Washington – With complaints mounting about lax border controls, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison called Wednesday for giving local police the power to arrest illegal immigrants and for creation of a “border marshal” program to let local law officers help patrol the border.
“Our borders have been hemorrhaging for too long. It is a national-security and safety threat to our nation,” said the Texas Republican, vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. “I just don’t think we’ll ever have enough Border Patrol agents.”
The proposal is one of a slew around Congress to tighten borders, and, like many of the others, this one drew swift denunciation from immigrant advocates, who warned that police aren’t properly trained and have enough to do already.
Hutchison called her plan a direct response to the Minuteman Project, the controversial group that has sent hundreds of volunteers to deter illegal crossings in Arizona, Texas and other states.
“The Minutemen have shown that citizens are now really wanting to be helpful in patrolling borders,” she said.
But she added that it’s “not safe” for untrained volunteers to take on those duties.
Her bill would let the Homeland Security Department create a “Volunteer Border Marshal” program involving police, sheriffs and other licensed law officers. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was noncommittal about the idea during a 45-minute meeting in her office Wednesday, the senator said. The bill would give cities and states the option to enforce and prosecute federal immigration laws.
Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens called the proposal a sign of an immigrant- bashing spiral.
“They’re getting more and more aggressive, more and more outrageous in the proposals. It’s like immigrants are all mass murderers,” he said. “… You could turn the whole country into a police state, and that still won’t solve the problem. People come here for jobs that are offered by American employers.”
Pressure has been building for tighter border controls. Last month, Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, co-chairman of the Congressional Border Caucus, wrote President Bush urging immediate action to cope with a “state of emergency” along the border. All but one Texas Republican in the House co-signed the letter, along with half the Democrats.
