Immigration Aid: At Last, a Bit of Fairness : House sets a precedent, but the federal myopia persists

At long last, California is going to get more federal aid to deal with the impact of some of the illegal immigrants residing here--specifically those few who commit crimes that land them in state prisons. That’s encouraging. What’s decidedly discouraging is that Congress, in addressing this single, law-enforcement-related facet of immigration, was looking at the complex issue through a distorted lens. If Washington insists on such a myopic approach it will never find solutions. Certainly Californians will be gratified by Wednesday’s overwhelming 402-22 House vote to help this state, and a handful of others, pay for the cost of incarcerating immigrant felons. The funds would be available starting in 1998. That’s a problem: California needs the money now, so every effort should be made by our congressional delegation to move up the effective date of the legislation, preferably to the start of the next federal fiscal year in October.

That defect notwithstanding, the precedent that has been set must not be underestimated. Congress now has acknowledged that the federal failure to properly control U.S. borders has an adverse financial effect on certain states and has conceded that those states are entitled to help as a result. We hope this portends future federal aid to pay for other governmental services that are impacted by immigrants, such as public health care and education. However, dealing with the fundamental cause of these problems--the continued illegal flow of foreigners to this country from abroad--will take more than generous federal spending. It will take smart spending.

Sadly, in another crime-bill vote the House on Thursday showed little creativity in its thinking about border control. In almost knee-jerk fashion, it voted 417 to 12 to spend more than $900 million over the next five years to hire 6,000 new Border Patrol agents. That would more than double the patrol’s manpower, now at 4,100 agents.

A beefed-up Border Patrol may sound good to those who fear the nation’s frontiers are being overrun by illegal immigrants, but in fact the change would create as many problems as it would solve. The last time the Border Patrol was rapidly expanded, by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, it wound up hiring too many agents too fast. Some proved incompetent, others brutal, a few corrupt. And, collectively, the new agents barely put a dent in the flow of illegal immigrants.

What Congress must do before dramatically expanding the Border Patrol again is to rethink precisely what the nation’s border control problems, and labor needs, will be in the 21st Century, then focus on finding the modern technologies that can most effectively monitor the flow of people in and out of this country.

If it considers the issue carefully, rather than reacting emotionally, Congress is likely to come to the same conclusion its General Accounting Office reached years ago: that control of U.S. borders can be better achieved with computers and other high-tech devices than with more officers. At the very least, Congress owes it to the taxpayers to weigh that possibility before tossing more money at the Border Patrol in the forlorn hope that this somehow will make the immigration issue go away.