21st Century America Project

NDN and NPI are proud to say that the first LAPI-21st Century Border Inititiave Policy Day, was a huge sucess. The day featured speeches from senior officials from the White House, the State Department, United States Trade Representatives, and Local Officials speaking. The day also covered a wide spectrum of views on the America's and the border.

The 21st Century Border portion of the day focused first on the perspective of a Mayor who lives and works with a Mexican Border, this panel was moderated by Chappell Lawson, Associate Professor of Politics at MIT and featured the Mayor of Nogales Arturo Garino.

This important conversation hit upon three important facts:

Nogales Arizona, and Nogales Sonora are more or less the same city with a dividing border between them. Mayor Garino noted over and over that together there is a population of nearly 80 thousand people who cross back and forth a day. What happens to one side effects the other (See Photo).

EXCEPT when it comes to border Security, Mayor Garino was emphatic in stating that the border is safe on the American side. There has been little spillover in violence from Mexico into the United States. Mayor Garino is a former law enforcement officer in Nogales. He noted that in the 80's there were actual cases of spillover violence. According to the Mayor in the 80's there were not as many law enforcement officials along the border. Today, the sheer number of law enforcement officials both federal and local stop the cartels from coming over and inciting violence.

Mayor Garino finished by noting that the rhetoric surrounding border (which is untrue) is hurting cities along the border. He underscored the importance of commerce both into and out of Mexico plays a huge role in not only the economies along the border but the nation as a whole.

NDN will be putting up video from the discussion shortly.

The Ninth Circuit has upheld invalidation of the most controversial parts of Arizona's anti immigrant legislation SB-1070. Ashby Jones of The Wall Street Journal has the full story up here:

"...on Monday, the 2010 Arizona law that targets illegal immigration landed again on our radar screen when the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking portions of the law from going into effect. Click here for the LAT story; here for the opinion. Click here, here, here, here and here for earlier LB posts."

The Governor of Arizona Janet Brewer filed suit asking the Ninth Circuit to overturn a federal courts decision to stop the most controversial portions of the law from going into effect:

"Federal Judge Susan Bolton concluded that several of the law’s most controversial and far-reaching provisions indeed encroach on the federal government’s power and authority to regulate immigration. On Monday, the Ninth Circuit agreed. Wrote Judge Richard A. Paez:"

"The relevant provisions of S.B. 1070 facially conflict with Congressional intent.

We stress that the question before us is not, as Arizona has portrayed, whether state and local law enforcement officials can apply the statute in a constitutional way… This formulation misses the point: there can be no constitutional application of a statute that, on its face, conflicts with Congressional intent and therefore is preempted by the Supremacy Clause.

By imposing mandatory obligations on state and local officers, Arizona interferes with the federal government’s authority to implement its priorities and strategies in law enforcement, turning Arizona officers into state-directed DHS agents."

The full opinion from the 9th Circuit can be read here. Governor Brewer took to to Fox News Greta Van Susteren show to among other things ask for money to continue to fight for SB-1070 . The full video and transcript can be seen here. The New York Times piece can be read here, The Washington Post here as well as a good round up of reactions from within Arizona here.

Arizona's Pinal County Sherriff Paul Babeu has had a history of making outrageous statements on the border.   NDN has written about Sherriff Babeu in the past, but now the Arizona Republic has written up a piece showing that just about all of his claims are untrue. Dennis Wagner has the full story here:

Sheriff Paul Babeu issued a news release declaring that Pinal County is "the No. 1 pass-through county in all of America for drug and human trafficking." It's a line the sheriff has used countless times - most recently on Thursday in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security - as he criticizes the federal government for failing to secure the border. There's just one problem: There is no data to support the assertion.

Just to review some of the claims made by Sherriff Babeu:

• He predicted that his deputies would get into a gun battle with cartel members in the desert during the next 30 to 60 days. Said gun battle never occurred.

• In an undated letter seeking donations for a legal battle against the federal government, Babeu says "things are just going from bad to worse now that our own federal government has sided with the criminals instead of law enforcement." The federal government has not sided with criminals and has in fact sent large amounts of resources to the Arizona to help combat crime along the border. Just ask Mayors who actually live along the border.

•  Babeu told the Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle in February, "Out of the 3,000 counties in the nation, Pinal County ranks No. 1 when it comes to smuggling drugs and humans across the border." That claim appears to be incorrect. Although Babeu is often identified as a border sheriff, his jurisdiction is 70 miles removed from the Mexico line. Moreover, DHS records show Pinal County accounts for a tiny fraction of drug and immigrant captures, fewer than any of the three border counties within the Tucson Sector.

•  On Fox News, the sheriff told host Greta Van Susteren he's facing "one of the highest crime rates in America" and crime is "literally off the charts in Arizona. "That claim also appears to be inaccurate. Pinal County does not have the highest crime rate in Arizona, which is listed 16th among the states for violent offenses, according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States.

• Babeu says the Arizona border is so porous that national security is in jeopardy, based on arrests in Pinal County of undocumented immigrants from terrorist-linked nations. In the past decade, there is no known record of a terrorist entering the United States via Arizona's border. Since 2008, according to DHS and sheriff's records, only one undocumented immigrant - a Cuban - was detained from a nation on the State Department's list of state-sponsored terror nations. Three others were from Afghanistan and Sudan, countries with significant terrorism issues.

That's not all, residents in Pinal County are starting to get upset with the Sheriff's big talk:

Some county residents are concerned that the sheriff is overstating the crime rates in Pinal County. A group called Pinal County Residents of Responsible Leadership has been making automated phone calls in the area, with a male speaker criticizing Babeu's "irresponsible" rhetoric about border-related crime. Listeners who want to lodge a complaint with the sheriff's "political office" are transferred to the Arizona Republican Party.

All of the statistical data points to the fact that the Pinal County and Arizona as a whole is not a war zone under attack from Mexico. To underscore this point NDN was proud to host the Mayor of Nogales Arturo Garino (someone who actually lives and works along the border), and he was emphatic in stating that the border region is safe. In a speech during our 21st Century border day the Mayor gave an account of what really goes on along the border. Stay tuned, we should have that up soon.

NDN will be hosting an event on April 11th which will be examining the relationship between the United States and Latin America.  The day will be divided in half with the morning focusing on Latin America exclusively and the afternoon on the 21st Century Border Initiative.

Our final panel of the day, Growing Together: How a 21st Century Border is Essential to Prosperity in Both the U.S. and Mexico will be moderated by Maria Luisa O’Connell, Senior Advisor for Trade and Public Relations Office of the Commissioner US Customs and Border Protection, DHS, with a distinguished group of panelists, Martin Rojas, Vice President of Security & Operations, American Trucking Association, Jim Kolbe, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund and Col. Eric Rojo, Vice President of U.S.-Mexico Chamber Of Commerce and Security Program Coordinator for CEDAN-ITESM.

The panel will focus on infrastructure and the economic impact of the border on the economy of the United States and Mexico. In particular the panel will give a macro and micro look at  the United States Mexico economic ties along the border. With the government providing unprecedented resources along the border, questions about how best to utilize these funds have been discussed in a recent Congressional hearing.

Tuesday the Subcommittee On Border and Maritime Security held a hearing “Using Resources Effectively to Secure Our Border at Ports of Entry – Stopping the Illicit Flow of Money, Guns and Drugs”.

During the hearing the Mayor of McAllen Texas, Richard Cortez testified, that the border has been given incredible amounts of resources.  The border is getting safer but more then anything else what is needed are funds to staff ports of entry in order to better facilitate the movement of goods from the United States into and out of Mexico:

We have an imbalance of investment and results on the border. Since 1993, we have increased our investment 800 percent in Border Patrol personnel, mobility, communications and technology. That effort between the ports has been successful; the Border Patrol intercepts 70 percent of lawbreakers across the border; in the El Paso sector, the success rate is 90 percent.

Mayor Cortez noted that the legal movement of goods thru those ports is an incredibly positive economic benefit for his city:

Secure and efficient ports of entry are very important to cities like McAllen. They create jobs, sustain our economy and improve our quality of life. They expedite legitimate trade and traffic to flow across our border and in our case, contribute to McAllen’s $3 billion retail industry. Without federal-local coordination, efforts to simultaneously secure ports and make them more efficient will not be possible.

Alan Gomez of USA Today reported in anticipation of the hearing, which can be read in full here, that there has been a huge influx of resources towards securing the border:

From 2006 to 2010, the number of Customs and Border Protection officers who inspect people and cargo crossing through the ports of entry along the southwest border increased by 15%, while the number of CBP Border Patrol agents who patrol the rugged terrain between those ports increased by 59%, according to CBP figures.

Essentially, the resources being allocated at the border are having a positive effect, making the border safer. Now the question is as the region grows safer how best to harness the positive economic relationship between the United States and Mexico. For more on this disucssion, please make sure to join us at our event on April 11th.

NDN/NPI hosted a key note speech from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano where she outlined the positive progress made along the Southwest Border. In her speech the Secretary emphasized that the Department of Homeland Security has made significant steps towards creating a "21st Century Border."

In her speech she focused on tangible evidence that the United States has fundamentally changed the countries approach to the border, making big steps in creating a more harmonious region.

The border is simply not the same as it was 2 years ago, or even 1 year ago. In terms of man power resources and technology and in terms of the relationships we have built with our federal, state, local and tribal partners along the border and in terms with what we are doing with Mexico itself, particularly with the Calderon administration.

...The amount of resources we have put at the border with Mexico shows how serious this administration is, so given the deployment of resources, given the statistical frame work; it is simply inaccurate to state, as to many have that the border with Mexico is overrun or is out of control. This statement i think is sometime made to score some political points.

...But its wrong, It is just plain wrong, and continuing to make these assertions in the face of everything that’s happening and everything that’s been done, not only has negative consequences for our own border communities but it also disrespects the significant efforts of the law enforcement men and women we have put down on that border who work every day, day in and day out to make sure that we do have a safe and secure border region and that we keep it that way.

Following the speech, a distinguished panel met and gave remarks followed by a session of Q and A. The panel included: John Morton, Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, David V. Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Alan Krieger, Mayor, Yuma, AZ and Al Zapanta, President, U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce. The video of the full event including the panel discussion can be seen below.

David V. Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner, U.S Customs and Border Protection opening statement gives some statistical evidence that shows the progress on the border. This can be seen in the video around the 56:30 mark:

If we go back to 1992 places such as San Diego, Tucson, El Paso, and McAllen four of our major cities along our southwest border. Since then those cities have grown tremendously. In  2009 violent crime in San Diego has fallen by 20 percent, in Tucson it has fallen by 17 percent, in El Paso it has dropped by 34 percent and 7 percent in McAllen. McAllen the population has growth has gone up by 33 percent since that time period, 23 percent in El Paso. The growth rate has been tremendous the drop in violent crime has been tremendous as well. We have doubled the number of people in the border patrol, over 17,500 border patrol agents along the southwest border.

Additionally Secretary Napolitano and the Secretary of the Department of Commerce Gary Locke have written an editorial on the border being open for business in the Wall Street Journal and can be read here.

NDN has also released a report detailing the progress made on the border here.

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano gave a strong defense of the Administration's border enforcement at an event hosted by NDN/NPI on Friday.

Julia Preston of The New York Times has her story here:

"Obama Administration officials, embattled on all sides on immigration, are pushing back to defend their record on border enforcement and deportations of illegal immigrants."

Perhaps most importantly, Secretary Napolitano called on law makers in Congress to stop moving the goal post on Border Security as a means to stop work on a legislative overhaul on the nations immigration laws:

"Ms. Napolitano vented her frustration with Republican lawmakers who have said they will not consider overhaul legislation President Obama supports, which would include legal status for illegal immigrants, until the southwest border is secure. “We can’t keep moving the goal post and saying, when the border is safe we will get to it,” Ms. Napolitano said of the president’s proposal, known as comprehensive immigration reform."

In her speech she noted that the Southwest has seen:

“the biggest surge of manpower and technology to the southwest border ever." The Border Patrol has increased to nearly 21,000 agents, she said, and illegal crossings have fallen by more than a third in the last two years. For the first time, unmanned aerial drones are scanning along the entire length of the border.

The historic efforts on the border have been coupled with the deportation of a record number of undocumented immigrants at 390,000 over the last two years.

Secretary Napolitano's full speach can be seen below, and a recounting of her speech can be found here:

Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano gave an address with NDN at the Newseum, she covered a wide variety of subjects below are some of the highlights.

“Security and economic prosperity represent two sides of the same coin,” said Secretary Napolitano.  “We are committed to further strengthening our border security efforts, which will reinforce and help expand legal trade and travel in the border region.” 

Over the course of her speech, Secretary Napolitano highlighted the Department’s efforts to strengthen border security through the Southwest Border Initiative.

To date the Southwest Border Initiative has:

• Increased the number of Border Patrol agents from approximately 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,700 today
• Doubled the number of personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces
• Deployed more than a quarter of all U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to the Southwest border region—the most ever.

Perhaps most importantly, Secretary Napolitano highlighted the unprecedented collaboration between the United States and Mexico. 

The Secretary repeatedly noted that the cooperation between law enforcement officials from Mexico and the United States, the intelligence sharing and joint operations along the Southwest border is at unprecedented levels. 

The speech also touched on the important joint training programs with Mexican law enforcement agencies and, for the first time in history, Border Patrol agents are coordinating joint operations along the Southwest border with Mexican Federal Police to combat human trafficking and smuggling in both nations.

Finally the speech touched on the great strides made by the Obama Administration in facilitating legal trade and travel across the border by:

• Working with local leaders to update infrastructure and reduce wait times at our Southwest border ports of entry while increasing security.
• Working with more than 1,700 private-sector partners in Mexico who have been enrolled in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) trusted-shipper program,
• Deploying 250 new officers to ports along the border as a result of the FY 2010 Border Security Supplemental. 

According to the Secretary these investments have yielded concrete results, with imports crossing the Southwest border into the United States increasing 22 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will be giving a speech on the administrations vision for a 21st Century Border on April 1st at 9:30 AM ET. Immediately following the Secretary's speech there will be a roundtable of distinguished speakers:

John Morton, Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
David V. Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Alan Krieger, Mayor, Yuma, AZ
Al Zapanta, President, U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce

Ahead of the speech NDN caught up with Mayor Krieger and asked him to discuss what he saw as the most important component of the 21st Century Border Initiative.  He responded:

The increased security focus on the entire U.S. Border , has highlighted the need to continue building trade partners.  These partners will help provide safe, secure, communities on both sides of the Border.  The efforts of the Department of Homeland Security to reach out to local communities for input, reaffirms the commitment we all have to solve the issues in the 21st Century.

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 several developments: 

Unprecedented amounts of resources allocated to the southwest border. Link

A drop in crime along the US side of the border with little spillover of violence from Mexican cartels.Link

A historic number of deportations of criminal undocumented immigrants. Link

Finally an increase in narcotics seizures and a leveling of  illegal migration into the U.S. Link

For more on this please be sure to join us at Forward Together/Avanzando Juntos/Avançando Juntos Conference Looking at the Changing Politics of the Americas on April 11t. 

Secretary Napolitano's speech and roundtable can be seen by webcast at 9:30 AM ET on April 1st here.

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.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will be giving a speech on the administrations vision for a 21st Century Border on April 1st at 9:30 AM ET. Immediately following the Secretary's speech there will be a roundtable of distinguished speakers:

John Morton, Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Alejandro Mayorkas, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
David V. Aguilar, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Alan Krieger, Mayor, Yuma, AZ
Al Zapanta, President, U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce

Ahead of the speech NDN caught up with Al Zapanta,  President of the U.S. Mexico Chamber of Commerce, and asked him to discuss what he saw as the most important component of the 21st Century Border Initiative.  Mr. Zapanta responded:

“Establishing business, educational, and cultural relations between border cities is essential for the growth and development of communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. 

These interactions are greatly facilitated by the 42 border crossings that exist along the 2000-mile border, three of these being opened in the last nine months”

The idea of a seamless integrated border which is a focal point of economic activity for the United States and Mexico is at the heart of the 21st Century Border Initiative. 

Chappell Lawson, former Executive Director and Senior Policy Advisor to the Commissioner U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at the Department of Homeland Security. has written extensively on this idea in a report he helped write, Managing the United States-Mexico Border: Cooperative Solutions to Common Challenges.

Dr. Lawson will continue to examine this idea of how best to manage the border region on a panel with two Border Mayors from Arizona at Forward Together/Avanzando Juntos/Avançando Juntos – A Conference Looking at the Changing Politics of the Americas on April 11th

Secretary Napolitano's speech and roundtable can be seen by webcast at 9:30 AM ET on April 1st here.