Obama's Border Breakdown

“The border security implications are frightening,” said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union for the front-line officers. Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-Tex.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, criticized the administration’s spending priorities for next year which he says includes no funding for new detention beds, no increase to find and deport immigration fugitives or criminal aliens, no additional special agents to investigate workplace immigration violations, no funding to expand the visa security program, and no funding for new border-fence construction. The administration is looking to eliminate 180 administrative border patrol jobs in the coming year even as violence along the Southwest border continues to escalate -- an Arizona sheriff’s deputy was shot by drug suspects last week, following the murder weeks earlier of an American rancher by border crossers on his own property. “The Border Patrol catches about one-third (of illegal aliens) that come across, that is not border security, that is a joke,” Bonner said. “But to say we are just going to maintain that level of control is unacceptable.” The administration has also proposed cuts for border agents to work overtime, Bonner said. “Weekends and holidays are peak smuggling periods. And if we’re in the middle of a pursuit at the end of a shift, are we just supposed to stop?” Bonner asked. “America deserves and needs far better.”...more