ImmigrationGang of Eight: DHS secretary to determine if border is secure
Even supporters of immigration reform admit that security along the U.S.-Mexico border should be improved so that legalizing the status of the eleven million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States would not become a magnet for drawing even more undocumented immigrants into the country. How do we know, however, whether the border is secure enough for the legalizing process to begin? A bipartisan group of senators, known as the Gang of Eight, has an idea: under the terms of the bipartisan framework for immigration reform, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano would make the final determination about whether or not the border is secure. Once she makes the determination that the border is secure, the eleven million undocumented immigrants would start on their path to a legal status in the country.
Under Senate immigration reform proposal, DHS secretary Napolitano would certify that the border was secure // Source: rt.com
Even supporters of immigration reform admit that security along the U.S.-Mexico border should be improved so that legalizing the status of the eleven million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States would not become a magnet for drawing even more undocumented immigrants into the country. How do we know, however, whether the border is secure enough for the legalizing process to begin?
A bipartisan group of senators, known as the Gang of Eight, has an idea. Under the terms of the bipartisan framework for immigration reform, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano would make the final determination about whether or not the border is secure. Once she makes the determination that the border is secure, the eleven million undocumented immigrants would start on their path to a legal status in the country.
The Hill reports that the bipartisan framework also stipulates that if Napolitano cannot certify that the border is secure enough before she leaves office, then her successor would make the decision.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York), the leading Democrat sponsor of the bipartisan immigration bill, said that Napolitano should be the one to decide.
“What we’ve proposed is that the DHS secretary, whomever it is, will have final say on [whether] whatever metrics we proposes are met,” Schumer told the Hill. “We think those metrics will be quite objective.”
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) said the provision has not been set in stone.
“We’re working on a lot of it,” McCain said.
Advocates of immigration reform say Napolitano or someone else in the Obama administration should make the decision. “Having the DHS secretary decide rather than (Arizona governor) Jan Brewer decide is obviously a no-brainer,” Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice told the Hill
According to Sharry, “having clear metrics be the goalpost rather than the moving goalpost that Republicans have been engaged in the last five years is much better.”
“But any condition that leaves room for mischief is a potential problem,” he added.
The idea of letting Napolitano or a future DHS secretary make the final call on border security has not been received well by many Republicans.
“My constituents are not going to accept a Washington bureaucrat making a representation the border is secure when they know it’s not true. So that’s unacceptable,” Senate Whip John Cornyn (R- Texas) told the Hill.
In his last week’s Las Vega speech on immigration reform, Presdient Obama did not mentione border security as a precondition for reforming the country’s immigration laws.
The bipartisan Senate framework calls for the creation of a commission made up of governors, attorney generals, and community leaders from border states to determine when specific border security goals have been met. The committee, though, would not have the final say, even though its recommendations would be taken into account.
“The Constitution requires that action taken by the Congress is not dictated by a commission. We will be guided to a large degree by their conclusions and recommendations,” McCain said.
The senate group wants to establish measures for border security that can be objectively verified, such as target numbers for border agents and surveillance drones.
“They [the measures] will be objective so there’s not that much leeway,” Schumer told the Hill. “What we envision is that because they [are] objective, the advisory committee and DHS will in all likelihood agree.”
Advocates of immigration reform want to make sure that opponents of such reform would not be able to point to weak security along the border as a reason to delay reform. The members of the Gang of Eight group, all supporters of immigration law overhaul, have come up with the DHS-secretary-decides idea as a way out of the situation in which It is not clear how long it will take for the U.S.-Mexico border to be declared secure, or what that would even mean.
Note that earlier this week, Napolitano praised the town of El Paso and declared the section of the border near El Paso “secure.” Napolitano, in an El Paso press conference, admitted, though, that a “secure border”does not mean that there will never be any illegal crossings or crimes committed along the border.
