Imperial Beach, Calif. – Drug traffickers, violent criminals and potential terrorists cross the nation’s southern border with impunity and must be stopped, U.S. House members declared Wednesday as they held their first in a series of field hearings on illegal immigration.
Saying they need to gather more information before working with the Senate on immigration legislation, Republicans on a House subcommittee called in three panels of witnesses to describe the magnitude of problems at the southern U.S. border.
Democrats on the panel scorned the hearing at a Border Patrol station near San Diego as a farce, saying it was intended only to block any bill that offers a guest-worker program or legal status for illegal immigrants.
“These hearings are not designed to legislate. They’re designed to whip up public opinion,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who called the sessions “dog-and-pony shows.”
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., airman of the International Terrorism and Nonproliferation subcommittee, called the hearings “a matter of national security.”
The Senate and House have passed starkly different immigration bills. Republican House members argue that border security legislation must precede the guest-worker program and pathway to citizenship in the Senate bill.
The two bills normally would head to a conference committee to be melded into one. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was slated to sit in that conference committee. But Republican leaders delayed that step and instead scheduled field hearings.
A Republican active in the immigration debate predicted after the hearing that immigration legislation is dead for this year.
“This issue will be decided in the next three years, not the next three months,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California. “We’re not going to solve it before the next election.”
The hearing came on the same day as another immigration session in Philadelphia, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and intended to highlight a plan for immigration reform that includes guest workers and a path to citizenship.
Specter backed the Senate bill that contained those provisions. Over the past two weeks, however, some Republican senators who voted for the bill have hinted that they might accept a bill beefing up enforcement of immigration laws as part of a timetable that included other reform provisions.
At the Philadelphia hearing, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg complained that his city’s economy would suffer greatly if illegal immigrants were sent home.
The Senate is making plans to hold one of its hearings in Colorado, a spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard said last week.
The San Diego-area hearing highlighted tensions over the immigration issue. The site was an immigrant-rich, lower-income community about 2 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nearby, protesters gathered in competing camps. One group, Border Angels, erected what they said were 4,000 brightly colored crosses signifying people who have died in desert border areas since October 1994, when the U.S. stepped up enforcement efforts.
A group opposing legalization of illegal immigrants waved flags and shouted at the other group. Some wore T-shirts that said “Deport All Illegal Immigrants Now.”
At the hearing, both political parties at times criticized the Bush administration’s lack of sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants.
Dramatic testimony came from Rick Flores, sheriff of Webb County, Texas, which includes El Paso. He described fierce gun battles just over the border that the Mexican military did nothing to stop. Drug cartels and human smugglers control the Mexican side of the border, he said.
It would be very easy for al-Qaeda terrorists to learn Spanish, blend in among Mexicans and cross into the United States, he said. “It’s probably already happened.”
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., belongs to the subcommittee that held Wednesday’s hearing but did not attend. He leads House Republican hard-liners on illegal immigration.
“I had to chose between a hearing on the border, to which I have been more times than most members of the subcommittee, or spending the time in the district,” Tancredo said in a statement. “I choose the latter.”
The California hearing was held in a 100-capacity room that allowed entry mainly to lawmakers, their aides, journalists and hearing witnesses.
“This is a farce,” said Will Coley, 36, of Santa Monica, who supports what he called humane treatment of immigrants. He grabbed one of the few seats for the public. “You call this a public hearing? It’s so un-American. It’s so un-Democratic.”