Panhandle Congressman Fields
Questions On Border Back Home
By David Bowser
AMARILLO — A U.S. Congressman home over the weeklong Memorial Day holiday wanted to talk about Iraq, but at a press conference in his office here, many of the questions were about border security.
"The House passed a bill in December," Rep. Mac Thornberry said of immigration.
The Senate passed a much different bill as Congress adjourned for Memorial Day.
"Now, the question is can there be enough agreement in the two bills so that there really is something that a majority of both houses can agree on?" Thornberry said. "I think it's too early to say."
Thornberry said he thinks Congress will have to deal with border enforcement issues along with government's processes, before citizenship issues can be addressed.
"If we're going to set up a way for people to apply for something or to have some sort of identification, the government's going to have to have its act together, and it doesn't right now," Thornberry said.
People who try to follow the rules concerning citizenship or even entry into the U.S. now often wait months if not years for a background check, he noted.
Thornberry said those two things — border security and a workable governmental process to deal with aliens — have to be worked out before the rest of the discussion is relevant.
"Our borders have to be controlled, and the government processes have to work," Thornberry said. "Then we have to figure out a guest worker program, what we do with people who are already here, but if you don't have the first two done, the rest of it doesn't seem to matter."
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, Thornberry pointed out, still uses paper files, and they lose them.
"There's no central database," Thornberry said.
The Congressman said he was told by an irate employer a few weeks ago that the employer spent five hours on the telephone just trying to verify a social security number.
"That's not going to work," Thornberry said. "If we're going to have a guest worker program, it has to be a fast, efficient way for the government to interact with employers as well as with the people who are actually applying. Government does not have its act together at this point to be able to do that."
He said Congress can't enact a program and hope the government catches up when so much of it depends upon government interaction with people.
The Mexican border, Thornberry said, is not the only border he's concerned about.
"We tend to focus on the southern border, and it's a much bigger problem than that," Thornberry insisted.
About 40 percent of the people who are in the U.S. illegally are students or workers who came to the U.S. legally and overstayed their visas.
"They are people who were students or workers and did not leave at the time their visas expired or they did not renew their visas," Thornberry said. "We've got to figure out a way to keep track of them."
Thornberry is also concerned about the Canadian border.
"We don't focus on it as much," he said. "There are clearly not the numbers of people coming across there, but some people think that maybe our more dangerous vulnerability for Homeland Security is our northern border."
Thornberry said there is the danger of focusing on one part of a problem and missing the larger implications.
"If we're going to deal with this, we have to look at those bigger issues," Thornberry said, "and not just focus on our border with Mexico."
Thornberry said he's been disappointed with the lack of help from the Mexican government concerning the border situation.
"I don't think there has been as much cooperation as we would like between the Mexican government and the United States," Thornberry opined. "One of the things that has really escalated in the last or so has been the lawlessness on our southern border. Drug gangs have taken over whole towns."
Part of Thornberry's concern is that degree of lawlessness.
"To be fair," he said, "Mexico has its own problems. It has lots of folks coming from Central America across its southern border."
Thornberry said those people who say economic development in Mexico and Central America is the key long-term part of the solution are right.
"The problem is," he said, "I don't think we can wait for decades for living standards in those places to come up to the point where people no longer want to come here to work."
The House immigration bill and the Senate immigration bills will have to go to a conference committee to be worked out, but Thornberry questions whether a compromise can be reached.
"I don't know," Thornberry said. "It is a real question whether we can solve the whole immigration problem in one swoop with one bill. Some people think it's even dangerous to try."
He said Congress should focus on border security and interior enforcement and an efficient guest worker program.
"If you can start with that," Thornberry said, "these other issues related to what happens to the people who are already here we can deal with."
He questions the importance of moves allowing immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
"A lot of people who come here don't really want to be citizens," Thornberry pointed out. "They come here to feed their families. They come here to work and support themselves and their families. If there were an efficient way to facilitate that, it causes your illegal immigrant population to go down considerably."
A guest worker program, government processes and border security are the top tier of Thornberry's concerns about immigration.
He supports fences on the border as a part of border security.
"Absolutely," he said. "It's in both the House and Senate bills."
Thornberry said fences have made differences along the southern border of the U.S.
"I don't think anybody said there ought to be a fence all the way around this country," Thornberry said, "but there are some places where fences have already made a big difference."
He cites Southern California between San Diego and Tijuana.
"They had tremendous problems there," Thornberry said. "They completed a fence, a physical barrier, and it made a huge difference."
Thornberry said that in important, strategic locations, physical barriers along with unmanned flights and increased Border Patrol personnel, fences are effective.
"All of those things are needed and will certainly help," he declared.
As to what type of fence, the Congressman said there should be different types of fence in different areas. That, he said, should be left to the Border Patrol's discretion.
"The Border Patrol people think that physical barriers can reduce the illegal smuggling, which unfortunately has resulted in too many people dying," Thornberry said. "They're left out in the desert. There are people who prey on these folks who want to come here to work. To have more physical barriers, they believe, can diminish that somewhat."
He said money to pay for part of this has been included in the supplemental bill, the same supplemental bill that funds operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief and wildfire relief.
The problem, he notes, is that these programs are expensive.
"Money only comes from one place," Thornberry reminded, "the people who earn it. Government gets its money no other way."
Even if it's borrowing, it ultimately comes from the taxpayers, he said.
"It's the only place it comes from. My feeling is that being able to control who and what comes across our border is a high enough national priority that I'm willing to elevate that and do without some other things. That's part of what we go through in this endless budget cycle it seems like in Congress every year."
Corporate revenues coming into the federal government have nearly doubled what was projected for this fiscal year.
The economy is growing, Thornberry said.
"I would not favor new, higher taxes," he continued. "I would say the best thing for government finances is to not have higher taxes."
But he said there is support for spending more money on border security.
The trick for Congress is to sustain those funds to get the job done, Thornberry said.
"You're not going to solve this problem overnight," he said. "You're going to have to keep putting more resources into it. It's not a one-shot deal. Funding is going to have to continue."
Thornberry said there are parts of the House immigration bill that still need work.
"There are a couple of reimbursement issues in the House bill that I think need to be fleshed out," Thornberry said.
One concerns landowner losses due to illegal immigration. The other is reimbursing local law enforcement agencies.
"There's a program in there to try to reimburse local law enforcement agencies," Thornberry said.
If the federal government is not doing its job and the sheriff's got to, the sheriff, or the county, needs to be reimbursed, Thornberry avowed.
The other would compensate landowners up to $50,000 for damage to their property caused by illegal immigration.
"Exactly what they'll be reimbursed for and how it works," Thornberry said, "that needs to be worked on."
He said he doesn't know if smugglers driving through and taking out a quarter-mile of barbed wire fence or cutting fences would be reimbursable.
"I don't know," Thornberry said.
The local issue Thornberry faces is funding relief for ranchers who suffered losses from huge wildfires that burned off almost a million acres of pasture, thousands of miles of fence, destroyed homes and caused 12 deaths in March.
Thornberry tried to get emergency relief for his district while the fires were still burning, but he ran into procedural problems. The first problem was that no one knew the extent of damage. Estimates varied widely, and it took time to reach a final figure.
Now, those emergency funds are part of the supplemental appropriations bill that is expected to pass this month. The question is whether the wildfire emergency relief will remain in the bill.
"We are trying to see if we can work a way to have some livestock assistance for the people who lost animals," Thornberry said. "There are other kinds of assistance that are available for fences and things like that. We continue to work on that."
Federal financial aid for Texas Panhandle ranchers is tied up with the supplemental bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"Within the next month or so," Thornberry said, "Congress should pass the Emergency Supplemental Bill, which is for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina relief."
Area ranchers can see some aid in connection with their losses due to the wildfires that swept the Texas Panhandle, he said.
"My hope is that we can get some assistance from that bill," Thornberry said, "because if we don't catch this train, then the next one doesn't come until October."
"That's not to diminish the assistance that's already there," Thornberry said. "USDA has rearranged some funds. FEMA has come in with some housing assistance. A significant amount of help has already come. For this extra livestock assistance, I'm hoping we can do it before long."
Thornberry also addressed the next farm bill that's being developed on Capitol Hill.
"The farm bill does not expire until a year from September," Thornberry said. "The ag committee is going around the country and taking input, listening to everybody."
Thornberry has introduced a measure that would extend the existing farm bill until after there is a World Trade Agreement.
"What I don't want to see happen is going to all the trouble to write a new farm bill, have a new World Trade Agreement, and have to go back to the drawing board and do a different farm bill right after that. It seems to me that if we keep what we've got, and then see what the World Trade Agreement is, then we can work on a farm bill."
Not much has happened with Thornberry's bill, but he thinks that as time goes on and the deadline for a new farm bill draws near, his alternative will become more attractive.
"What we've got is working pretty well," Thornberry opined.
He said his bill is not tied to a date, but it is tied to an event, a world trade agreement.
A new farm bill, he said, would be drawn up a year after the U.S. ratifies a world trade agreement on agriculture.
"It's event-driven, not time-driven," Thornberry said. "That way we know what the rules are and then we can write a farm bill that meets those rules."
Other congressmen, he said, have written bills that are time-driven.
Questions On Border Back Home
By David Bowser
AMARILLO — A U.S. Congressman home over the weeklong Memorial Day holiday wanted to talk about Iraq, but at a press conference in his office here, many of the questions were about border security.
"The House passed a bill in December," Rep. Mac Thornberry said of immigration.
The Senate passed a much different bill as Congress adjourned for Memorial Day.
"Now, the question is can there be enough agreement in the two bills so that there really is something that a majority of both houses can agree on?" Thornberry said. "I think it's too early to say."
Thornberry said he thinks Congress will have to deal with border enforcement issues along with government's processes, before citizenship issues can be addressed.
"If we're going to set up a way for people to apply for something or to have some sort of identification, the government's going to have to have its act together, and it doesn't right now," Thornberry said.
People who try to follow the rules concerning citizenship or even entry into the U.S. now often wait months if not years for a background check, he noted.
Thornberry said those two things — border security and a workable governmental process to deal with aliens — have to be worked out before the rest of the discussion is relevant.
"Our borders have to be controlled, and the government processes have to work," Thornberry said. "Then we have to figure out a guest worker program, what we do with people who are already here, but if you don't have the first two done, the rest of it doesn't seem to matter."
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, Thornberry pointed out, still uses paper files, and they lose them.
"There's no central database," Thornberry said.
The Congressman said he was told by an irate employer a few weeks ago that the employer spent five hours on the telephone just trying to verify a social security number.
"That's not going to work," Thornberry said. "If we're going to have a guest worker program, it has to be a fast, efficient way for the government to interact with employers as well as with the people who are actually applying. Government does not have its act together at this point to be able to do that."
He said Congress can't enact a program and hope the government catches up when so much of it depends upon government interaction with people.
The Mexican border, Thornberry said, is not the only border he's concerned about.
"We tend to focus on the southern border, and it's a much bigger problem than that," Thornberry insisted.
About 40 percent of the people who are in the U.S. illegally are students or workers who came to the U.S. legally and overstayed their visas.
"They are people who were students or workers and did not leave at the time their visas expired or they did not renew their visas," Thornberry said. "We've got to figure out a way to keep track of them."
Thornberry is also concerned about the Canadian border.
"We don't focus on it as much," he said. "There are clearly not the numbers of people coming across there, but some people think that maybe our more dangerous vulnerability for Homeland Security is our northern border."
Thornberry said there is the danger of focusing on one part of a problem and missing the larger implications.
"If we're going to deal with this, we have to look at those bigger issues," Thornberry said, "and not just focus on our border with Mexico."
Thornberry said he's been disappointed with the lack of help from the Mexican government concerning the border situation.
"I don't think there has been as much cooperation as we would like between the Mexican government and the United States," Thornberry opined. "One of the things that has really escalated in the last or so has been the lawlessness on our southern border. Drug gangs have taken over whole towns."
Part of Thornberry's concern is that degree of lawlessness.
"To be fair," he said, "Mexico has its own problems. It has lots of folks coming from Central America across its southern border."
Thornberry said those people who say economic development in Mexico and Central America is the key long-term part of the solution are right.
"The problem is," he said, "I don't think we can wait for decades for living standards in those places to come up to the point where people no longer want to come here to work."
The House immigration bill and the Senate immigration bills will have to go to a conference committee to be worked out, but Thornberry questions whether a compromise can be reached.
"I don't know," Thornberry said. "It is a real question whether we can solve the whole immigration problem in one swoop with one bill. Some people think it's even dangerous to try."
He said Congress should focus on border security and interior enforcement and an efficient guest worker program.
"If you can start with that," Thornberry said, "these other issues related to what happens to the people who are already here we can deal with."
He questions the importance of moves allowing immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
"A lot of people who come here don't really want to be citizens," Thornberry pointed out. "They come here to feed their families. They come here to work and support themselves and their families. If there were an efficient way to facilitate that, it causes your illegal immigrant population to go down considerably."
A guest worker program, government processes and border security are the top tier of Thornberry's concerns about immigration.
He supports fences on the border as a part of border security.
"Absolutely," he said. "It's in both the House and Senate bills."
Thornberry said fences have made differences along the southern border of the U.S.
"I don't think anybody said there ought to be a fence all the way around this country," Thornberry said, "but there are some places where fences have already made a big difference."
He cites Southern California between San Diego and Tijuana.
"They had tremendous problems there," Thornberry said. "They completed a fence, a physical barrier, and it made a huge difference."
Thornberry said that in important, strategic locations, physical barriers along with unmanned flights and increased Border Patrol personnel, fences are effective.
"All of those things are needed and will certainly help," he declared.
As to what type of fence, the Congressman said there should be different types of fence in different areas. That, he said, should be left to the Border Patrol's discretion.
"The Border Patrol people think that physical barriers can reduce the illegal smuggling, which unfortunately has resulted in too many people dying," Thornberry said. "They're left out in the desert. There are people who prey on these folks who want to come here to work. To have more physical barriers, they believe, can diminish that somewhat."
He said money to pay for part of this has been included in the supplemental bill, the same supplemental bill that funds operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, hurricane relief and wildfire relief.
The problem, he notes, is that these programs are expensive.
"Money only comes from one place," Thornberry reminded, "the people who earn it. Government gets its money no other way."
Even if it's borrowing, it ultimately comes from the taxpayers, he said.
"It's the only place it comes from. My feeling is that being able to control who and what comes across our border is a high enough national priority that I'm willing to elevate that and do without some other things. That's part of what we go through in this endless budget cycle it seems like in Congress every year."
Corporate revenues coming into the federal government have nearly doubled what was projected for this fiscal year.
The economy is growing, Thornberry said.
"I would not favor new, higher taxes," he continued. "I would say the best thing for government finances is to not have higher taxes."
But he said there is support for spending more money on border security.
The trick for Congress is to sustain those funds to get the job done, Thornberry said.
"You're not going to solve this problem overnight," he said. "You're going to have to keep putting more resources into it. It's not a one-shot deal. Funding is going to have to continue."
Thornberry said there are parts of the House immigration bill that still need work.
"There are a couple of reimbursement issues in the House bill that I think need to be fleshed out," Thornberry said.
One concerns landowner losses due to illegal immigration. The other is reimbursing local law enforcement agencies.
"There's a program in there to try to reimburse local law enforcement agencies," Thornberry said.
If the federal government is not doing its job and the sheriff's got to, the sheriff, or the county, needs to be reimbursed, Thornberry avowed.
The other would compensate landowners up to $50,000 for damage to their property caused by illegal immigration.
"Exactly what they'll be reimbursed for and how it works," Thornberry said, "that needs to be worked on."
He said he doesn't know if smugglers driving through and taking out a quarter-mile of barbed wire fence or cutting fences would be reimbursable.
"I don't know," Thornberry said.
The local issue Thornberry faces is funding relief for ranchers who suffered losses from huge wildfires that burned off almost a million acres of pasture, thousands of miles of fence, destroyed homes and caused 12 deaths in March.
Thornberry tried to get emergency relief for his district while the fires were still burning, but he ran into procedural problems. The first problem was that no one knew the extent of damage. Estimates varied widely, and it took time to reach a final figure.
Now, those emergency funds are part of the supplemental appropriations bill that is expected to pass this month. The question is whether the wildfire emergency relief will remain in the bill.
"We are trying to see if we can work a way to have some livestock assistance for the people who lost animals," Thornberry said. "There are other kinds of assistance that are available for fences and things like that. We continue to work on that."
Federal financial aid for Texas Panhandle ranchers is tied up with the supplemental bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"Within the next month or so," Thornberry said, "Congress should pass the Emergency Supplemental Bill, which is for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina relief."
Area ranchers can see some aid in connection with their losses due to the wildfires that swept the Texas Panhandle, he said.
"My hope is that we can get some assistance from that bill," Thornberry said, "because if we don't catch this train, then the next one doesn't come until October."
"That's not to diminish the assistance that's already there," Thornberry said. "USDA has rearranged some funds. FEMA has come in with some housing assistance. A significant amount of help has already come. For this extra livestock assistance, I'm hoping we can do it before long."
Thornberry also addressed the next farm bill that's being developed on Capitol Hill.
"The farm bill does not expire until a year from September," Thornberry said. "The ag committee is going around the country and taking input, listening to everybody."
Thornberry has introduced a measure that would extend the existing farm bill until after there is a World Trade Agreement.
"What I don't want to see happen is going to all the trouble to write a new farm bill, have a new World Trade Agreement, and have to go back to the drawing board and do a different farm bill right after that. It seems to me that if we keep what we've got, and then see what the World Trade Agreement is, then we can work on a farm bill."
Not much has happened with Thornberry's bill, but he thinks that as time goes on and the deadline for a new farm bill draws near, his alternative will become more attractive.
"What we've got is working pretty well," Thornberry opined.
He said his bill is not tied to a date, but it is tied to an event, a world trade agreement.
A new farm bill, he said, would be drawn up a year after the U.S. ratifies a world trade agreement on agriculture.
"It's event-driven, not time-driven," Thornberry said. "That way we know what the rules are and then we can write a farm bill that meets those rules."
Other congressmen, he said, have written bills that are time-driven.