2010 THE VOTE: Border security on the line

Gov. Rick Perry and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White walk a fine line when dealing with the issue of illegal immigration.

Perry, who supports Arizona’s right to enact its controversial immigration law but would not back a similar law for Texas, is faced with a voter base that supports similar legislation. He also must contend with a tempestuous relationship with the federal government, whose help he has sought in securing the nation’s longest southern border.

White, who must court a large minority base to win the election, said he in no way supports the Arizona law. He has criticized Perry’s efforts to secure the border while at the same time suggesting similar measures if elected.

But both men agree on one point: Someone has to secure the Texas border.

Texas is home to more than 1.6 million of the 11.6 million illegal immigrants that the Department of Homeland Security estimates are living in the U.S.

Illegal immigrants annually cost Texas taxpayers an estimated $8.8 billion in public education, medical, law enforcement and assistance programs, according to the nonprofit public interest organization Federation for American Immigration Reform.

It is a cost that both candidates agree cannot be reined in without federal help.

“All the secondary issues related to immigration laws are not even worth discussing until the federal government gets serious about border security,” Perry said.

In his 2009 letter to the Legislature detailing his budget priorities for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Perry asked for $135 million to increase land, air and water patrol capacity along the border and to add capacity to combat transnational gangs, bolster local law enforcement in border counties and towns and reduce border corruption.

Perry also has requested 1,000 National Guard troops to help patrol the Texas-Mexico border. In May, President Barack Obama issued an emergency order calling for the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border and nearly 300 of the troops were ordered to Texas. Perry delivered a letter to Obama during the president’s August stop in Austin, urging more troops along with additional law enforcement tools and technology.

“I’m fed up with this administration and their clear attack on Texas,” Perry said. “They’re more than willing to tell us how to run our state, but they can’t seem to do one of the basic responsibilities of the federal government — secure the border.”

White says he’s fed up with Perry blaming the federal government for the border problems. He places blame squarely on Perry.

“The governor has done very little, other than blame Washington, for our porous border,” he said. “We cannot afford to wait any longer.”

White’s plan for border security includes adding 1,250 local and state border security agents — about one per mile of the Texas-Mexico border. The plan, estimated to cost between $75 million and $95 million, would be funded by federal grants, state appropriations and additional drug forfeiture money.

From 2000 to 2009, the Border Patrol — a federal agency — detained more than 3.2 million illegal immigrants who were trying to enter the United States through Texas. An additional 164,000 were arrested after investigations conducted in Dallas, El Paso, Houston and San Antonio, according to Homeland Security reports.

Both candidates agree technology must play a larger role in border intelligence gathering.

Unmanned predator drones such as the one being operated out of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi are welcome, they said.

Perry suggested using training drones in addition to the ones tasked specifically for border operations.

“I think a more efficient way to go about it is to augment the drones,” he said. “I don’t know why they needed to task a drone specifically — they could task training drones and use the real-time information from the equipment for real-time (intelligence) and information sharing among state, local and federal border enforcement agencies.”

White said any use of technology must come with added manpower to act on the intelligence gathered.

“The governor has added cameras but no boots on the ground,” he said. “Drug traffickers and gangs can detect the weak links in our network and exploit them. We need to add the manpower necessary to focus on areas where traffickers are transporting high volumes and continue to shift to meet them.”

Steve Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., said the estimated 571,000 school-aged children in Texas who are either illegal immigrants or are children of illegal immigrants are the largest users of taxpayer-funded programs.

“Most immigrants, legal and illegal, are low-wage earners who qualify for social services and public assistance for their families,” Camarota said. “If you want to reduce costs by denying services to illegal immigrants, it’s not going to change much because the costs are associated with their (naturalized) children.”

Camarota said the only option is to enforce immigration laws, not withhold public services.

“Either you encourage illegals to go home or you shut up about the cost of providing services because you’re not going to fix it any other way,” he said.

Perry, who publicly supported Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s decision to join nine other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of Arizona’s immigration law, said his position is about upholding states’ rights, not a show of support for identification checks.

The law, on hold pending a federal lawsuit, would allow officers to question people on their immigration status without prior cause.

“A state has the right to protect its citizens,” Perry said. “The federal government should not undermine that right.”

White said he opposed the Arizona law because it would strain an already-taxed law enforcement network.

“We need every available law enforcement officer focused on public safety, not conducting identification checks,” he said.

White, Houston’s mayor from 2004 until this year, has been criticized for creating a sanctuary for illegal immigrants in Houston by not reversing the city’s 1992 policy prohibiting police from asking people about their citizenship status or detaining them solely on the belief that they are here illegally.

That neither candidate is willing to take a hard-line position on the Arizona law despite polls suggesting more than 50 percent of Texans are in favor of similar legislation is evidence of the power of the growing Latino voting base in Texas.

“Neither want to cross some invisible line on immigration and border security by taking an anti-Latino stance, which is certainly how a pro-Arizona (immigration law) stance would be received,” said Jerry Polinard, political science professor at the University of Texas-Pan American. “Perry cannot afford to erode Latino support for the GOP built by George Bush, and White can’t afford to alienate the fastest-growing demographic in Texas.”

http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2010/oct/02/border-security-on-the-line/