The Senate vote for cloture on the Corker-Hoeven amendment means that it almost certainly pass as part of the Senate’s immigration bill. The amendment promises strict control of the border, with a provision to add 20,000 more Border Patrol officers within the next ten years,
Fact Check: The promises are worth no more than the enforcement provisions in the 1986 amnesty, which weren’t kept. If supporters of the Senate bill had been sincere about ensuring enforcement, they could have voted for the amendment offered by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) which would have required at least a minimal display of actual enforcement before the granting of amnesty to illegal aliens.
The Corker-Hoeven amendment, apparently, was designed to attract Republican support for the Senate bill which contains amnesty, because some Republicans—even those who favor amnesty—felt that it lacked enforcement provisions, which their constituents wanted. The amendment now gives them a justification to support the bill.
But it’s more about appearances than anything else. Though the proposal to add 20,000 more officers sounds impressive, as a practical matter it’s never likely to happen. As the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers points out, it simply isn’t possible to recruit and train that many officers within a decade. Also, there is no guarantee that Congress would actually appropriate the funds to expand the Border Patrol.
The 1986 law promised speedy enforcement by hiring more officers, but years passed before the Border Patrol significantly increased, and during that time illegal immigration began to spiral out of control.
Another reason to suspect that the amendment is more for show than anything else is that it does not adequately focus on interior enforcement. Many people don’t realize that 40 percent of resident illegal aliens were not illegal border crossers, but people who overstayed their legal visas. Thus by focusing so much on the border, the amendment diverts attention away from steps needed to deal with a very large share of illegal immigration.
And finally, if anyone doubts that proposed enforcement in the bill would be effective anytime soon, let him reflect that the Obama Administration has consistently sabotaged immigration law enforcement since it came to power, and it will almost certainly do so for the remainder of its current term.
Consequently, citizens should not be taken in with the “tough enforcement” claims of the Senate bill. They’re simply a smokescreen and a diversion to pass amnesty. The notion of gaining better enforcement in exchange for amnesty is morally and legally repugnant. We should enforce and enhance existing laws simply because they are the law—and never make them hostage to schemes to reward lawbreakers.