Humane and Necessary Border Control : New plan will help--but there’s so much more to be done

The Clinton Administration’s plan for a two-year “border initiative” to slow illegal immigration--and attack a variety of problems associated with it--is encouraging, even if it doesn’t go as far as it could in dealing with a complex phenomenon that has been with us a long time and is not going to fade away in two years.

The new proposal is encouraging in that it shows President Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno are now trying to do something about immigration problems, moving to both calm hysteria and address the real challenge. Although immigration problems are not as severe as some restrictionists claim, this initiative is important because it shows the Administration is aware that U.S. immigration controls indeed are in need of rapid modernization.

The $540-million-plus initiative, outlined Thursday by Reno and Doris Meissner, commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, will assign 400 more Border Patrol agents to the busiest sector of the U.S.-Mexico border, south of San Diego. It also includes funds to identify illegal immigrants held in state prisons and to deport them.

These law enforcement measures will be applauded by those who fear the country is under siege by illegal border-crossers. So will more money for the INS to enforce the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which banned the employment of illegal immigrants. Jobs are what lure most illegal immigrants to this country, and anything that makes it harder for non-citizens to find work helps diminish the flow. Unfortunately, the most effective tool to enforce that law, a counterfeit-proof Social Security card, still is lacking.

As important as added manpower is to the INS, the agency also must put more money into getting the equipment it needs to enforce immigration laws more efficiently. That means not just border lights and new vehicles but computers. The INS has lagged woefully behind other federal agencies, including other border agencies like the Customs Service, in the use of electronic data. It is noteworthy that Meissner has included $83 million in this funding proposal to computerize INS databases. While only a start, that can help prepare the INS for what surely will be an even bigger workload in the 21st Century.

It is also encouraging that this border initiative balances its law enforcement components with $54 million to speed up the asylum procedure for legitimate refugees by more rapidly screening out fraudulent claims, and $30 million to ease the naturalization process for 8 million legal immigrants who are eligible to become citizens. To use computer terminology, the INS must make naturalization more “user-friendly.”

For its part, Congress--which must approve some of the funds to be used under the plan--must see this border initiative as a whole and not pick it apart by trying, for example, to hire more Border Patrol agents instead of buying the necessary computers. To simply spend money on law enforcement without dealing with other facets of the immigration phenomenon would repeat the mistakes of the past--not just 1986 but as far back as the 1920s, when Congress created the Border Patrol. Throwing money at problems along the border won’t make them go away. It has to be “spent smart,” to use Meissner’s apt phrase. This new infusion of border-control money will be spent smart if it is spent not just on current immigration problems but in streamlining the INS so it is a more effective agency for the proper, humane and necessary control of immigration.