number of immigrants caught and returned has in fact decreased during that same period.
Also Mosher said the government could do more to combat drug, arms and human trafficking along the border. Coyotes – smugglers who charge immigrants a fee to get them over the border – are a larger problem, Mosher said.
“The coyotes don’t stop coming over when we flex our muscles,” Mosher said.
Bennet said the border surge will include combating these traffickers. In a border visit with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Bennet said they met with security fighting along the border.
“It’s an issue that’s going to be dealt with, both by internal-law enforcement and also with border security,” Bennet said.
Leigh Giangreco, a recent graduate of American University in Washington, D.C., is working as an intern for The Durango Herald.
Reader Comments