The bill introduced by Rep. Henry Cuellar and Sen. John Cornyn to combat the border crisis would weaken current law while only addressing a small part of the problem. The bill is nothing more than a shiny object that will ultimately detract blame from President Obama and his failure to enforce existing laws. Please oppose this bill and instead apply pressure on the administration to secure the border and enforce our laws using the tools already at their disposal.
While Rep. Cuellar and Sen. Cornyn have put forward a genuine effort aimed at addressing the border crisis, they unfortunately included H.R. 1417. H.R. 1417 aims to secure the border, but actually weakens border security in two important ways: 1) current law requires DHS to take all actions to achieve operational control of the entire border, but H.R. 1417 only requires DHS to submit a plan to achieve operational control of high-traffic areas and along the Southern border, ignoring much of the Northern land border and all maritime borders; and 2) H.R. 1417 contrasts with existing law, which already requires 100% operational control of the entire international land and maritime borders. This legislation defines “operational control” as apprehending 90% of illegal crossings as determined by DHS.
The Cuellar-Cornyn bill addresses the 2008 law that requires Unaccompanied Alien Children from countries other than Canada and Mexico to receive full deportation proceedings. Unfortunately, only 20% of those apprehended by the Border Patrol are minors. Thus, the legislation only addresses 20% of the problem. Not to mention, the law allows unaccompanied alien children to have their final orders of removal expunged by a judge at whim, setting a terrible precedent.
President Obama has all the tools he needs to address the border crisis. Instead of calling for new legislation and additional funding, he can send the National Guard to the border to free Border Patrol agents from administrative tasks. He can also end his DACA program, which has acted as a magnet for illegal aliens and helped to cause the current crisis. Finally, he can simply enforce existing laws and start to remove illegal aliens from the United States.
While Rep. Cuellar and Sen. Cornyn have genuinely tried to combat the border crisis with their bill, it gives President Obama an out and allows him to continue to avoid enforcing the law and securing the border. Please oppose it.
Phone me if you would like to talk about this,
Greg Raven
P.S. We must secure our border now, and send each of the illegals back home. No housing here! No hand-outs here! No amnesty!
