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Border Patrol Still Lax Despite Spending

Mike

Well-known member
Despite massive increases in manpower, the U.S. Border Patrol is still intercepting only about 61 percent of would-be illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to an audit that the investigative arm of Congress released Wednesday.
The findings, which for the first time show a broad estimate of how many illegal immigrants the Border Patrol fails to catch each year, emerge as pressure builds on Congress to move past border security and begin to grant legal status to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
The Government Accountability Office report found that an estimated 208,813 illegal immigrants escaped capture along the nearly 2,000-mile border. Slightly more than half of them turned back to Mexico, and the others proceeded deeper into the U.S., the report said.
The report also said that the Obama administration has gone more than two years without having an effective yardstick for measuring border security, meaning there is no good way to evaluate the job the Border Patrol is doing.
“The bottom line is we are far from having operational control of our borders, particularly the southwest border, and as the GAO reports, there still are no metrics to quantify progress,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Texas Republican. “Meanwhile, the threat from groups ranging from Islamist extremists to drug cartels continues to grow.”
Border security has been a chief focus of immigration efforts since 2007, when the last major immigration reform bill failed in Congress. After that failure, Republicans said voters wanted the border secured before any legalization took place, and President Bush poured resources into the Border Patrol.
According to the GAO, the number of illegal border crossings has dropped, as has the number of illegal immigrants the Border Patrol apprehends. It’s unclear how much of that is a result of stricter enforcement and how much is because of the slumping U.S. economy and changes in Mexico.
But the GAO report painted a picture of an agency struggling to come up with ways to measure its effectiveness.
Two years ago, the Obama administration ditched the “operational control” yardstick that the Bush administration developed. The yardstick showed that just a fraction of the border was effectively sealed.
The Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Patrol, said in its official response to the GAO that it is trying to come up with a new yardstick by the end of November — which would mean it will have gone three years without a measure of border enforcement effectiveness.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/9/interceptions-immigrants-stubbornly-low/#ixzz2HdcnycWA
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cowman52

Well-known member
Not a day goes by when I don't see a new truck, 2 agents, sitting on the side of the road, engine idling, watching cars go by. In the afternoon, 10 miles up, other side of road, same deal.
 

Mike

Well-known member
cowman52 said:
Not a day goes by when I don't see a new truck, 2 agents, sitting on the side of the road, engine idling, watching cars go by. In the afternoon, 10 miles up, other side of road, same deal.

Do you feel safe?
 

cowman52

Well-known member
Yep, all the illegals are at the Jose number dos fence building place. Drive by on saturday night and Sunday morning, you will see between the dos equis, tequila empties and the tejano music life is good. And not a federale in sight.
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
cowman52 said:
Not a day goes by when I don't see a new truck, 2 agents, sitting on the side of the road, engine idling, watching cars go by. In the afternoon, 10 miles up, other side of road, same deal.

Same thing on the northern border. :?
 
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