U.S. Border Patrol Agents Angry with McCain
With lawmakers from the House and Senate yet to reconcile their competing immigration
bills and President Bush still touting a temporary worker program, some rank-and-file
defenders of the border are lambasting the notion that deporting illegal aliens is
impractical.
Moreover they view anything that smacks of amnesty as a betrayal to those who have risked
their lives patrolling the borders.
The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) union represents the U.S. Border Patrol's 10,000
non-supervisory agents. The largest local of the NBPC is Local 2544, headquartered in
Tucson, Arizona - a busy sector accounting for more than half of the 1.15 million illegal
aliens apprehended last year by the Border Patrol.
Local 2544 members serve on the front lines, and they are hopping mad with the
administration and with some lawmakers in particular.
Mike Albon, Local 2544's public information officer, told NewsMax, "All the comments
on our Web site are the opinions of the Local and can be taken as the Union's point of
view."
To say the least, the Senate bill's gradual amnesty program for many who have crossed the
border illegally is unpopular with Local 2544:
"We strongly oppose any attempts to reward illegal alien lawbreakers. We have risked
our lives to keep them out of this country. The slick politicians can call it
‘guest-worker' or ‘earned legalization' all they want, but it's amnesty."
‘Amnesty John' McCain
Particular union vitriol is reserved for the man they call "Amnesty John," who
voted for the Senate bill. "Amnesty John" is the union's handle for Sen. John
McCain, R-Ariz.
"Senator McCain has never been a friend to rank-and-file Border Patrol agents,"
says the union. "He routinely ignores correspondence from Border Patrol agents and
often gives the impression that he is just too big and too important to deal with us. He
attempts to undermine our mission at every turn and actively supports the criminals who
violate our laws. He always tries to downplay the fact that illegal aliens knowingly and
willingly violate our laws."
According to Albon, the root of the rank-and-file frustration is that McCain and others
who want a road to citizenship for some of those already unlawfully in the country are at
best unrealistic when it comes to the paperwork burden of proving who was where and when:
"Your government is nowhere near being capable of handling all those claims.
"They will buckle at the slightest hint of pressure from any activist/social services
group. They will issue waivers like candy to any illegal alien who says he or she can't
afford the 'fines' levied by the government. They will accept one fraudulent document
after another. The entire thing will be mass chaos."
The union fears a reprise of what they say occurred under the Immigration Reform and
Control Act of Nov. 6, 1986. Under that act, say union officials, many who had just
entered the United States falsely claimed they had entered years before so they could
qualify for amnesty.
Case-in-point: a large group was tracked down and apprehended on the Tohono O'Odham Indian
reservation about 10 miles from the border. Two of them had freshly minted
"amnesty" cards. The cardholders claimed they had entered years before and were
just visiting the rest of the group:
"We were told that if we wanted to prove their claims false we would have to
‘back track' them all the way to the south side of the border to prove they were in
Mexico. It was logistically impossible to do this under the circumstances."
As to the argument of Sen. McCain to simply say to those "undocumented workers, who
are working the jobs that the rest of us refuse, come out from the shadows," the
union is adamant:
"Senator, they put themselves in those ‘shadows' by breaking our laws and they
need to go home. They weren't forcibly placed in the ‘shadows' by some murdering
tyrant from the Middle East. They freely chose to break our laws, steal our jobs, and take
advantage of our wobbly-kneed politicians who let them do it. Instead of using all that
energy to fix their own corrupt country, they sneak into ours and then demand that we
change our system to fit their crimes. It's pretty simple stuff . . ."
The Union's Solution
The local has a simple solution to the border crisis: Shut the border down to illegal
crossings, and then start hammering the greedy employers who hire them:
"Start deporting, we repeat, deporting, the illegal aliens who are here in violation
of law. It may take years, but you don't build a house overnight."
As to criminalizing the illegals – one of the great sticking points in the
immigration reform debate – the union does not understand what all that fuss is
about. They explain that it is already a federal crime to enter the country without
inspection – specifically under title eight of the U.S. Code, section 1325.
Under that current law, a first offense is punishable by a fine and up to six months in
jail, a second offense is punishable by a fine and up to two years in jail.
Says the union: "Many media outlets are incorrectly reporting that it is only a
‘civil offense.' No, it's just that we can't persuade the U.S. attorney's office to
prosecute anyone for 8 USC 1325 – unless they're also an axe murderer, so they are
charged with the ‘civil offense' and sent home."
The National Guard at the
Border
The union says that it abhors the fact that President Bush has gone out of his way to
assure Mexican President Vincente Fox that the United States. will not
"militarize" the border:
"Fox has already ‘militarized' the border. Mexico has plenty of troops on the
border. We know this because we see them all the time and they shoot at us with rather
large .50 caliber rifles. All we can do is hope their aim is bad, run from them, and then
watch as the cowards from our government hide from the issue, and their government lies
about them even being there."
Albon points out that Local 2544 had not been consulted regarding the deployment of
National Guard troops in the Tucson sector. "We were told we would be consulted. We
weren't."
Local 2544 is also quick to point out that it and its membership has absolutely no
complicity or involvement in reported management directives to report the location of the
Minutemen volunteers to the Mexican government:
"Our position on the Mexican government and the Mexican military is very clear. They
are corrupt; their soldiers shoot at us; they smuggle drugs; they help illegal aliens
invade this country by the millions; they are not to be trusted, and they should have zero
input into the internal policies of the United States of America."
Albon reports that union leadership has received a lot of e-mail on this issue:
"It's been a standing joke for years that we should ‘check with the Mexican
Consulate' to see if they approve before we do anything. Their influence on our
politicians and upper managers is absolutely disgraceful."
Meanwhile, Arizona's Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano has just vetoed a Republican
immigration package that would have allowed local police to arrest illegal immigrants for
trespassing.
This did not sit well with the union:
"Napolitano is like many other tough-talking politicians. She talks about
‘illegal immigration' and ‘out-of-control borders' a lot – and that's about
it. If she was half as hard on illegal aliens as she was on Border Patrol agents when she
was the U.S. attorney for Arizona, we would be a lot better off."
Looking to the Future
The union is very cynical of the future:
"While Bush is in office nothing will get done. That much is obvious after six years.
And the current crop of prospective presidents who are posturing for a run in 2008,
including our wonderful in-state non-supporter, ‘Amnesty John' McCain, will probably
be worse. That should take us through 2012, when we'll be hearing the same old tired
‘get tough' political posturing over ‘securing our borders' all over again. Does
anybody really think Hillary Clinton is going to be a tough, enforcement-minded leader on
illegal immigration if she gets elected? Get real folks . . ."
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
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