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1. Officials try to alay fears
2. Manpower distribution reviewed
3. US-Mexico security questioned
4. FL Senate takes up bill
5. Activists want action

1.
White House officials try to calm border violence fears
By Jennifer Epstein
Politico (DC), April 4, 2011

The southwest border of the United States is “open for business,” two top Obama administration officials say Monday in a direct appeal to corporate America.

Writing on the op-ed page of Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke acknowledge that danger still lurks at the border with Mexico, but argue that the region is better off than people elsewhere in the country might think.

“We agree that the security challenges we face at the border are real,” they write. “But to maximize the economic opportunities in the region, we must also acknowledge the progress we’ve made over the past two years.”

From fiscal 2009 to fiscal 2010, they say, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized 85 percent more currency, 25 percent more drugs, and 47 percent more weapons along the Southwest border than they did between fiscal years 2007 and 2008.”

And border patrol arrests of illegal immigrants, “the best indicator of illegal immigration,” they say, have fallen by 36 percent over the last two years.

“[T]hese gains are tenuous,” Napolitano and Locke say, “which is why we won’t let up for a second in our efforts to secure the border and protect communities in the Southwest. In the meantime, the American people and American businesses should know that this region is a vital hub of commerce with room to grow.” Napolitano made similar remarks in late March when she visited the Texas-Mexico border at El Paso.

But “misinformation about safety and security at the border threatens” economic development in the region, they say. “Unfortunately, there is a widespread misperception that the Southwest is wracked by violence spilling over from Mexico’s ongoing drug war.”
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52471.html

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2.
Disparity in border security under review
By Alan Gomez
USA Today, April 4, 2011

As the battle over illegal immigration has intensified in recent years, the federal government has responded by flooding the nation's southwest border with Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops.

A Customs and Border Protection officer and a local sheriff's deputy check the trunk of a car heading southbound from the United States to Mexico.

Some, such as an interest group on the border and some members of Congress, are questioning whether those efforts to stop illegal immigrants from entering the country have come at the expense of the U.S.'s ability to stop the drugs, guns and cash that also flow across the border.

Up to 90% of the cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin that cross from Mexico to the U.S. goes through the dozens of land ports of entry along the border, according to the Texas Border Coalition, a group of mayors, judges and city officials from the border region.

From 2006 to 2010, the number of Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect people and cargo crossing through the ports of entry along the southwest border increased by 15%, while the number of CBP Border Patrol agents who patrol the rugged terrain between those ports increased by 59%, according to CBP figures.

Some believe that focus on the regions between the ports — where human smuggling is the biggest concern — has been a knee-jerk reaction to the loud calls in recent years to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

"The emphasis has been because it's kind of sexy," says Nelson Balido, president of the Border Trade Alliance, which represents companies and government agencies all along the U.S.-Mexico border. "It's sexy to say you're the crime fighter, that you're going to go out there and secure the border and we're going to get them."

That disparity will now be reviewed by Congress.

Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., will use her House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security on Tuesday to study the distribution of manpower along the border. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, sent a letter Friday to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee asking for a hearing on the issue.

Miller says she wants to determine whether there is a shortage of funding and manpower at the ports of entry.

"It is a concern that we've all recognized," Miller says. "We'll focus on some issues that perhaps the agencies are not reacting to appropriately."
. . .
Janice Kephart, director of national security policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that wants to restrict immigration, says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has done a better job than her predecessors to balance the number of agents and officers working along the border. Kephart says more bodies alone won't solve the problems of human or drug smuggling.

Napolitano "is putting more bodies out there because Congress has told her to, but it is without an overall operational strategy for the border," Kephart says.
. . .
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-04-04-bordersecurity04_ST_N...

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3.
Is U.S.-Mexico border secure enough?
By Elizabeth Aguilera
San Diego Union Tribune, April 2, 2011

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, fortification has reached an all-time peak.

The ranks of Border Patrol agents top 17,600. Nearly 650 miles of additional fencing is up. Four unmanned drones patrol from California to the Gulf of Mexico. Twelve hundred National Guard soldiers are on the ground. Camera systems numbering 467 sweep the perimeter and 10,800 ground sensors lie in wait.

Given this unprecedented expansion in resources during the past decade, U.S. government officials said the southwest border is the tightest it has ever been.

Skeptics and “border security first” supporters are convinced it is still not enough, while advocates for comprehensive immigration reform believe it is more than adequate and the nation should push forward on other issues, such as restructuring the visa system and creating a process for illegal immigrants living in the U.S. to gain legal status.

Last week, congressional Republicans announced that they’re drafting legislation to further bolster border security — add more customs officers, anti-narcotics teams and surveillance equipment. Janet Napolitano, head of the Homeland Security department, said Friday that her agency has and will continue to strengthen enforcement of the southwest border.

“No one has described what a secure border looks like. We have no baseline and we have no target,” said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. “It’s a great example of a moving standard and for the last 20 years, that standard has been moving up with no targets in sight.”

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin credits the cascade of money, staffing and technology flowing into the southwest border region for causing a drop in apprehensions and leading to the lowest rates of illegal entry from Mexico into the U.S.

“Secured borders are not sealed borders,” Bersin said. “This is about satisfactory control. The facts on the ground are that the border is not out of control.”

The number of apprehensions fell 62 percent from 2005 through last year — to a total of 447,731 in 2010. It’s unclear how much the Great Recession, which dried up many jobs north of the border, deterred would-be illegal migrants.

Bersin said a good portion of people who try to cross the border illegally are detained. He cited a rate of 90 percent for the San Diego sector and nearly 100 percent for El Paso. But neither he nor his staff could explain how those rates are calculated.

Among those challenging the government’s claims of security is Janice Kephart, director of national security policy at the Center for Immigration Studies and former counsel to the 9/11 Commission.

“There are so many indicators of insecurity out there,” said Kephart, who used hidden cameras to make a series of documentaries about undocumented migrants and drug mules entering Arizona undetected. “If you are down to the point of single digit percentage of illegal entry, then you are at the point where you are doing pretty well.”
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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/02/us-mexico-border-secure-e...

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4.
Immigration reform bill
MyFoxOrlando, April 4, 2011

An immigration reform bill goes before a Florida Senate committee Monday. Some say it's very similar to the controversial law in Arizona that gives police officers the right to ask for someone's citizen status.

Critics say it legalizes racial profiling.

Bill General Summary:

Unauthorized Immigrants; requires every employer to use the federal program for electronic verification of employment eligibility in order to verify the employment eligibility of each employee hired on or after a specified date. Provides an exception in the case of employees who present specified documents to the employer. Requires the Attorney General to request from the Department of Homeland Security a list of employers who are registered with the E-Verify Program and to post that list to the Attorney General's website, etc.

Controversial portion of law:

Codifying state and local law enforcement participation in a federal program (Secure Communities Program) in which the fingerprints of an arrested person are checked against federal databases to determine the person's immigration status;

In Arizona a judge will hear arguments on that state’s immigration law.

The judge considering challenges to Arizona's immigration enforcement law is scheduled to hear arguments Friday over the Arizona Legislature's request to join the governor in helping to defend the law.
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http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/state_news/040411-immigration-refor...

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5.
Immigration coalition pressures President Obama
By Julie Mason
Politico (DC), April 4, 2011

Since failing to fulfill his promise to overhaul immigration policy, President Barack Obama has repeatedly asked Latino voters for patience as the economy, health care reform and other issues dominated his early agenda.

But the president may soon have to grapple with the issue, amid budget negotiations with Congress, U.S. military operations in Libya and the launch of his reelection campaign.

A coalition of immigration activists and lawmakers has challenged Obama to use his executive powers to change U.S. immigration policy.

The campaign, called Change Takes Courage, will consist of events nationwide, including in Obama’s home state of Hawaii, in the coming months. It was launched a day after the president said he’ll push Congress to pass legislation that will grant citizenship to Latinos in college or the military, but quickly added that he’ll need “a little bit of help” from congressional Republicans.

White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest insists Obama is committed to immigration reform. The president’s broader agenda, Earnest said, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented residents, enhanced border security and cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers.

Still, Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, predicts immigration reform will most likely languish for the rest of the year.

“Unless the administration and Democratic part of Congress sits down and has conversations with Republicans about things on which they can agree on immigration, nothing will happen,” Papademetriou said.

Despite declaring the need for immigration reform and pointing to the “political and mathematical reality” that bipartisan support is necessary, Obama hasn’t offered a blueprint or taken the lead with Congress. The newly empowered GOP, which has fought the president on nearly every issue, seems interested only in tighter border security and harsh sanctions for undocumented immigrants.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52449.html