The GOP's border bill would be a disaster

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Congress has been pushing to pass bill that turns border security into a matter of zero tolerance: by 2020, every single person entering the US from Mexico illegally must be apprehended. Every. Single. One.

If even a single unauthorized immigrant gets across the border without being caught, DHS will get hit with penalties — getting everything from overtime pay to government aircraft access taken away from them.

You're probably going to be hearing more about this idea in the coming months, as both the legislative battle between Congress and the president over immigration reform and the 2016 presidential election heat up. The border bill was scheduled for a House vote the week of January 26, though it's been pulled from the schedule. The Senate has introduced a similar bill, and might try to pass it soon — maybe even making it a condition of Department of Homeland Security funding. And among Republican primary candidates, guaranteeing 100 percent border security should be an obvious first step. (One candidate, doctor Ben Carson, said that the next president should promise to "seal the border" within his first year in office.)

<img alt="Border patrol agent on ATV" src="https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rzSDk1tnhl5TYs-h0qHkPtqk4PU=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/assets/4241405/450285247.jpg">

But the zero-tolerance standard is plainly unrealistic, according to experts. Marc Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute, who worked for the Congressional Research Service on measuring border security, says that "no serious student of the border" could possibly believe that the GOP's standard is a good idea.

Think of this bill, Rosenblum suggests, as the border-security equivalent of No Child Left Behind. Border agents have a limited amount of time to meet a "testing" goal: in this case, zero people cross the border illegally and get away. (By the same token, NCLB required schools to reach 100 percent proficiency in math and reading by 2013 — though most of them didn't.) They're given some resources to help meet that goal, but that doesn't change the fact that the goal itself holds agents accountable for factors that might not be in their control. And if they don't meet the goal, they're punished — which creates incentives to juke the stats. As Rosenblum says, "Whenever you have high-stakes testing, there's an incentive for teachers to cook the books."

That hasn't stopped immigration hardliners from attacking the bill themselves — because their definition of "border security" isn't limited to who's apprehended at the border. So to understand the fight, you need to understand how the government actually measures border security — and what a zero-tolerance mandate would actually do.

Why it's so hard to measure border security

Since 2011, the Department of Homeland Security has been measuring border security by the number of immigrants apprehended crossing the border without papers. The problem is that the number of immigrants who are trying to cross into the United States is changing all the time, and knowing how many are caught doesn't tell you how many get through.

<img alt="vest left on border" src="https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FVu3S3a1P8Zm1dRkmHicB4Gd0Ig=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3339552/452666396.0.jpg">

Discarded items like this help tell Border Patrol that immigrants have crossed into the US undetected. (Getty/John Moore)

Border security is really about a ratio: out of all people crossing into the US without papers, how many of them are getting caught? But by definition, Border Patrol can't be expected to know exactly how many people they didn't catch.

Currently, they're estimating the number of "got aways" via direct observation. The border is stacked with surveillance cameras; as Marshall Fitz of the Center for American Progress puts it, "we have an eye on the border basically 24/7." Beyond that, agents can make educated guesses based on cuts in fencing or signs, footprints, or litter.

The zero-tolerance standard: "operational control"

The GOP bill gives DHS the resources to set up better metrics to estimate how many people are crossing (as well as how many guns and drugs), and to come up with different strategies for ports of entry and for maritime borders. But those metrics are in the service of a goal that nobody thinks DHS can actually meet: preventing or apprehending every single illegal entry.

<img alt="shoe border" src="https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/fg2vYT1_R0KTtnrD6D13dVseReU=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3339560/452666370.0.jpg">

This could be the only thing keeping Border Patrol from declaring "operational control," and they'd still fail the test the House bill would set. (John Moore/Getty)

This standard is called "operational control." Congress actually mandated "operational control" of the border almost a decade ago, in 2006 — but DHS, knowing that it wasn't realistic to prevent every single entry, quietly tweaked the definition of "operational control" to something it could actually achieve.

This time around, Congress is preventing DHS from being able to define its own border-security standards. The new bill makes it very clear that "operational control" means that every single immigrant crossing the border without papers must be apprehended or turned back. And if DHS can't prove that they have "operational control" of high-traffic areas of the border within two years — or of the entire border within five years — the penalties start kicking in.

Why this won't work

No one disagrees that the government should be trying to apprehend everyone who crosses the border without papers — after all, the government can't tell who's smuggling drugs or weapons unless it stops them. But the government has been trying to do that for the last 20 years, and it hasn't worked yet.

<img alt="border militarization map" src="https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bD3cbCaC8yT8cgEQGwCSsNh-bS8=/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2912906/border_patrol_gif.0.gif">

(Joss Fong/Vox)

As the government built up security where immigrants were most likely to cross, immigrants started going where border agents weren't — even though that meant an often lethal journey through rough desert. Where the government built fencing, immigrants cut holes. Where the government used drones, smugglers dug tunnels. The government simply can't prevent every single eventuality — and spending energy trying to do so, to get every single unauthorized immigrant, is energy that won't be spent on more dedicated law-enforcement efforts against criminal groups.

Even the author of this bill in the House, Homeland Security Committee chair Michael McCaul, has acknowledged that 100 percent prevention is a worthwhile goal but not a realistic one. A bill he proposed in 2013, after several hearings about border-security metrics, would have required that 90 percent of all border crossers get apprehended or turned back. But in 2015, his reservations have suddenly disappeared.

continue reading here http://www.vox.com/2015/1/26/7899337/border-security

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Flaming oil trenches and concertina wire should do the trick.

[Janelle2002 3,865]

Flaming oil trenches and concertina wire should do the trick.

I am sure the republicans would try this if you suggest it.

[Darnell 8,479]

2020? why not 2015? It's not like there's any real extra funding needed on this...

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The GOP's border bill would be a disaster

The headline should simply be: The GOP is a disaster