This year on Cinco de Mayo 2010, the border between Mexico and the Unites States is a critical issue in a political debate on immigration reform. The US border Patrol has doubled in size on the border since 2004. As advertised, the miles of US border fence project that is costing billions of dollars isn’t working. All cash advance being extended from the US border fence is to be spent on a lot more US border control as the Obama administration is trying to do. This is leading most Republicans to believe that many Democrats are cutting funding for border security.
GOP has no clue on the border
On the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico, the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection (CPB) has completed about 650 miles of the U.S. border fence project as of Cinco de Mayo 2010. This barrier isn’t working as it is meant to keep individuals out. The U.S. border fence project is also interfering with migrating wildlife, blocking access to water and threatens to divide tribal lands for 3 Indian nations. Another part of the border fence project is a so-called “virtual fence” made of towers and sensors. NPR reports that Boeing may have built a 28-mile test section within the Southern Arizona desert. After three years — and $ 1.4 billion — it didn’t work.
The border fence debate
Politifact.com reports that within the border fence debate, most immigration experts say adding personnel to the U.S. Border Patrol is much a lot more effective than building fences. In March Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she would be willing to spend $ 50 million of stimulus funds at first intended to build the virtual fence on other, more proven and cost-effective security technology. Yet Mike Coffman, a Republican congressman from Colorado, writes in the Daily Caller the border isn’t really secure “because the federal government presently prioritizes safeguarding ecosystems and wildlife along the border over controlling access and preventing illegal entry”.
U.S. border fence cost
Politicians further cloud the situation by using the shift in funding from the US border fence project to lie within the border fence debate. On Sunday, the U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Conference, told NBC’s Meet the Press “This administration and this Congress are systematically cutting funding to border security given that the Democrats took control,” He then went on to present “the numbers”. As outlined by Pence, in 2007, Republicans wrote up a $ 1.2 billion spending budget for border control and fencing. He says the Democrats cut it to $ 800 million.
Spending on US border security spending
Republicans say what is happening on the border is false according to that politifact.com report on the debate. The last year of Republican control in 2007, discretionary spending on border security was $ 6.3 billion. Discretionary spending went to $ 7.9 billion in 2008 under Democratic majority, $ 9.8 billion in 2009, and $ 10.1 billion in the fiscal year 2010. President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget calls for only a slight decrease in discretionary spending on border security, but even at this proposed level of $ 9.8 billion, that’s a 55 percent increase between 2007 and 2011.
Sources
NPR reports
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124758593
Politifact.com
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/05/mike-pence/republican-says-obama-cut-budget-illegal-immigrati/
NBC’s Meet the Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
