The Washington Times Gets It Way Wrong On Border Security

Yesterday the Washington Times wrote an editorial on violence on the border, it is big on hyperbole and rhetoric and very soft on nuance and fact.

The full editorial can be read here, however there is one section in particular which much be addressed as the facts presented are very very misconstrued:

Homeland Security's plans for a few more agents hardly offset a proposed June pullback of the 1,200 National Guardsmen deployed after the Krentz murder. "When the secretary of Homeland Security withdraws the National Guard from the border after they've been doing such a good job, we don't know if they are really serious about securing our border," Republican Sen. John McCain warned at a Tucson press conference.

According to information presented in the Washington Times Editorial, Secretary Napolitano has, "promised to deploy 250 additional agents, with another 300 to follow if the agency's fiscal 2012 budget is approved." What they dont mention is that those numbers are in addition to the historically high numbers of personnel on the ground. The key part of this quote is if the 2012 budget is approved.

The reason this is such a key part of the argument is that the Congressional GOP currently in the majority have called for cuts to DHS in the 2012 budget. These cuts would, among other things, directly affect the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to deploy more troops to the border. The full lists of cuts put up by the Majority Appropriations Committee can still be seen here.

Which is especially ironic, given that as the editorial also notes both Arizona Senators have requested a total of 3,000 National Guards Troops. To be clear last year in the Emergency Border Funds Supplemental passed by Congress and the Obama Administration historic levels of resources where deployed to the border region.

What is especially troubling about this editorial, is that while there is no mention of the positive steps taken to make the border safer, there is also no acknowledgement that the if the GOP are successful in cutting the budget to DHS, then virtually all of those steps will be frozen in place or in some cases scaled back.

After years of investment by the federal government along the border between the United States and Mexico there has been significant progress in creating a more harmonious region.

This has happened due to unprecedented amounts of resources allocated to the southwest border. This has led to a drop in crime along the US side of the border with little spillover of violence from Mexican cartels, a historic number of deportations of criminal undocumented immigrants and an increase in narcotics seizures and a leveling off of illegal migration into the U.S.

Which is to say it is hard to criticize DHS for their strategy, when there is no acknowledgement of the positive steps taken forward, but even harder when in the midst of executing a plan that has shown demonstrable improvements, the GOP may cut the funding which would allow DHS to fully implement their plan.