For years, the federal government has failed to do its job and secure our border.
As a result, there are an estimated 10-15 million illegal immigrants living and working within our borders. Our government does not know specifically who is here, how long they have been here or if they pose a threat to public health. No one can contest that our government faces enormous challenges with regard to this issue. The illegal immigration problem isn't new and it didn't happen overnight. But because the US government has failed to act, some have rightfully said "enough," and are taking action to protect their communities.
Border states including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California have felt the impact of this failure for years, particularly in the form of higher crime due to drug runners and "coyotes" who transport illegal immigrants across the border. One border patrol estimate said that 17% of those captured along the border in Arizona already have criminal records in the United States. Just three weeks ago, the Border Patrol arrested a known sex offender and felon, who was deported in 2004 after serving four years in prison, and re-entered the United States.
Last month, a 58-year old rancher was shot and killed on his property by a suspected drug runner who was tracked 20 miles back to the southern border. There is a sad but telling article in the Wall Street Journal on this incident and the impact porous borders have on the surrounding community. You can read it here.
In 2005, Congress passed significant border security measures that would begin to finally solve this problem, by sealing the border first. Unfortunately, the current Administration is turning back the clock on this very serious issue.
The President's 2011 budget would significantly cut funding to the "virtual fence" capabilities which include cameras and sensors, and halt construction of the southern border fence.
As illegal border crossings are on the rise, Arizona is in a difficult situation - left to fend for itself by a federal government that hasn't done its job. Throughout the 1990s, increased security measures in Texas and California have pushed many illegal border crossings through to the deserts of Arizona, leading to "sharp increases in kidnappings, home invasions and other violence tied to drugs and human smuggling." According to the Associated Press, Phoenix has been dubbed the "kidnapping capital of the US, with an average of one abduction per day in recent years."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that half of all illegal border crossings into the US occur in Arizona, and taxpayers there spend more than $2.5 billion a year on services for this population. You can read a fact sheet on Arizona here.
That's why it was so frustrating to listen to Mexican President Felipe Calderon come to the floor of Congress on Thursday and criticize US immigration policy, and Arizona's attempt to protect its communities by correcting the years of failure on the part of the federal government. Perhaps most hypocritical, President Calderon ignores the fact that Mexico's own immigration laws are tougher than Arizona's.
The bottom line is, if President Calderon is seeking the most humane laws, he needs to get control of the violence, drug cartels, kidnapping and trafficking issues in his own country, on the other side of the border. For years, this sad fact makes life dangerous in Mexico. For those reasons, we have increased funding to fight drug cartels in Mexico.
President Obama must also become a partner in ensuring that our border security funding remains intact, the fence is completed, and we enforce the laws on the books to get a real handle on this issue. Most importantly, we cannot grant amnesty to these millions of illegal immigrants, which will add $90 billion in new net costs to taxpayers every year, jeopardizing Social Security and Medicare.
