Chertoff: Reforms needed to fight illegal immigration
Posted 8/24/2006 10:06 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
HARLINGEN, Texas — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the Border Patrol will not be able to sustain the progress it has made apprehending illegal migrants unless Congress passes broad immigration reforms.
He said the agency needs to focus on "the drug dealers, the criminals, even the terrorists" trying to sneak across the southern border. It can only do that, he said, if the majority of migrants crossing to find work are allowed to do so through a "guest worker" program.
The long-overwhelmed Border Patrol agency, which is adding 6,000 agents to its 10,500-agent force and is being aided by the National Guard while it hires and trains the new recruits, will never be able to secure the border if it has to try to catch and return the hundreds of thousands of migrants who cross each year, Chertoff said.
"To try to do it all through brute force would be a very expensive and difficult proposition," he said.
Appearing with Chertoff by the banks of the Rio Grande, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said that although the Border Patrol has made progress — including a 20,000 decrease in illegal immigrants crossing the southwestern border — it can't continue to do so without a "comprehensive solution."
Congress isn't likely to act on immigration reforms this fall, despite a push from the Bush administration. Last December, the House passed a bill that would tighten security but not include the new opportunities for migrants. In May, the Senate passed a bill that included a guest-worker program. But with fall elections looming, Chertoff conceded that it's unlikely lawmakers will compromise on the issue.
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