Why is DHS turning border security over to the private sector?

By Michael Cutler

Here is an article that should surprise me, but I am absolutely beyond being surprised where immigration law enforcement is concerned. We have read a number of stories about how our government has squandered many millions of dollars on cameras that were supposed to have been installed along the border to detect the illegal entry of aliens into our country. As it turned out, many of the cameras were never installed and quite a few of those that were installed didn't work. We have heard much criticism of the way that US-VISIT, the program that is supposed to fingerprint and photograph aliens entering our country is being implemented. Apparently Accenture is the company that has been given this costly contract that, from what I have read, may be paid more than 10 billion dollars and will require many years to be fully operational. Our government has about ten thousand Border Patrol agents and thousands of other employees who have experience in enforcing and adjudicating the immigration laws. However, I guess that the temptation of awarding yet another lucrative contract to the private sector is just too tempting for this administration.

I have never heard of a municipality hiring a private firm to deal with law enforcement, but that won't stop this administration. In fact, according to another article I just read, a subsidiary of Halliburton, KBR announced that the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component has awarded KBR an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contingency contract to support ICE facilities in the event of an emergency. KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term.

It also seems that the purpose of bringing the various private corporations together is to come up with a strategy to deal with immigration and border issues is in order to prepare for the Guest Worker Program that the President has been hawking virtually since he took office 5 years ago. A program that would literally create legalized chaos in my humble opinion.

I have testified at a number of hearings before the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security as well as before the Committee on Homeland Security. I was accompanied at many of these hearings by other witnesses who possess many years of experience in the critical issues of immigration law enforcement, border security and other related issues. These witnesses and I have made a number of recommendations that would be helpful in making border security work. It seems that the ideas that are put forward are rarely followed. I can sense the frustration of the leaders in Congress who seem determined to provide our nation with real immigration enforcement. To cite just one example that I can talk about personally, I recommended that ICE special agents and other law enforcement officers who are likely to encounter illegal aliens be given Spanish language training. This is not a revolutionary concept. In fact, before the current administration took office, all special agents of the former INS along with all other enforcement personnel such as the immigration inspectors throughout the United States were required to successfully complete a Spanish language training program. This was a requirement because it is estimated that more than 70% of the illegal alien population in the states is Spanish-speaking. It is recognized that you cannot investigate people you cannot communicate with. Yet, not only is Spanish language training not a requirement for special agents of ICE, it is not even offered to them! This means that for most of the newly hired agents, if they encounter an alien who does not speak English, they will probably just get back in their government car and head back to the office.

I recommended that in addition to requiring Spanish language training, that ICE special agents be given additional language training including such strategic languages as Farsi, Arabic and Urdu. The President, at a recent public appearance noted that those three languages should be taught, but incredibly he stated that those languages should be taught to members of the State Department, the military and to intelligence officers. He made no mention of providing such language training to ICE special agents who may well encounter aliens who speak those languages.

I have raised the issue that inasmuch as identity documents are the linchpins that hold the immigration system together, that our immigration enforcement personnel need to be given training in the identification of fraudulent identity documents. To my knowledge, this is not being done. Additionally, the administration has consistently refused to hire an adequate number of law enforcement officers to enforce the immigration laws. Last March, for example, I testified about the fact that the Congress had authorized that 800 new special agents for ICE be hired to enforce the immigration laws but the administration only wanted to hire 143. I was extremely disappointed that Congress was only willing to fund the hiring of 800 new special agents for ICE, but I cannot begin to tell you my thoughts about the administration's response that they only wanted to hire 143 new special agents. Recently ICE touted the fact that they were going to triple the number of teams that would search for aliens who had been ordered deported but absconded. According to the information provided by ICE rather than having some 17 teams of special agents searching for the roughly 500,000 illegal alien absconders, ICE would now field 52 teams. Each team is to consist of from 5 to 8 special agents. In round numbers, this means that there are now approximately 400 special agents on the hunt. ICE also conceded that each year approximately 35,000 illegal aliens' names are added to the list. If you feel trembling, I suspect it is an earthquake and not the alien absconders shaking in their boots! For an illegal alien to be apprehended by these 52 teams, the odds are probably about the same as getting struck by lightning- do you know anyone who has been struck by lightning?

The Border Patrol has been similarly shortchanged by the administration that purports will stop at nothing including warrantless domestic surveillance, to secure our nation against terrorism. Congress authorized the hiring of 2,000 new Border Patrol agents and the administration initially only wanted to hire 210 new Border Patrol agents. Financial considerations were the stated reasons for the lower number of special agents and Border Patrol agents that the administration wanted to hire. And now, there appears to be enough money to privatize the critical issue of border security.

The point is simple. Instead of paying millions of dollars, or perhaps even more, especially at a time when our deficit is as high as the moon, perhaps the administration should simply hire a realistic number of special agents, provide them with training and leadership that truly understands immigration law enforcement and encourage them to do their jobs. Right now the great majority of ICE field officers are lead by managers who came from legacy Customs. Most of the managers at ICE headquarters also came from legacy Customs. But the administration presses on, doing whatever it apparently can do to eliminate those law enforcement professionals who have real world experience in enforcing the immigration laws. Now, if the administration follows through on this new idea, there will be folks from the private sector potentially telling the Border Patrol and the special agents how to do their jobs!

I have a couple of questions for the administration. Would the President be willing to be protected by security guards who last worked for a department store, or does he want to be protected by seasoned Secret Service special agents? How do you now have the money to give out presumably costly contracts to private companies when last year it was a major issue to hire a few hundred professional law enforcement officers to secure our borders and add to the enforcement of the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States? Will our nation be able to restore integrity to the immigration system by hiring private contractors when virtually all communities and countries depend on sworn law enforcement officers to do these critical jobs?

As a former senior special agent of the INS, as a New Yorker who witnessed the attacks of 9/11 up close and in person, as an advisor to the 911 Families for a Secure America who regularly meets with and confers with fellow Americans who lost their loved ones on that awful day in September, 2001, as the father of four children and a citizen of this great nation, I believe I have every right to demand answers to these questions, indeed, I believe every citizen of this country is entitled to those answers before a single penny of taxpayer money is spent on yet another privatization scheme.

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