Ex-border agents: Illegals bill 'unrealistic'

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An association of former U.S. Border Patrol officers, whose members include retired chiefs, supervisors, field agents and inspectors, says an immigration bill being debated in the Senate is "unrealistic and technologically unfeasible."

Instead, the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers said in a press conference this week and in a position paper, real immigration reform would include securing the border, tightening the screening of those permitted to enter, and opposition to any legislation allowing aliens to remain in the country who entered illegally.

Kent Lundgren, association coordinator, said any new reform legislation should also include meaningful employer sanctions and a guest-worker program with tight restrictions.

"We do not delude ourselves, nor would we try to fool the American people into believing the border can be made completely secure. It can't," said Mr. Lundgren, a former Border Patrol assistant chief whose association has more than 250 members. "But it can be made secure enough.

"Nor will we ever succeed in removing every illegal alien from this country. What we can do, through the adoption and use of well-considered and effectively enforced laws, is gain control of a situation that now, in our opinion, threatens the national well-being," he said. "It will not happen overnight or easily, but it can happen. To do less is to invite further chaos."

The association said the proposed Senate immigration-reform bill would "saddle the nation once again with law containing the same flaws" found in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which granted amnesty to more than 3 million illegal aliens.

With 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens now in the United States, the association said, the proposed law would bring a wave of amnesty "on a scale unimagined" at the time of the 1986 legislation.

"We believe that the results for the nation will be disastrous if anything is passed that resembles what has been under debate in the Senate recently," the association said.

Mr. Lundgren, during a press conference this week in Washington, described the Senate bill as "insultingly, unforgivingly bad," adding that the technology proposed in it is not capable of carrying out the required background checks or processing the fingerprint scans outlined by the bill.

"There will be no meaningful criminal- or terrorist-record checks of the applicants," Mr. Lundgren said. "Despite what the administration and Congress say about record checks to ease the voter's mind, they are lying about it.

"Yes, technology has improved and fingerprint checks can now be done online," he said, "but there is more to a criminal-record check than a fingerprint check and even with technology, it can't be done as quickly as they're calling for it to be done."

The association has steadfastly supported a guest-worker program for foreign workers in the United States, but only if the program is limited, tightly controlled and available only to those who entered the country legally.

"We support a guest-worker program in principle, believing it can serve the national interest," Mr. Lundgren said. "However, we also believe guest workers must be limited in what they may do, what they may benefit from under immigration law, and the program must be tightly controlled.

"No alien in any illegal status should be allowed to participate," he said. "Application for the program must take place outside the United States and the applicant must remain outside the country while the application is pending."

Mr. Lundgren said immigration reform is "an issue that arises periodically in the national consciousness," but Congress and the White House are attempting to pass reform efforts that have failed in the past. He said while prior efforts at reforming immigration law, including the 1986 law, changed immigration for the country, "it neither reformed nor controlled it."

"The nation has made demonstrable mistakes in the past in its efforts to control immigration," he said. "Let us, who were there to see them, remind the nation of the outcome and make suggestions for change."