Border Patrol Agents’ Unions Issue Resolutions Declaring No Confidence In Obama, ICE
Posted on October 9, 2010 by usbni

In recent months, labor organizations representing federal immigration
agents have been among the most outspoken challengers of Obama’s
enforcement campaign.

In June, the American Federation of Government Employees’ National
Council 118, which represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agents, issued a no-confidence vote for ICE Director John Morton,
claiming he is promoting amnesty instead of enforcement because most ICE
officers are unable to make immigration-related arrests on the streets,
leading to “amnesty by policy.”

The National Border Patrol Council adopted a similar no-confidence
resolution targeting Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar.

Brandon Judd, union vice president and president of Local 2544 in
Tucson, said this week that the Obama administration has purposefully
understaffed remote areas and attempted to limit the number of
undocumented immigrants captured in Arizona so that it can assert that
illegal immigration is dropping because of improved enforcement.

“The border is just as wide open in some areas as it’s ever been,” Judd
said. “Yes, I do believe the administration wants as few arrests as they
possibly can. If they can have fewer arrests, then they can say fewer
people are crossing the border. This administration is desperate to say
the border is secure.”

In a joint phone interview Friday, Morton and Aguilar bristled at claims
that their enforcement campaigns are ineffective or designed to fail.

“I just don’t know where that sentiment is coming from because it is
demonstrably not true,” Morton said. “We are not pro-amnesty. As to the
charge of being anti-enforcement, you don’t have to look any further
than the results themselves at ICE and Customs and Border Protection.”

Aguilar, former chief of the Tucson Sector, said the truth is that a
staunch enforcement effort, along with an economic downturn, has stymied
the flow of unlawful entrants. Even with agents covering more ground and
using better equipment, he said, arrests on the border have dropped 70
percent in nine years and 30 percent since the previous administration.

“Right now, I would challenge anybody to fly over the border and find a
place where there are no agents,” Aguilar said. “They are in rural and
remote areas where they had never been before.”

Enforcement debate

As Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and others bolstered
enforcement, called in troops, recited enforcement statistics and
declared the border “more secure than ever,” an administration message
seemed to gain traction.

Simultaneously, union leaders and other amnesty foes appeared to shift
their most vocal complaints from border protection to workplace enforcement.

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council of about
17,500 agents, said he’s still not satisfied with enforcement along the
line with Mexico. However, he said, no amount of agents or troops will
be enough to secure the border unless undocumented immigrants also are
rounded up en masse within the U.S.

“We have consistently taken the position that interior enforcement is
the key to stopping illegal immigration,” Bonner said, arguing that
raids and roundups should be conducted nationwide.

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, a group of
retired agents, recently issued a news release declaring that interior
enforcement is “woefully lacking” and getting worse, “strangling our
democracy and threatening our national security.”

G. Alan Ferguson, executive assistant, said enhanced border protection
won’t solve America’s immigration problem unless illegal immigrants now
on U.S. soil are rooted out.

Homeland Security this week sought to refute such allegations with data,
just as it did the complaints about border security.

Federal reports for fiscal 2010 show ICE removed a record 392,000
non-citizens from the United States, half of those convicted criminals.
The deportation of felons was up 70 percent over Bush’s final year in
office.

Homeland Security also says that it is curbing the demand for
undocumented employees. Since January 2009, ICE has audited 3,200
employers suspected of hiring undocumented immigrants, imposing $50
million in sanctions and punishing 225 companies.

“This administration has focused on enforcing our immigration laws in a
smart, effective manner that prioritizes public safety and national
security and holds employers accountable who knowingly break the law,”
Napolitano said.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform responded with a news
release accusing the administration of misleading the public with
partial truths. “The goal is to convince the American people that
immigration enforcement is being dealt with so that the administration
can move on to its real objective: massive amnesty,” said Dan Stein,
FAIR’s president.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/10/09/20101009arizona-border-national-guard-troops.html