The leader of a union representing federal immigration deportation agents has joined two dozen sheriffs in sending a letter to Congress warning that the sweeping immigration bill under consideration in the Senate is weak on border security and would hamper the work of law enforcement officers.
The letter sharply criticizes the legislation, saying that the border security measures, which are a linchpin of its overall strategy, do not have real force.
Under the bill, the Department of Homeland Security would have five years to put surveillance in place along the length of the Southwest border and to significantly increase the percentage of illegal crossers it catches. Those goals would have to be achieved before any of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants could apply for American citizenship.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to accept an amendment by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, that would extend the security measures the bill requires as conditions, or “triggers,†for legalization for undocumented immigrants across the entire border. In the original bill, some goals only had to be met in high-risk border sectors.
The amendment did little to respond to the criticism of the border sheriffs, who questioned the broad leeway granted to Homeland Security officials to decide how to carry out the border security measures, and called for sweeping Congressional oversight over the whole plan.
The law enforcement officers reject as “powerless†a border commission that would be set up after five years if Homeland Security officials fail to reach those goals, concluding that the bill “appears to provide no tangible provisions for increased border security.†The letter is signed by Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, which represents 7,200 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Paul Babeu, sheriff of Pinal County in Arizona, and sheriffs from other border states and North Carolina.
Conservative opponents of the Senate bill have struggled this week to find their footing, after a study by the Heritage Foundation that assailed the measure as fiscally costly caused a rift in their camp. Other conservatives rejected the report’s methodology as politicized, and a co-author, Dr. Jason Richwine, was rebuked over conclusions in his Harvard doctoral dissertation that Hispanic immigrants were less intelligent than American whites.
That left the law enforcement officers to emerge as some of the most influential conservative groups criticizing the bill and seeking to defeat it. The bill, crafted by a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight, was under consideration for the first time on Thursday in the Judiciary Committee, as senators began to weigh more than 300 amendments.
The law enforcement letter also said the bill “does not address current failures of interior enforcement that will render any legislation ineffective, regardless of its provisions.†The officers accused the Obama administration of broadly failing to enforce immigration law, saying deportation agents “cannot arrest or remove most illegal immigrants they come in contact with, even if officers believe those individuals present a risk to public safety.†The officers called on lawmakers to restrict the discretion given to administration officials to set enforcement policy.
The officers were moving against the trend of public opinion, based on a poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center that found that 75 percent of Americans think the immigration system is broken and needs a thorough overhaul. The poll also found that 73 percent said undocumented immigrants should be given a pathway to remain legally in this country, a central purpose of the Senate bill.
However, a majority of Americans in the poll â€" 53 percent â€" said the government could do much more to reduce illegal immigration at the borders.
The Pew poll found that Americans are less certain about how to fix the system. Only 44 percent said immigrants in the United States illegally should be allowed to apply for citizenship, while 25 percent said they should be allowed to apply only for legal residence. The poll did not ask about any time frames or mention conditions for those immigrants to obtain citizenship. Under the Senate bill, undocumented immigrants would wait 13 years before they could apply for citizenship and they would have to pass hurdles along the way. The Pew poll was conducted May 1 to May 5 with 1,504 adults.
The new Pew results affirmed a survey last week by the organization that found that 58 percent of Americans â€" nearly 6 in 10 â€" think the Boston Marathon bombing should not affect the immigration debate but is a separate issue.
