NDN Blog

Alan Bersin, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and John Morton, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have written an opinion piece today on securing our border. 

The full article can be read here, but if you do not have a WSJ subscription you can read it here. As always excerpts are below:

What we have seen on the border, at workplaces, and in communities across America in the past 18 months represents the most serious approach to enforcement we have witnessed in our careers.

At the border we have concentrated unprecedented amounts of manpower, infrastructure and technology. Today, the Border Patrol is better staffed than at any time in its history—nearly doubling in personnel since 2004 to more than 20,000 today. ICE has a quarter of all its personnel in the Southwest border region, also the most ever. There is more fencing and other infrastructure than ever before. And more technology, improving the ability to detect illegal movements at all times of day and night.

Much has been written on this blog about the unprecedented resources that The White House has allocated for securing the border, what has not been covered as much here is the new emphasis on U.S. - Mexico co-operation on border security.

We have engaged in high levels of cooperation with Mexico to crack down on smuggling. And we have provided more funding than ever before to local law enforcement in border communities to deal with border-related crime.

As a result, the numbers are clearly moving in the right direction: Last year, illegal crossings along the Southwest border were down 23%, to a fraction of their all-time high. Seizures of contraband rose significantly across the board in 2009—illegal bulk cash, illegal weapons and illegal drugs. By all measurable standards, crime in U.S. border towns has remained flat for most of the last decade.

While the emphasis on a renewed concentration on U.S. - Mexico cooperation is a welcome improvement to border security.

The real story here continues to be President Obama's allocation of huge sums of resources to securing our border

This administration knows that more can be done. That is why the president authorized the deployment of up to 1,200 National Guard troops to support federal law enforcement on the border. He has also asked Congress for $600 million in supplemental funding, which reflects the administration's understanding that the assets we have must be a permanent part of a long-term, systematic effort to deny, disrupt and defeat the activities of transnational criminal organizations that smuggle illicit drugs, people, weapons and bulk cash across our border with Mexico.

This is just a quick round up of the news stories on the partial injunction on SB1070.

Arizona Republic - Alia Beard Rau and Dennis Wagner - Arizona immigration law injunction adds more turmoil to State's controversy

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's decision Wednesday to block key provisions of Arizona's controversial immigration-enforcement law throws more turmoil into an already tumultuous legal and political controversy.

Leading up to 12:01 this morning, when the law took effect:

• Police struggled to figure out how they should enforce portions of Senate Bill 1070 that were not blocked by Bolton's ruling in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice.

• Gov. Jan Brewer and her attorneys debated whether to fight the preliminary injunction before deciding to appeal amid speculation that the case may wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Demonstrators for and against the statute discussed whether to proceed with statewide protests, including plans for civil disobedience.

• Illegal immigrants, many of them hunkered down or contemplating an exodus from the state, remained in limbo.

• And everyone awaited further rulings from Bolton, who has yet to deal with motions in six additional lawsuits filed against SB 1070 by the ACLU, other activist groups and police officers.

The one constant: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said that he is going ahead with "crime suppression" sweeps today and that the federal injunction will have virtually no impact on his deputies.

Huffington Post - Robert Creamer - Two Reasons the Obama Victory in Arizona Immigration Lawsuit is Good for Democrats

Reason # 1: The polling on this issue is very clear. The position a candidate takes on the Arizona lawsuit appears to affect the voting decisions of only one group: Latino voters.

According to data released a month ago by Public Policy Polling (PPP), Texas Governor Rick Perry lost his early lead over Democratic challenger Bill White and the race is now tied. The movement from a previous PPP poll in February comes entirely from Hispanic voters. PPP reports that:

Until the Arizona law came along, may Hispanic voters were demoralized by the difficulty of passing promised comprehensive immigration reform.

"With white voters Perry led 54-36 then and leads 55-35 now. With black voters White led 81-12 then and 70 -7 now. But with Hispanics Perry has gone from leading 53-41 to trailing 55-21....there is no doubt the (Arizona) immigration bill is popular nationally. But if it causes Hispanics to change their voting behavior without a parallel shift among whites then it's going to end up playing to Democratic advantage this fall."

Reason #2. Completely apart from the impact the Arizona law has on persuadable voters, it will have an energizing effect on mobilizable Hispanic voters -- voters who would vote Democratic but are unlikely to vote unless they are mobilized.

The Atlantic - Max Fisher - 5 Political Effects of Blocking Arizona Immigration Law

Sets Stage for More Federal-vs-State Conflict The New York Times' Julia Preston says this ruling will "assert the primary authority of the federal government over state lawmakers in immigration matters. ...

Could Spark Nationwide Backlash Against Obama  Libertarian blogger Doug Mataconis writes, "Polls have shown repeatedly that a large majority of Americans support Arizona’s law and a new polls shows that similar majorities oppose the Justice Department’s decision to sue the State of Arizona.

Could Be Bad, Bad News for Harry Reid  Liberal blogger Steve M. worries, "I'm not convinced that this is a win for [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid -- in fact, I think it may be a life preserver for Sharron Angle's campaign, which recently has been taking on water. Angle wanted the race to be about Reid, and Reid has been succeeding in making it about Angle, but now it's going to be about neither -- it's going to be about Obama. ... I'm not convinced that Hispanics in Nevada are going to turn out in droves to vote for Reid because an Obama strategy blocked implementation of this law."

Will It Galvanize Voters for November?  The Guardian's Michael Tomasky predicts, "There seems little doubt that this ruling will rile up the conservative base heading into the elections. It doesn't help the liberal side that along with the federal government, another winner here today is the American Civil Liberties Union."

AZ Gov. Jan Brewer Gets Even More Popular  The Washington Post's Jerry Markon and Stephanie McCrummen write, "Republicans condemned Bolton's decision and what they called the administration's failure to fight illegal immigration. They were led by Brewer, who also criticized unspecified "fear-mongers, those dealing in hate" and others who have spurred economic boycotts of the state.

What It Won't Change: Immigration Furor  The Washington Post's Greg Sargent sighs, "A Federal judge has temporarily blocked key parts of the Arizona immigration law, but the underlying problems and explosive political tensions remain entirely unchanged."

The Associated Press - Bob Christie - Arizona preparing appeal of immigration ruling

The Guardian - Michael Tomasky - Judge Blocks Part of Arizona Law Now What

I just this instant heard Jonathan Turley of Georgetown law say on TV that four court justices would be quite hostile to Bolton's ruling. I assume he means the conservative bloc. How do they rule against the supremacy clause? That seems like a challenge for them. Something tells me that if, say, Vermont were challenging federal supremacy on the right to reduce the sentences of federal prisoners, that bloc would find it to be a pretty open-and-shut supremacy clause matter.

Wall Street Journal - Jonathan Weisman and Stephanie Simon - Ruling Is New Hot-Button Issue in Hot Season

Republicans quickly denounced both the ruling and the Obama Justice Department for challenging the law in the first place. Some said the ruling would further energize voters who are angry about what they see as federal overreach on health care and other issues.

Rep. John Boozman, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Arkansas, said he expected the judge's ruling to further rile voters and motivate them to reject Democratic incumbents. "It's a defining issue," Mr. Boozman said. Mr. Boozman takes questions at every town hall, he said, and "this will come up at every one."

Democrats, divided on the issue and running against stiff political headwinds, were unsure how the ruling would play out.

Some called it an unhelpful distraction from the campaigns they have been building around jobs, economic themes and border enforcement. Pat Waak, chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party, said candidates can't win in the fall if they aren't talking about jobs and the economy.

"We're not talking about credit-card companies not being able to take advantage of you, or student loans," she said. "We have to be the messengers of what affects your life."

Other Democrats said U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton had usefully inserted herself between the two political lightning rods—the Arizona law and the Obama administration.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.), who had encouraged the Justice Department suit, said Democrats can now say that however one feels about the Arizona law, major elements of it have been put into question by a judge. "This helps Democrats talk about solutions," he said in an interview

New York Times - Editorial - Showdown in Arizona

Arizona’s law is not a case of a state helping the federal government do a job it neglected. It is a radical upending of immigration priorities, part of a spiteful crusade to force a mass exodus of illegal immigrants. Arizona still has a governor, legislators and law officers determined to pursue immigration enforcement at any cost. It has the country’s most prolific immigrant-hunting machinery, mostly because of the Maricopa County sheriff, who indiscriminately raids Latino neighborhoods. With demonstrators converging on the state this week, Arizona threatens to become a national fracturing point on immigration. The Obama administration can do more than just watch. It can reassert the importance of sensible national immigration policies.

The administration can start by rethinking two troubling programs — Secure Communities, which requires immigration checks for everyone booked into a jail, and 287(g), in which local law-enforcement officials are deputized as immigration agents in task forces and in jails.

New York Times - Julie Preston - Ruling Against Arizona is a Warning to other States

Washington Post - Jerry Markon and Stephanie McCrummen - Arizona Immigration Law Sb1070 - Judge Blocks Some Sections

With the debate over SB1070 and immigration reform now certain to continue through the fall elections, NDN/NPI offers up a quick set of background materials for those looking to do a deeper dive on this complicated issue.

NDN STATEMENT ON SB1070

Simon's Statement on SB1070 Court Decision by Simon Rosenberg 7/28/2010

POLITICS Of SB1070 AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

The Evolving Politics of SB1070, Arizona and Immigration Reform by Simon Rosenberg 7/8/2010

Simon's take on the politics of SB1070 and the decision by the Department of Justice to declare the law unconstitutional.  The national GOP has gone into big time spin mode on this, declaring from the reporters I've spoken to the DOJ suit is political death for "Democrats in the West."   While that scenario is possible of course,  Simon looks at what we know about how this debate has played out in recent years.

Is Immigration a Desert Mirage for the GOP?  by Kristian Ramos, 7/27/2010

The report acts as an excellent primer on the politics around SB1070. It also explores the idea that many Republican's see the popularity of SB1070 as an opportunity to create a wedge issue out of immigration. The report also focuses on the potential political gains and losses for Democrats in the fall.

COMPRHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM REMAINS OVERWHELMINGLY POPULAR

New Polling Data Shows Comprehensive Immigration Reform has Broad Support by Kristian Ramos6/18/2010

Analysis and commentary on recent polling data on SB1070 and CIR. While polling shows support for the Arizona law, a deeper examination shows even more broad support for passing CIR.

PASSING CIR WILL BENEFIT THE ECONOMY

New Policy Institute: The Impact of Immigration and Immigration Reform on the Wages of American Workers by Robert Shapiro 5/26/2010

An economic report written by NPI Fellow and Former Under Secretary of Commerce Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, presents an accurate portrait of America's immigrant population, dispels certain misconceptions about American Immigration and offers economic analysis regarding the impact of immigration, and proposed immigration reforms on wages and the economy.

The Economics of Immigration Are Not What you Think by Robert Shapiro 5/26/2010

NPI Fellow Robert Shapiro highlights some of the important facts featured in his economic report on immigrants and the wages of American Workers. An important primer for the economic realities of immigration reform.

Not In Competition: Data Underscores Differences Between Immigrant and Native Born Workers by Kristian Ramos 6/16/2010

The Immigration Policy Center has released a report on the difference between immigrant and native born workers. The data demonstrates—as have other, more detailed analyses—that most foreign-born workers differ from most native-born workers in terms of what occupations they work in, where in the country they live, and how much education they have. What this means in practical terms is that most native-born workers are not directly competing for jobs with immigrant workers because they are in different labor markets.

PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS INCREASED FEDERAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT - CRIME ALONG BORDER HAS DROPPED

Deportation of Criminal Immigrants increases under President Obama's Administration by Kristian Ramos

Under the Obama Administration deportation of criminal immigrants has increased, the full story can be read here. The Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office.

Arizona Violent Crime Down Except Under Anti Immigration Sherriff By Kristian Ramos 7/17/2010

Even before Arizona attempted to pass SB1070 crime had been down along the border. However Crime in Sheriff Joe Arpaios county has actually risen as he continued to divert state resources to racially profiling immigrants.

Violence on the Border: Perception Often Trumps Reality By Kristian Ramos 6/24/2010

An FBI report shows that the rate of violent crime at the border, and indeed across Arizona, has been declining, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as has illegal immigration, according to the Border Patrol. While thousands have been killed in Mexico’s drug wars, raising anxiety that the violence will spread to the United States, F.B.I. statistics show that Arizona is relatively safe.

ANOTHER DEFEAT FOR ANTI IMMIGRANT GROUP  FAIR ARCHITECT'S OF SB1070

Talked Immigration, Arizona and "Anchor Babies" on Fox Today By Simon Rosenberg 7/6/2010

Simons take on Anchor Babies and well known anti-immigrant crusader Dan Stein from FAIR who wants to change the 14th Amendment.

Anti-immigration lobbyists' "field study" funded by taxpayer dollars By Simon Rosenberg

A video from documentary 9500 Liberty,  that show anti-immigrant extremist group FAIR coming forward as the driving force behind Manassas, Virginia's recent draconian immigration policing laws.  

Alia Beard Rau, Ginger Rough and JJ Hensley of the Arizona Republic have an excellent summary of the legal ruling today on SB1070 up HERE.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has upheld a temporary federal injunction on portions of SB1070 before it goes into law on July 29th. The article goes into greater detail. The ruling can be read HERE.

Bolton's ruling stops four of the law's more than a dozen provisions from going into effect. "The court also finds that the United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm if the court does not preliminarily enjoin enforcement of these sections," she states in the ruling. "The balance of equities tips in the United States' favor considering the public interest."

Key parts of SB 1070 that will not go into effect Thursday:

•  The portion of the law that requires an officer make a reasonable attempt to determine the immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested if there's reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally.

•  The portion that creates a crime of failure to apply for or carry "alien-registration papers."

•  The portion that makes it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit, apply for or perform work. (This does not include the section on day laborers.)

•  The portion that allows for a warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe they have committed a public offense that makes them removable from the United States.

The ruling says that law enforcement still must enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent of the law when SB 1070 goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Individuals will still be able to sue an agency if they adopt a policy that restricts such enforcement.

What This Ruling Means:

According to the article:

Brewer had tasked the Arizona Police Officer Standards and Training board with creating a training video for law enforcement around the state to help them comply with the law.

Lyle Mann, the agency's director, said Bolton's decision raises more questions about what portions of the law, if any, police departments will be enforcing on Thursday.

"We will review in detail the injunction as issued to see what, if any, response we need to provide to agencies," Mann said.

Arpaio said he was not surprised by Bolton's ruling, but it will have little impact on his planned "crime-suppression" operation scheduled for Thursday.

"That's not going to affect our human-smuggling or employer-sanction investigations, that wasn't addressed in that law," he said.

Arpaio said the only thing Bolton's ruling changed is the ability for Arizona law enforcement to use a state charge - willful failure to carry documents - to book someone into jail. Now, Arpaio said, the agencies can continue to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to determine if federal agents will take custody of the suspect.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is expected to appeal this decisions. As always check back here for more as it develops

MSNBC is breaking news that District Judge Susan Bolton has blocked key portions of SB1070 from being enforced.

Judge Bolton has enjoined the seven law suits and has upheld a federal injunction on portions of the law.

SB1070 will go into law, however the most stringent enforcement, documentation and removal sections have been struck down by the injunction.

JACQUES BILLEAUD and AMANDA MYERS of the Associated Press have the full story HERE.

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents

— including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that the controversial sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues.

We will have more as it develops.

Tim Gaynor from Reuters has a special report up on the Republican party's stance on the Arizona Immigration law SB1070.

The report acts as an excellent primer on the politics around SB1070. It also explores the idea that many Republican's see the popularity of SB1070 as an opportunity to create a wedge issue out of immigration.

As wedge issues go, however, this one may well end up languishing in the desert. Many political analysts say illegal immigration is unlikely to be a deciding factor in all but a handful of contests -- mostly in Arizona itself.

And the eventual backlash against the measure, experts say, could prove severe for its champions, alienating an increasingly affluent Hispanic electorate once considered a potential conservative goldmine for the Republican Party.

The report also focuses on the potential political gains and losses for Democrats in the fall. NDN President Simon Rosenberg is quoted in the article. 

But while the law and the administration's measures to counter it may energize some voters, analysts say illegal immigration is unlikely to become the decisive issue in any of the congressional districts that are coming into play next fall, except possibly in a handful of Arizona House races.

"This is an issue that in every election the Republicans believe is going to be the keys to the kingdom, and it never performs for them politically," said Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a Democratic advocacy group and think-tank.

"For most Americans this is a secondary or tertiary issue. What they want their politicians to address at the federal level is the economy, healthcare ... issues that are actually more important to them," drawing on polling to back up that argument.

The full text can be read here.

Taboo, of the Black Eyed Peas, has released a protest song against SB1070 called One Heart One Beat.

In an interview on MSNBC, Taboo said he was inspired to write the song because he felt that the law would promote racial profiling.

Taboo noted that his mother had lived in Arizona before SB1070 was proposed, and had been a victim of racial profiling.

Arizona has a history of problems with racial profiling. JJ Hensley and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Arizona Republic published a story How Racial Profiling Cases Changed Arizona Policing, excerpts are below:

Arizona's new illegal-immigration enforcement law has raised a host of concerns from critics, but none more prevalent than the pervasive fear that the law will lead police officers to target those who look Hispanic.

Those concerns are not unfounded. It has happened in Arizona before.

Racial profiling - stopping and questioning individuals based strictly on their race or ethnicity - is in most cases illegal. It is also easy to allege but difficult to prove in individual cases.

Two episodes in Arizona brought problems with racial profiling to the fore. The police agencies involved were left paying out settlements, implementing new training measures and overhauling their procedures to fend off similar claims in the future.

Peter Slevin of the Washington Post has a story up showing that under the Obama Administration deportation of criminal immigrants has increased, the full story can be read here.

The Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since President George W. Bush's final year in office.

The emphasis oon deportation is part of President Obama's broader project to "make our national laws actually work."

A June 30 memorandum from ICE director John Morton instructed officers to focus their "principal attention" on felons and repeat lawbreakers. The policy, influenced by a series of sometimes-heated White House meetings, also targets repeat border crossers and declares that parents caring for children or the infirm should be detained only in unusual cases.

"We're trying to put our money where our mouth is," Morton said in an interview, describing the goal as a "rational" immigration policy. "You've got to have aggressive enforcement against criminal offenders. You have to have a secure border. You have to have some integrity in the system."

A graphical break down of the increase in deportation's is below:

As the summer heat kicks into high gear deaths along the Sonoran border beginning to pile up. 

Before this gets turned into a talking point for the need to secure our out of  control border, it should be noted that the deaths are not American nor tied to any drug violence.

The deaths I am writing about are those of immigrants who attempt to cross the large expanse of the Sonoran desert in 110 degree weather in order to reunite with their family or find below minimum wage work.

In fact the number of deaths of immigrants in the desert is more than all of those killed along the border by drug dealers or any other immigrant related violence north of the border.

Edward Schumacher-Matos of the Washington Post puts a finer point on it in his Op-Ed Immigration Reform is within our Grasp, Meanwhile People Die:

Last year, 317 Americans died fighting in Afghanistan. Guess how many migrants, mostly Mexicans searching for work, died crossing illegally into America? The Border Patrol collected 422 in the last fiscal year, part of a rising trend.

Mid-summer is generally the peak time for immigrants to cross the scorching desert. The period between May and August is always a grizzly one along our southern border, this year is turning into one for the record books.

So many bodies of unauthorized migrants are being found in the Arizona desert this month, the Associated Press reported, that the Pima County Medical Examiner was stacking them like boxes of fish in a refrigerated truck.

Forty bodies were found in just the first half of the month.

With such a shocking amount of death, with so much human life lost, one would think that this would play into the political debate in Washington D.C. This of course is not the case.

Yet these deaths figure little in the debate over immigration. There is faint sense of scandal, of tragedy or, certainly, of urgency to agree on a solution. The extremists rule, with one side calling for more enforcement and the other saying enforcement doesn't work.

The former has the louder voice today, making it the bigger culprit, but the latter -- humanitarian groups, for one -- share in the blame. They seem not to find any enforcement policy they like, abandoning responsibility.

And this particular dichotomy has created an environment where not much is done about fixing our broken immigration system. There has been little movement on increasing work Visa's, creating a temporary work program, improved workplace enforcement, and recruitment of highly skilled immigrants. Meanwhile people die terrible deaths trying to cross the desert, to find below minimum wage work.

According to Derechos Humanos's a non-profit that does humanitarian work along the border, since 2000 there have been 2,004 deaths along the border.

It is not just the deaths in and of themselves that makes the current political conversation and lack of movement on CIR so frustrating, it is how people crossing the border are dying. Often the bodies found in the desert cannot be identified because they have been reduced to mummified remains. Schumacher-Matos recounts the experience in his op-ed:

And most die in the desert. Here is how Luis Alberto Urrea, in his book, "The Devil's Highway," described what happens:

"Dehydration had reduced all your inner streams to sluggish mudholes. . . . Your sweat runs out. . . . Your temperature redlines -- you hit 105, 106, 108 degrees. . . . Your muscles, lacking water, feed on themselves. They break down and start to rot. . . . The system closes down in a series. Your kidney, your bladder, your heart."

As the summer heat continues, the remains continue to pile up, when there are so many ways to begin on fixing our immigration system, nothing much is done.

Senate Republican's have voted not to include up to $700 million in border security emergency funds for states.

H.R. 4899 The Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010 contained an amendment for $700 million dollars in border security funds.

According to Peter Nicholas of the LA Times, President Obama had requested $600 million in June:

To hire another 1,000 Border Patrol agents, acquire two drones and enhance security along the Southwest border.

The money would also pay for an additional 160 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and extra Border Patrol canine teams, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The full article can be read here.

The House passed bill added a $100 million in border security emergency funds, by the time the supplemental reached the floor of the Senate that number had dropped to $500 million.

Ultimately the money was stripped out completely when the Senate rejected the Motion to Concur the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 4899 Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2010.

Looking at the vote count which can be seen here, both Senators from Arizona,  John (complete the danged fence) McCain and Jon Kyl voted against this legislation.

In fairness a number of Democrats also voted against the legislation as well.

However it should also be noted that save for two Republican's who did not vote, all of the GOP in the Senate voted against the supplemental and Border Security.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released a statement on the loss of funds:

“Congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, cracks down on unscrupulous employers, and requires those here illegally to get right with the law, learn English, pay taxes, pass criminal background checks, and go to the back of the line.  But to accomplish this, we need bipartisan support, and Republicans refuse to work with us.  In the meantime, we need to do whatever we can to protect our national security and ensure our borders are secure, which is why Democrats tried to pass an important $500 million border security initiative that the President requested.

 "But Republican obstruction reared its ugly head again – they blocked this legislation to crack down on border-related crime and smuggling and chose empty rhetoric over action.  I urge my Republican colleagues to stop blocking common-sense measures and start working with Democrats in good faith to achieve comprehensive immigration reform.”