By Fair, Special for USDR.
The next Secretary of Homeland Security will be faced with the enormous challenge of undoing the Obama administration’s eight-year effort to dismantle U.S. immigration enforcement capabilities at the same time that the nation is facing a resurgence in illegal immigration and growing security threats from international terrorist organizations, warns the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, is among those being considered for the post by President-elect Trump. “If Rep. McCaul is chosen to head DHS, he will need to take a much more expansive view of border and immigration enforcement than he has in the past,” stated Dan Stein, president of FAIR.
In 2013, FAIR strongly opposed McCaul’s Border Security Results Act, H.R. 1417, for taking a cosmetic approach to the problem of border security. “The fact is that the Border Security Results Act would not have produced any tangible results in terms of improved border security,” Stein said. “The bill would have required DHS to come up with plans to secure the border and included vague language about the need for ‘situational awareness’ along the border without requiring actual results in stemming the flow of people entering the country illegally. Given the nature of the threats we face today, we need real and immediate action to secure our borders and cut-off the incentives for people to enter the country illegally, or to overstay visas.” McCaul’s version of the bill for the current Congress, the Secure Our Borders First Act (H.R. 399), is similarly flawed in its inability to meaningfully secure the border.
FAIR notes that since McCaul introduced border security legislation in 2013, Obama administration policies have triggered a new surge of illegal immigration across the southern border, and that the threats from global terror networks, like ISIS, have grown exponentially. “Whoever is appointed DHS secretary will have to take immediate and concrete action, beginning on day-one of the new administration, to protect the security of the nation and end the current wave of illegal migration.
“Given the centrality of immigration to President-elect Trump’s successful campaign, he and his DHS nominee will need to assure the American public that they understand the full scope of the threats posed by mass illegal immigration and unsecured borders. That means a plan of action to secure the border with fencing, technology and manpower, coupled with strong deterrence, that is ready to be implemented as soon as the new administration takes office,” Stein concluded.
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