Arizona border agents' union dismisses Bush immigration proposal as a “Trojan horse”

May 23, 2006

U.S. Border Patrol agents on the Arizona/Mexico border see the largest amount of traffic in illegal aliens cross their territory, and they detain more than their colleagues elsewhere on the border. They see President Bush's guest-worker program as a 'Trojan horse' that fails to address the problem of securing America's borders and also as an open invitation to millions of people who want to enter the United States illegally.

In a statement, the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) Local 2544 in Arizona said 'Every day that President Bush and the Senate hold real border security hostage to their misguided amnesty program, thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens continue to flood into the country. Make no mistake, most of them get by us. We are losing this war, and it's not even close.'

The Tucson, Arizona chapter is the NBPC's largest. It represents the agency's 10,000 nonsupervisory agents. More than half of the 1.15 million illegal aliens apprehended last year by the agency were detained in the Tucson sector.

'President Bush and the Senate do not 'get it' ... The American people 'get it': Shut the border down to illegal crossings, then start hammering the greedy employers who hire them,' the local said. 'Start deporting, we repeat, deporting, the illegal aliens who are here in violation of law.

'It may take years, but you don't build a house overnight ... . Promising more amnesty is not going to dissuade anyone from coming here. Rewarding the lawbreakers with amnesty is not going to solve anything. It just demonstrates that there are rewards for breaking our laws.'

NBPC President T.J. Bonner, a 27-year Border Patrol veteran, has vigorously opposed amnesty for illegal aliens now in the U.S., saying that rewarding lawbreakers only encourages more lawlessness. He said a guest-worker program sends a 'clear message' that America is not serious about enforcing immigration laws. He said the number of illegal aliens will increase again.

Explaining his opinion, Bonner said “'This is not conjecture. It happened after the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act and will undoubtedly happen again.”

'Even the allegedly tough immigration-enforcement bill passed by the House last year fails miserably in that regard,' he said, adding that employers should be required to ensure the eligibility and identity of those they hire. 'This can only be achieved if employers are held accountable for checking to ensure that each prospective employee is eligible to work in this country.

'Such a system will require the use of a single counterfeit-proof document that establishes both identity and employment eligibility.'

The Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act of 2005, offered by Rep. David Dreier, California Republican and chairman of the House Rules Committee, creates biometric, machine-readable and fraud-resistant Social Security cards and sets harsher penalties for those who hire illegals.

Known as the 'Bonner bill,' it was introduced in 2004 and is pending before a House subcommittee. It would require cards with an encrypted electronic identification strip unique to that person that would allow employers to access an eligibility database at Homeland Security for information on the applicant's true identity and legal status.