Senate panel votes to double size of border force
More than 10,000 Customs and Border Patrol agents would be added, and fences along the border would be upgraded.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to add more border agents, investigators and fencing to stem rising illegal immigration as it worked its way through a major immigration reform bill.
In its third day of marking up the bill, the committee discussed nearly 30 amendments, approving a dozen of them by voice vote and postponing the rest for action next week.
In action during the day, the committee agreed to authorize over five years more than 10,000 new customs and border patrol agents, 1,000 investigators, and 1,250 port of entry inspectors. There was a dispute between Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., principal author of the amendment to boost the number of border agents, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., over exactly how many border patrol agents would be added in addition to the 11,300 border agents now. Committee staff said they would have to resolve the exact numbers later.
In addition, the committee adopted also by voice an amendment by Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., to replace some existing fencing in Arizona and add more than 200 miles of barriers to improve border security in Arizona only. Sessions has said he planned to offer an amendment on the Senate floor to put up some 700 miles of fencing to block off some of the 2,000 miles of U.S. border with Mexico. The committee also agreed to an amendment by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for a study to study the feasibility of more fencing along the entire border.
The committee made more progress than it did Wednesday when only three relatively minor amendments were adopted after spending all day with many senators absent, preventing a voting quorum.
"We're on our way," said Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., Thursday. "We had a good session." Specter is trying to meet a target set by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to start debate on an immigration bill on March 27. Specter indicated yesterday it might not meet that goal because of the slow pace of deciding on amendments.
The committee is working its way through a 306-page draft proposed by Specter to beef up enforcement and deal with the estimated 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States by allowing qualified undocumented workers to continue working as a way to earn eventual citizenship. He also has proposed a separate guest worker program allowing foreigners to enter the country for up to six years to take jobs that cannot be filled.
Both provisions are highly controversial and are considered the heart of the bill but debate on those matters will not take place until next week at the earliest. The committee plans to work next Wednesday and Thursday on immigration.
The House passed a bill last year that deals mainly with enforcement and does not address the thorny guest worker issue.
In other amendments, the committee agreed to a Feinstein amendment to allow immigrants to stay in the United States if it was discovered their papers or passports were falsified. The immigrants would have to prove there was "a credible fear of prosecution" as the reason passports were forged to get out of countries with dictatorships.
A Sessions' plan was approved that would jail immigrants found to be illegal instead of releasing them pending immigration hearings. He argued many of those released never show up for immigration hearings and disappear. Sessions also won committee endorsement to make it a crime to run a vehicle past a customs checkpoint without stopping.
Three amendments by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, met no opposition. One would require the Department of Homeland Security to make public foreign ownership of management operations that involve national security as a way to prevent officials being surprised by situations like the Dubai port management controversy.
A Grassley proposal to allocate more immigration investigators to inland states like Iowa won easy approval. So did one to make immigrants convicted of drunk driving one of the crimes subject to deportation.
An amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., extending a law allowing foreign doctors to practice in mainly rural areas with physician shortages, also gained approval.
And an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for expedited deportation instead of incarcerating convicted illegal immigrants was also accepted. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., won approval of his proposal to bar violent criminals from sponsoring foreigners seeking entry into the United States.