US Senate passes bill to build Mexican border fence
WASHINGTON -- The Senate last night passed a bill to create a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border, a plan lawmakers said will prevent illegal immigrants -- and potential terrorists -- from crossing undetected into the United States.
Congress also last night headed toward final approval of a $34 billion homeland security funding measure meant to secure the nation's ports and strengthen border patrols. The funding bill includes $1.2 billion as a down payment on the new fence, which is planned to extend along about a third of the 2,000-mile Mexican border.
``The first obligation of the government is to protect the nation. If you can't protect your borders, you can't do that," said Representative Harold Rogers , Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee.
The fence will be a reinforced physical barrier in some areas, while other areas will be secured solely by powerful lighting, sensors, and cameras. When completed, the border fence would include a 20-mile patch around Tecate, Calif., segments of the Mexico-California border, nearly all of Arizona's sou thern border, the area between Columbus, N.M ., and El Paso, and two other stretches of southern Texas.
The fence measure, which passed 80 to 19, will give the Homeland Security secretary 18 months to achieve ``operational control" over US borders to keep illegal immigrants, criminals, and contraband out of the country.
The votes will end -- at least for this Congress -- a long and divisive battle over immigration reform. Democrats and some Republicans, including President Bush, had pushed for a sweeping package of changes to immigration policy that would not only reinforce the nation's borders, but also make entry easier for law-abiding foreigners and ``guest workers" who take low-paying jobs. That package also would have created a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here.
But despite Bush's exhortations, Congress could not agree on any measure to allow temporary workers into the country and instead approved only the border-protection provision. While some conservative lawmakers hailed the get-tough measure as a valuable tool against terrorism and illegal immigration, others called it mean-spirited and insisted it would do nothing to address the 12 million illegal immigrants already here or the many others who want to visit and work legally in the United States.
``We can build fences, but people will come around them. We can put high-tech devices on our borders, and they will deter some people, but we all know that many others still will find a way to come," Senator Edward M. Kennedy , Democrat of Massachusetts, said on the Senate floor yesterday. The bill headed for approval last night, he said, is ``just a bumper sticker solution for a complex problem. It's a feel-good plan that will have little effect in the real world."
Some Republicans from agricultural states also opposed the measure as too narrowly focused, saying the nation needs legal, temporary workers to do critical seasonal work on farms. ``I think you need to have ways where people can apply legally to come to the United States and then go home. We need also to deal with the reality of the people who are already here in the US," said Representative Mario Diaz-Balart , Republican of Florida.
But with Congress eager to return home to try to convince an unhappy electorate to send them back to Washington next year, lawmakers abandoned efforts to broaden the measure to include more sweeping immigration reform. House GOP leaders stuck by the security-focused approach their chamber had approved, refusing to consider any measure that smacked of what critics call ``amnesty": proposals to help illegal immigrants become legal residents.
Eventually, Senate leaders agreed to pass the House bill, disappointing advocates of a more comprehensive approach. ``We can build the tallest fence in the world, and it won't fix our broken immigration system. Nor will it strengthen security at our borders," said Senate minority leader Harry Reid , Democrat of Nevada.
The homeland security spending measure includes $21.3 billion for border security, including money set aside to hire and train 1,500 new border patrol agents.
Lawmakers also tucked in a provision that would allow individuals to bring as much as a 90-day supply of pharmaceuticals to the United States from Canada, where prescription drugs are often significantly cheaper. The measure represents a small but symbolically important victory for advocates of drug re importation, a practice the politically powerful pharmaceutical industry vehemently opposes.
``It's a tiny, tiny first step," said Representative Jo Ann Emerson , Republican of Missouri, an ardent supporter of laws allowing Americans to bring pharmaceuticals back from Canada. The law does not apply to businesses or municipalities.
Another provision in the homeland security funding bill would delay implementation of a high-tech identification card system scheduled for use by those crossing the ground border between the United States and Canada. Senator Patrick Leahy , Democrat of Vermont, argued that the cards must be improved to guarantee security, and he won inclusion of a provision in the bill that would give the federal government another 17 months to perfect them.
Under the PASS system, visitors would have a special ID card they could flash at security checkpoints at the border. Since the cards could have an electronic chip, travelers could enter the United States more quickly than if they were required to show a passport. Some airlines already require passports for air travel to Canada, and all air travelers will need passports beginning Jan. 1. Until the ID cards are finished, travelers between the United States and Canada can continue to use a driver's license and other forms of government-issued identification to make the trip, a Leahy aide said.
Lawmakers said they expected Bush to sign the border fence bill, although the president had hoped for a more extensive package.
Conservative Republicans -- who may lose control of one or both chambers of Congress -- said the end-of-session measures will help bolster the GOP's national security message to voters, highlighting one of its political strengths.
``Republicans have made great progress in our efforts to secure our borders, a stark contrast to the open borders approach advocated by Democrats that would only encourage more illegal immigration," said House majority leader John Boehner , Republican of Ohio. ``With more border patrol agents, additional fencing and border infrastructure, and more state-of-the-art surveillance, this bill will make a real difference in securing America's borders."
Brian Nick , spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said, ``Overall, the feedback from around the country was that the borders needed to be secured imminently, and there wasn't this sense of urgency to rush through comprehensive immigrant reform." 