[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 18779-18785]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SECURING THE NATION'S BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, since the 9/11 Commission's final report was 
issued, we in this body have been working diligently to prepare 
legislation to improve our Nation's security. To that end, I want to 
talk about a paramount national security concern, and that is the 
security of our borders. I know many of us have seen this recent Time 
Magazine cover story which focused on the incredibly porous southern 
border that we have with Mexico.
  I personally was absolutely horrified when I read this article, Mr. 
Speaker, on reports of human rights abuses perpetrated by ``coyotes'' 
who charge exorbitant fees to lead immigrants illegally across the 
border, as well as Time's accounts of the heinous acts committed by 
some of those illegals. And clearly, having a border which people feel 
they can cross illegally at any time is a national security 
vulnerability.
  We must recognize that the vast majority of people who are coming 
across our borders illegally are looking for better economic 
opportunity for themselves and their families. This does not justify 
illegal entry into the United States. So let me make it very clear, Mr. 
Speaker, ``illegal'' means ``illegal.'' But it does mean that a long-
term solution to our immigration problem will only be found when the 
economies of Mexico and the rest of Latin America provide better 
opportunities for their citizens. But the process of improving those 
economies, while underway, will be very, very difficult, it will take 
decades, and we obviously are hoping to implement the Ronald Reagan 
vision of a Free Trade Area of the Americas which will be very 
important to that.
  As altruistic as Americans have historically been toward immigrants, 
we are, after all, a Nation of immigrants as we all know, we clearly 
cannot have foreigners illegally crossing the United States borders 
unbeknownst to our government. We know that international terrorists 
have illegally entered our country. That is why we must act now.
  In this effort, I have been working closely with two great Americans. 
Those of you who read this Time Magazine article may recall the 
comments made by T.J. Bonner, a 26-year veteran still working as a 
border patrol agent, who is president of the National Border Patrol 
Council, which represents 10,000 border patrol employees. Bonner's 
first priority is to ensure that our border patrol agents have the 
backing they need to do their job. It is his plan, the Bonner plan, 
which I am introducing as legislation today.
  I am joined by my good friend and Democratic colleague, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Reyes), who himself served as chief of the border 
patrol in both McAllen and El Paso, Texas, during a long and 
distinguished career fighting to protect our border from infiltration. 
I am extremely pleased to have the support of Messrs. Bonner and Reyes, 
for their expertise in border patrol issues is unparalleled. Our 
legislation gets at the root of the problem of illegal immigration, the 
draw of our strong economy.

[[Page 18780]]

  We know why most people illegally cross our borders, as I was saying 
earlier. Jobs lure them to this country. They are seeking economic 
opportunity. We do not want to shut the door on that great American 
dream of opportunity, which is why we have programs where foreign 
nationals can legally migrate to the United States, can work and can 
eventually become citizens. But people who skirt the process and enter 
the United States illegally should not expect to benefit from the 
American taxpayer.
  Under the Bonner plan, we will strenuously enforce laws which 
prohibit American businesses from employing illegal immigrants. 
Regrettably, these laws have not been regularly enforced. The laws are 
also undermined by the explosion in counterfeit identity documents and 
employers who are unable or unwilling to establish the authenticity of 
documents presented by job applicants.
  Under our legislation, Mr. Speaker, we will dramatically improve the 
security of the very precious Social Security card by adding a photo ID 
and other countermeasures to reduce fraud. This same card will be 
encoded with a unique electronic algorithm to allow employers to verify 
each prospective applicant's work eligibility status prior to hiring, 
either through an electronic card reader or a toll-free number. Mr. 
Speaker, employers will face stiff Federal fines of up to $50,000 and 
up to 5 years in jail if they knowingly hire an illegal immigrant or 
choose not to verify a prospective employee's eligibility. The employer 
would also then be responsible for the cost of deporting the illegal 
immigrant. With the new and improved Social Security card and 
verification system, employers will have no excuse if they are found to 
have hired illegal immigrants.
  By eliminating the supply of jobs for illegal workers, we will end 
the incentive for illegal immigrants to enter the United States because 
they know that they will be unable to make a living here.
  I fully recognize that a number of American industries, from 
agriculture to gardening and house cleaning and others, have come to 
depend on an ample supply of illegal workers. That is why I have long 
supported efforts to establish a responsible guest worker program to 
allow willing employers to match up with willing foreign workers and to 
allow those workers to legally enter the United States temporarily to 
work and then ensure that they return to their homes as scheduled. 
Coupled with a guest worker program, the Bonner plan will have a 
positive impact on our economy and on our prospective workers. Workers 
will only need to update their Social Security card once, to have their 
photo placed on the card and for other long overdue antifraud measures 
to be applied. A worker would only need the updated Social Security 
card when applying for a new job. I want to make it very clear that 
this is not a national ID card. This is not a national ID card, Mr. 
Speaker. In fact, the legislation contains language to ensure that the 
improved Social Security card does not become a national ID card and is 
only used to verify a prospective employee's authorization to work in 
the United States. Social Security cards are already routinely required 
to be provided to new employers. The changes we are proposing to the 
Social Security card take us no further down the road of creating a 
national ID card.
  Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to join in supporting this 
very important effort that will, as Governor Schwarzenegger has said, 
encourage the American people and those who are looking to come in to 
play by the rules. This is a top national security priority for us. I 
hope all of our colleagues will join with us.

                  [From Time Magazine, Sept. 20, 2004]

                        Who Left the Door Open?

               (By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele)

       The next time you pass through an airport and have to 
     produce a photo ID to establish who you are and then must 
     remove your shoes, take off your belt, empty your pockets, 
     prove your laptop is not an explosive device and send your 
     briefcase or purse through a machine to determine whether it 
     holds weapons, think about this: In a single day, more than 
     4,000 illegal aliens will walk across the busiest unlawful 
     gateway into the U.S., the 375-mile border between Arizona 
     and Mexico. No searches for weapons. No shoe removal. No 
     photo-ID checks. Before long, many will obtain phony 
     identification papers, including bogus Social Security 
     numbers, to conceal their true identities and mask their 
     unlawful presence.
       The influx is so great, the invaders seemingly trip over 
     one another as they walk through the old copper-mining town 
     turned artist colony of Bisbee (pop. 6,000), five miles from 
     the border. Having eluded the U.S. border patrol, they arrive 
     in small groups of three or four, larger contingents of more 
     than a dozen and sometimes packs of a hundred. Worried 
     citizens who spot them keep the Bisbee police officers and 
     Cochise County sheriffs deputies busy tracking down all the 
     trespassing aliens. At night as many as 100 will take over a 
     vacant house. Some crowd into motel rooms, even storage-
     compartment rental units. During the day, they congregate on 
     school playgrounds, roam through backyards and pass in and 
     out of apartment buildings. Some assemble at the Burger King, 
     waiting for their assigned drivers to appear. Sometimes 
     stolen cars are waiting for them, keys on the floor. But most 
     continue walking to designated pickup points beyond Bisbee, 
     where they will ride in thousands of stolen vehicles, often 
     with the seats ripped out to accommodate more human cargo, on 
     the next leg of their journey to big cities and small towns 
     from California to North Carolina.
       The U.S.'s borders, rather than becoming more secure since 
     9/11, have grown even more porous. And the trend has 
     accelerated in the past year. It's fair to estimate, based on 
     a TIME investigation, that the number of illegal aliens 
     flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million--enough 
     to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every 
     day for a year. It will be the largest wave since 2001 and 
     roughly triple the number of immigrants who will come to the 
     U.S. by legal means. (No one knows how many illegals are 
     living in the U.S., but estimates run as high as 15 million.)
       Who are these new arrivals? While the vast majority are 
     Mexicans, a small but sharply growing number come from other 
     countries, including those with large populations hostile to 
     the U.S. From Oct. 1 of last year until Aug. 25, along the 
     southwest border, the border patrol estimates that it 
     apprehended 55,890 people who fall into the category 
     described officially as other than Mexicans, or OTMS. With 
     five weeks remaining in the fiscal year, the number is nearly 
     double the 28,048 apprehended in all of 2002. But that's just 
     how many were caught. TIME estimates, based on longtime 
     government formulas for calculating how many elude capture, 
     that as many as 190,000 illegals from countries other than 
     Mexico have melted into the U.S. population so far this year. 
     The border patrol, which is run by the Department of Homeland 
     Security, refuses to break down OTMS by country. But local 
     law officers, ranchers and others who confront the issue 
     daily tell TIME they have encountered not only a wide variety 
     of Latin Americans (from Guatemala, El Salvador, Brazil, 
     Nicaragua and Venezuela) but also intruders from Afghanistan, 
     Bulgaria, Russia and China as well as Egypt, Iran and Iraq. 
     Law enforcement authorities believe the mass movement of 
     illegals, wherever they are from, offers the perfect cover 
     for terrorists seeking to enter the U.S., especially since 
     tighter controls have been imposed at airports.
       Who's to blame for all the intruders? While the growing 
     millions of illegal aliens cross the border on their own two 
     feet, the problem is one of the U.S.'s own making. The 
     government doesn't want to fix it, and politicians, as usual, 
     are dodging the issue, even though public-opinion polls show 
     that Americans overwhelmingly favor a crackdown on illegal 
     immigration. To be sure, many citizens quietly benefit from 
     the flood of illegals because the supply of cheap labor helps 
     keep down the cost of many goods and services, from chicken 
     parts to lawn care. Many big companies, which have an even 
     clearer stake in cheap labor, aggressively fend off the 
     enforcement of laws that would shut down their supply of 
     illegal workers.
       The argument is getting stronger, however, that this is a 
     short-sighted bargain for the U.S. Beyond the terrorism 
     risks, Washington's failure to control the Nation's borders 
     has a painful impact on workers at the bottom of the ladder 
     and, increasingly, those further up the income scale. The 
     system holds down the pay of American workers and rewards the 
     illegals and the businesses that hire them. It breeds anger 
     and resentment among citizens who can't understand why 
     illegal aliens often receive government-funded health care, 
     education benefits and subsidized housing. In border 
     communities, the masses of incoming illegals lay waste to the 
     landscape and create costly burdens for agencies trying to 
     keep public order. Moreover, the system makes a mockery of 
     the U.S. tradition of encouraging legal immigration. 
     Increasingly, there is little incentive to play by the rules.
       In the aftermath of 9/11, illegal immigration slowed 
     dramatically for two years. Now it has turned up again. The 
     chronic reason is a Mexican economy unable to provide jobs 
     with a living wage to a growing population.

[[Page 18781]]

     But those who live and work along the border say there is 
     another, more immediate cue for the rush. In a speech on 
     immigration policy last January, George W. Bush proposed ``a 
     new temporary-worker program that will match willing foreign 
     workers with willing American employers when no Americans can 
     be found to fill the jobs.'' The President said his program 
     would give three-year, renewable work visas ``to the millions 
     of undocumented men and women now employed in the United 
     States.'' In Mexico that statement was widely interpreted to 
     mean that once Mexican citizens cross illegally into the 
     U.S., they would be able to stay and eventually gain 
     permanent residence. Even though the legislation shows no 
     signs of getting through Congress this year, a run to the 
     border has begun.
       Ranchers, local law officers and others say that is the 
     story they have heard over and over from border crossers. 
     Rancher George Morin, who operates a 12,000-acre spread a few 
     miles from the border, tells TIME, ``All these people say 
     they are coming for the amnesty program.
       [They] have been told if they get 10 miles off the border, 
     they are home free.''
       The border patrol, by nature an earnest and hard-working 
     corps, is no match for the onslaught. From last October 
     through Aug. 25, it apprehended nearly 1.1 million illegals 
     in all its operations around the U.S. But for every person it 
     picks up, at least three make it into the country safely. The 
     number of agents assigned to the 1,951-mile southern border 
     has grown only somewhat, to more than 9,900 today, up from 
     8,600 in 2000.
       Given that the crisis of illegal immigration bridges the 
     two main issues in the presidential campaign--the economy and 
     national security--one might think that the candidates would 
     pound their podiums with calls for change. But that's not the 
     case so far. Bush has reaffirmed his pledge for an 
     immigration policy that would provide worker's permits for 
     aliens who find jobs, and John Kerry has promised to propose 
     legislation that would lead to permanent residence for many 
     illegal-alien workers. Neither candidate has called for 
     imposing serious fines on the people who encourage illegal 
     immigration: corporate employers.
       On the Mexican side of the border, President Vicente Fox 
     has actively encouraged the migration. He made his goal clear 
     in 2000 when he called for a fully open border within 10 
     years, with ``a free flow of people, workers'' moving between 
     the two countries. When U.S. opposition to the proposal 
     intensified after 9/11, Fox sought the same goal through the 
     back door. He pushed U.S. businesses and city and state 
     governments to accept as legal identification a card called a 
     matricula consular, issued by Mexican consulates. That has 
     allowed illegals to secure driver's licenses and other forms 
     of identification and open bank accounts. Earlier this year 
     Fox pushed U.S. bankers to make it easier for Mexicans 
     working here--some of them legally but most illegally--to 
     ship U.S. dollars back home.
       Because of the exploding illegal population, the money sent 
     back represents the third largest source of revenue in 
     Mexico's economy, trailing only oil and manufacturing. That 
     figure reached a record $13 billion last year.
       The current border-enforcement system has fostered a 
     culture of commuters who come and go with some hardship but 
     little if any risk of punishment. Thousands cross the U.S.-
     Mexico border multiple times.
       Under immigration law, they could be imprisoned after the 
     second offense. But no one is. Nor on the third, fourth or 
     fifth. In fact, almost never. When asked whether Homeland 
     Security would initiate criminal proceedings against a person 
     who, say, is picked up on four occasions coming into the 
     country illegally, a border-patrol representative said if it 
     did, the immigration legal system would collapse. Said the 
     spokeswoman: ``Because there's such a large influx of people 
     coming across, if we're to put the threshold at four and send 
     them up [to Tucson, Ariz., or Phoenix, Ariz., for 
     processing], we'd be sending . . . too many people, and it 
     would overwhelm the immigration system.''
       People who live and work on the Arizona border know all 
     about being overwhelmed.


                         Living in the War Zone

       When the crowds cross the ranches along and near the 
     border, they discard backpacks, empty Gatorade and water 
     bottles and soiled clothes. They turn the land into a vast 
     latrine, leaving behind revolting mounds of personal refuse 
     and enough discarded plastic bags to stock a Wal-Mart. Night 
     after night, they cut fences intended to hold in cattle and 
     horses. Cows that eat the bags must often be killed because 
     the plastic becomes lodged between the first and second 
     stomachs. The immigrants steal vehicles and saddles. They 
     poison dogs to quiet them. The illegal traffic is so heavy 
     that some ranchers, because of the disruptions and noise, get 
     very little sleep at night.
       John Ladd, Jr., a thoughtful, soft-spoken rancher just 
     outside Bisbee, gives new meaning to the word stoic. He is 
     forced to work the equivalent of several weeks a year to 
     repair, as best he can, all the damage done to his property 
     by never-ending swarms of illegal aliens.
       ``Patience is my forte,'' he says, ``but it's getting 
     lower.'' The 14,000-acre Ladd ranch, in his mother's family 
     since the 1800s, is right on the border. Ladd and his wife 
     and three sons as well as his father and mother have their 
     homes there. The largely flat, scrub-covered piece of real 
     estate, with its occasional groves of cottonwoods, spiny 
     mesquite and clumps of sacaton grass and desert broom, seems 
     to offer few places to hide. But the land is laced with 
     arroyos in which scores of people can disappear from view. 
     Ditches provide trails from the border to Highway 92, a 
     distance of about three miles. That is the route that Ladd 
     says 200 to 300 illegals take every night as they enter the 
     U.S. They punch holes in the barbed-wire border fence and 
     then tear up the many fences intended to separate the 
     breeding cattle--Brahmin, Angus and Hereford--that divide the 
     Ladd land.
       Ladd doesn't blame the border patrol, most of whose 
     officers, he says, are doing all they can under the 
     circumstances. Indeed, apprehensions of illegals in Arizona 
     have soared from 9% of the nation's total in 1993 to 51% this 
     year. ``I have real heartache for the agents who are really 
     working,'' he says. ``They track down the [smugglers], and 
     the judges let them off, and they get a free trip back to 
     Mexico, where they can start all over.'' The border-patrol 
     agents, Ladd feels, ``are responsible guys in a hypocritical 
     bureaucracy.''
       Border crossing at the Ladd ranch is so flagrant that 
     sometimes the illegals arrive by taxi. A dirt road parallels 
     the border fence and the Ladd property for several miles, in 
     full view of border-patrol electronic lookout posts that 
     ceased functioning long ago. When drivers reach an 
     appropriate location, passengers pile out and run through one 
     of the many holes in the fence and make their way across the 
     ranch.
       These gaps present their own special problem. On the other 
     side are Mexican ranches whose cattle wander onto Ladd's. 
     ``I'm up to 215 Mexican cows that I've put back into 
     Mexico,'' he says. ``I've got a dual citizen friend--he's 
     Mexican and American--works on this side for Phelps Dodge 
     [Mining Co.], but he's got a ranch over at the San Jose 
     Mountain. So I call him, and then he calls the Mexican cattle 
     inspector. Then that guy meets me at the border and then 
     coordinates the cows getting back to the rightful owners in 
     Mexico.'' Ladd acknowledges that his do-it-yourself cattle 
     diplomacy is ``breaking both countries' laws.'' How so? 
     ``[In] the United States, you're supposed to quarantine any 
     Mexican cattle for 30 days, and they test them for disease 
     and everything else. What the problem is, there isn't enough 
     cattle inspectors to do that, and then they don't have a 
     holding corral anymore to do that.''
       Why does he spend so much time returning strays? So his 
     counterparts in Mexico will return the favor because some of 
     his cattle amble across the border through the same holes. 
     ``The whole reason that I started doing this for the Mexican 
     ranchers was to show'em, `Yeah, I'm honest. I'm going to give 
     you yours back, so you give me mine.' And it's worked. But 
     the whole story is that I've spent money on long-distance and 
     talked to everybody from the Boundary Commission to USDA to 
     border patrol to customs and everybody else, and I said, `You 
     need to do something with your international fence.''' He's 
     still waiting.
       While the Department of Homeland Security seemingly lacks 
     the money to secure the border, it does have money to spend 
     in quixotic ways.
       In a $13 million experimental program started in July, the 
     border patrol will not just drop illegal Mexican aliens at 
     the border but actually fly them, at taxpayer expense, into 
     the heart of Mexico. The theory is that it will discourage 
     them from making the trek north again. But as one illegal, a 
     Dallas construction worker who was among the 138 aboard the 
     first flight, told a Los Angeles Times reporter, ``I will be 
     going back in 15 days. I need to work. The jobs in Mexico 
     don't pay anything.''
       The plight of Jim Dickson, a hospital administrator in 
     Bisbee, is summed up with one image. It's an ambulance that 
     pulls into tiny Copper Queen Community Hospital and 
     discharges illegal aliens injured in an auto accident. The 
     border-patrol officers--on orders from Washington--have 
     refused to take them onto the hospital property after taking 
     them into custody. Instead, the officers have called an 
     ambulance for the injured. If the officers were to arrive at 
     the hospital to make their drop-off, then the border patrol 
     (make that the U.S. government) would be responsible for 
     paying the medical bill. And that's something the Federal 
     Government (make that Congress) will not do. Instead, the 
     government stiffs Dickson, 56, the genial CEO of the Copper 
     Queen, a hospital that dates back to the turn of the previous 
     century, when Bisbee was the largest town between San Diego 
     and St. Louis, MO.
       Dickson and his community hospital symbolize much of what 
     has gone wrong with the immigration policies of the U.S. and 
     Mexico--``the irresponsibility,'' as Dickson puts it 
     politely, of both governments.
       He figures he has another three years, maybe a little 
     longer, before he might be forced to shut down the hospital. 
     ``We used to have 250 emergency-room visits a month. Now it's 
     500,'' says Dickson. They range from a lone man or woman 
     rescued in the desert,

[[Page 18782]]

     suffering from dehydration or a heart attack, to multiple 
     victims injured when vans jammed with 20 or more illegals 
     crash during high-speed chases. Along the way the hospital is 
     seeing more and more tuberculosis, aids and hepatitis. ``We 
     don't have to do disaster drills like other hospitals,'' 
     Dickson says. ``We have enough real disasters every year.''
       Unlike big governments, small community hospitals cannot 
     run deficits forever. The Copper Queen's shortfall from 
     treating illegal aliens grows each year. This year it will be 
     about $450,000, bringing the total for the past few years to 
     $1.4 million. With each money-losing year, a tiny piece of 
     the 14-bed hospital dies. When that happens, the entire 
     community suffers. Dickson's most agonizing decision came 
     when he was forced to shutter the long-term-care unit. ``It 
     was the only place the elderly could go,'' he says. ``If 
     someone had dementia, we had a room for them.'' But no more. 
     Now if people who spent their life in Bisbee need elder care, 
     they must leave the area. ``The more free care we give,'' 
     Dickson says, ``the more we have to ration what's left.''
       Dickson emphasizes that not all the free care is going to 
     illegal aliens passing through on their way to other states. 
     About half goes to Mexicans who use the Copper Queen as their 
     personal emergency-care facility. In effect, the hospital, 
     which performs general surgery, has become the trauma center 
     for that stretch of northern Mexico. If an ambulance pulls up 
     to the border-crossing point near Bisbee and announces 
     ``compassionate entry,'' the border patrol waves it through, 
     and the Copper Queen is compelled to treat the patient. It is 
     one more program that Congress mandates but does not pay for. 
     ``If you make me treat someone,'' says Dickson, ``then you 
     need to pay me. You can't have unfunded mandates in a small 
     hospital.'' Although the Medicare drug act that passed last 
     year provides for modest payments to hospitals that treat 
     illegal aliens, Dickson says there is a catch that the U.S. 
     government has yet to figure out. ``How do I document an 
     undocumented alien? How am I going to prove I rendered that 
     care?
       They have no Social Security number, no driver's license.''
       The limits of compassion are also being tested on the 
     Tohono O'odham Nation. About twice the size of Delaware, the 
     tribe's reservation shares 65 miles of border with Mexico. 
     Like the residents of the small Arizona towns just to the 
     east, the Native Americans, many of whom live without running 
     water and electricity, are overwhelmed. The Nation's hospital 
     is often packed with migrants who become dehydrated while 
     crossing the scorching desert, where summertime temperatures 
     reach upwards of 110 (degree). The undermanned tribal police 
     force helps the border patrol round up as many as 1,500 
     illegals a day. ``If this were happening in any other city or 
     part of the country,'' says Vivian Juan Saunders, Tohono 
     O'odham chairwoman, ``it would be considered a crisis.''
       Yet the highest levels of the U.S. and Mexican governments 
     have orchestrated this situation as a kind of dance: Mexico 
     sends its poor north to take jobs illegally, and the U.S. 
     arrests enough of the border crossers to create the illusion 
     that it is enforcing the immigration laws while allowing the 
     great majority to get through.
       Local lawmen like Jim Elkins and Larry Dever have learned 
     the dance firsthand, and their towns and counties have to pay 
     for it.
       Elkins has been the police chief in Bisbee for 12 years, on 
     the force for 30. Dever has been the sheriff of Cochise 
     County--which includes Bisbee and encompasses an area almost 
     the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island, with 84 miles along 
     the Mexican border--for eight years and a deputy before that 
     for 20 years. The two lawmen handle the same kinds of citizen 
     demands made on local law-enforcement agencies everywhere--
     from murder to drugs to reports of abandoned cats. But never 
     have they seen the likes of today's work, in which their time 
     is monopolized by relentless reports of alien groups making 
     their way through the area. The entries from Bisbee police 
     logs speak for themselves, these a sampling from Friday, May 
     7: 9:05 a.m.: ``[Caller] advised udas [undocumented aliens] 
     on foot, west [of] high school on dirt road. At least 10 in 
     area. U.S. border patrol advised of same. 38 udas turned over 
     to U.S. border patrol.''
       4:31 p.m.: ``[Officer] located three udas walking on 
     Arizona and Congdon. All three turned over to usbp [U.S. 
     border patrol] Naco.''
       4:32 p.m.: ``[Officer] copied a report of a silver-in-color 
     van loaded with approximately 30 udas left Warren. Later 
     copied vehicle went disabled at mile post 345 on Highway 80. 
     Thirty to 35 udas were located with vehicle. Udas turned over 
     to U.S. border patrol.''
       7:52 p.m.: ``[Officer] located a group of udas in the area 
     [of Blackknob and Minder streets]. Fifteen udas turned over 
     to BP.'' 10:02 p.m.: ``Reported a group of udas gathering on 
     the bridge on Blackknob at Minder. Officers located six udas. 
     tot [turned over to] usbp.''
       On and on it goes. ``Every day we deal with this,'' says 
     Elkins.
       ``People don't feel safe. The smugglers are dangerous 
     people . . . I find it hard to believe we can get 80 to 100 
     people in our neighborhoods. They come across in droves.'' 
     Transporting them requires fleets of stolen cars, which 
     explains why Arizona ranks No. 1 in cars stolen per capita, 
     with 56,000 ripped off last year. ``This is a lot of work for 
     us. We're a small department,'' says Elkins, who has 15 
     officers. ``So much of our time is spent on federal issues. 
     We should be getting money for this [from the Federal 
     Government]. But we don't.''
       The kinds of crime found in most communities are interwoven 
     with the illegal-alien traffic on the border. ``Our 
     methamphetamine problem is alarming,'' Elkins tells TIME. 
     ``The last three homicides here were related to meth. Kids 
     doing meth will take a load of udas to Tucson or Phoenix for 
     a couple of hundred dollars.''
       Sheriff Dever says more than a quarter of his budget ``is 
     spent on illegal immigration activities,'' and he points to 
     the ripple effect through the criminal justice system: ``The 
     illegal aliens can't make bond, so they spend more time in 
     jail. They're indigent, so they get a public defender. If 
     they have health problems, they have to be treated.''
       Dever feels overrun and doesn't mind who knows it. He 
     relates a story about a recent visit by a television crew 
     that arrived in his office and asked whether he was aware 
     that a group of presumably illegal aliens was camped out in a 
     drainage ditch next to the sheriff's headquarters. Sensing a 
     story, the crew wondered if he was embarrassed by the aliens' 
     presence. A plainspoken man, Dever said he was not the least 
     bit embarrassed. Their presence, he said, illustrated quite 
     pointedly just how pervasive the problem was.
       The people who probably should be a little embarrassed are 
     the folks up the road at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., home of the 
     U.S. Army's top-secret Intelligence Center. The facility, 
     which trains and equips military intelligence professionals 
     assigned around the world, also happens to be a thoroughfare 
     for illegal aliens and drug smugglers, with mountains on the 
     base providing a safe haven.
       Using some of the same routes as the people smugglers, the 
     drug runners are well armed, equipped with high-tech 
     surveillance equipment and don't hesitate to use their 
     weapons. That's what happened earlier this year, when law-
     enforcement officers and Mexican drug runners engaged in a 
     fire fight at the border in front of a detachment of Marines 
     just back from Iraq, who were installing a steel fence to 
     prevent illegal aliens from driving through the flimsy barbed 
     wire. The Marines, unarmed, watched placidly. None were 
     injured.
       The situation across southern Arizona has spun so far out 
     of control that many on the border believe a day of reckoning 
     is fast approaching, when an incident--an accidental 
     shooting, multiple auto fatalities, a confrontation between 
     drug and people smugglers--will touch off a higher level of 
     violence. And the nightmare scenario: some resident 
     frustrated by the Federal Government's refusal to halt the 
     onslaught will begin shooting the border crossers on his or 
     her property. As a rancher summed up the situation: ``If the 
     law can't protect you, what do you do?'' Everyone, it seems, 
     is armed, including nurses at the local hospital, who carry 
     sidearms on their way to work out of fear for their safety.


               how corporate america thrives on illegals

       Popular belief has it that illegals are crossing the border 
     in search of work. In fact, many have their jobs lined up 
     before they leave Mexico. That's because corporate managers 
     go so far as to place orders with smugglers for a specific 
     number of able bodies to be delivered. For corporate America, 
     employing illegal aliens at wages so low few citizens could 
     afford to take the jobs is great for profits and 
     stockholders. That's why the payrolls of so many businesses--
     meat packers, poultry processors, landscape firms, 
     construction companies, office-cleaning firms and corner 
     convenience stores, among others--are jammed with illegals. 
     And companies are rarely, if ever, punished for it.
       A single statistic attests to this. In 2002 the former 
     Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) issued orders 
     levying fines on only 13 employers for hiring illegal aliens, 
     a minuscule portion of the thousands of offenders. 
     Nonenforcement of employer sanctions, which is in keeping 
     with the Federal Government's nonenforcement of immigration 
     laws across the board, has been the equivalent of hanging out 
     a help wanted sign for illegals. Says Steven Camarota, 
     research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a 
     nonpartisan think tank on immigration issues: ``They're 
     telling people, `If you can run that border, we have a job 
     for you. You can get a driver's license.
       You can get a job. You'll be able to send money home.' And 
     in that context, you'd be stupid not to try. We say, `If you 
     run the gauntlet, you're in.' That's the incentive they've 
     created.''
       For nearly 20 years, it has been a crime to hire illegal 
     aliens. Amid an earlier surge in illegal immigration, 
     Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 
     1986, which provided that employers could be fined up to 
     $10,000 for every illegal alien they hired, and repeat 
     offenders could be sent to jail. The act was a response to 
     the widespread belief that employer sanctions were

[[Page 18783]]

     the only way to stem the tide. ``We need employer sanctions 
     to reduce the attraction of jobs in the U.S.,'' an INS 
     spokesman declared as Congress debated the bill. When 
     President Ronald Reagan signed it, he called the sanctions 
     the ``keystone'' of the law. ``It will remove the incentive 
     for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities 
     which draw illegal aliens here,'' he said. Making it a crime 
     for a company to hire an illegal was seen as such a dramatic 
     step at the time that many worried over the consequences. 
     Phil Gramm, then a Republican Senator from Texas, said the 
     legislation ``holds out great peril, peril that employers 
     dealing in good faith could be subject to criminal penalties 
     and in fact go to jail for making a mistake in hiring an 
     illegal alien.''
       But companies had little to fear. Neither Reagan nor 
     subsequent Presidents or Congresses were eager to enforce the 
     law. The fate of just one provision in the 1986 act is 
     revealing. As part of the enforcement effort, the law called 
     for a pilot program to establish a telephone verification 
     system that employers could use when hiring workers. It would 
     allow employers to tap into a national data bank to determine 
     the legal status of a job applicant. Only those who had 
     legitimate documentation would be approved. With such a 
     system, employers could no longer use the excuse that they 
     had no way to verify a potential worker's legal status.
       To this day--18 years after passage of the immigration-
     reform bill--a nationwide telephone-verification system has 
     yet to be implemented. A small-scale verification project was 
     established in 1992, but it covered only nine employers in 
     five states. In 1996, Congress enacted yet another 
     immigration-reform bill, and it too provided for a telephone 
     verification program. Called Basic Pilot, it promised to 
     provide employers with an easy way to verify a prospective 
     employee's status. An employer who signed up for the system 
     could call an 800 number and provide the name, Social 
     Security number or the alien ID number of a new hire. The 
     employer would receive either a confirmation that the number 
     and name were valid or an indication that called for further 
     checking.
       The system is fatally flawed. Basic Pilot is voluntary. 
     Employers aren't required to sign up. Imagine what compliance 
     with tax laws would be if filing a 1040 were optional.
       For all the rhetoric about the perils of illegal 
     immigration, Congress shows no interest in cracking down on 
     employers. When the INS attempted in the past to enforce the 
     law, lawmakers slapped down the agency. In 1998 the INS 
     launched Operation Vanguard, a bold attempt to catch illegals 
     in Nebraska's meat-packing industry. Rather than raid 
     individual plants to round up undocumented workers, as it had 
     done for years, the INS aimed Operation Vanguard at the heart 
     of illicit hiring practices. The agency subpoenaed the 
     employment records of packing houses, then sought to match 
     employee numbers with other data like Social Security 
     numbers.
       The INS subpoenaed some 24,000 hiring records and 
     identified 4,700 people with discrepancies at 40 processing 
     plants. It then called for further documentation to verify 
     the workers' status. Nebraska was seen as just the first 
     step. Plans were in the works to launch similar probes in 
     other states where large numbers of illegals were known to be 
     employed in the meat-packing industry. But the INS never got 
     the chance. A huge outcry in Nebraska from meat-packers, 
     Hispanic groups, farmers, community organizations, local 
     politicians and the state's congressional delegation forced 
     the INS to back off.
       Not surprisingly, the INS's employer-sanctions program has 
     all but disappeared. Investigations targeting employers of 
     illegal aliens dropped more than 70%, from 7,053 in 1992 to 
     2,061 in 2002. Arrests on job sites declined from 8,027 in 
     1992 to 451 in 2002. Perhaps the most dramatic decline: the 
     final orders levying fines for immigration-law violations 
     plunged 99%, from 1,063 in 1992 to 13 in 2002.
       As might be expected, employers got the message, albeit one 
     quite different from that spelled out in the 1986 and '96 
     legislation. Now many corporate managers feel emboldened to 
     place orders for workers while the prospective employees are 
     still in Mexico, then assist them in obtaining phony 
     documentation and transport them hundreds, sometimes 
     thousands of miles from the interior of Mexico to a 
     production line in an American factory.
       This notion was supported by evidence introduced during an 
     alien smuggling trial in 2003 involving Tyson Foods Inc., 
     which describes itself as ``the world's largest processor and 
     marketer of chicken, beef and pork.'' In this secretly 
     recorded conversation, a federal undercover agent posed as an 
     alien smuggler who was taking an order from the manager of a 
     chicken-processing plant in Monroe, N.C.:
       FEDERAL AGENT: [After explaining that he was a friend of a 
     mutual friend] He said you wanted to talk to me?
       CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Yeah, about help . . . Now I'm going 
     to need quite a few . . . Starting on the 29th, a Monday, we 
     are going to start. How many can I get, and how often can you 
     do it?
       FEDERAL AGENT: Well, it's not a problem. I think [the 
     mutual friend] told me that you wanted 10?
       CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Well, 10 at a time. But over the 
     period of the next three or four months--January, February, 
     March, April, probably May, stuff like that--I'm going to 
     replace somewhere between 300 and 400 people, maybe 500. I'm 
     going to need a lot.
       FEDERAL AGENT: . . . I can give you what you need.
       CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Now let me ask you this. Do these 
     people have a photo ID and a Social Security card?
       FEDERAL AGENT: No . . . these people come from Mexico. I 
     pick them up at Del Rio. That's in Texas, after they cross 
     the river, and then we take them over there, and they get 
     their cards. [The mutual friend] gets them their cards, I 
     guess.
       CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: I need to talk to him about that.
       FEDERAL AGENT: About the cards?
       CHICKEN-PLANT MANAGER: Yes, some of them that's got the INS 
     card, and if they put it in a computer . . . if it's not any 
     good . . . Something happens, and we have to lay them off. 
     But if they just have got a regular photo ID from anywhere 
     and a Social Security card, then we don't have to do that.
       Securing phony paperwork was part of the scheme, and 
     corporate plant managers often knew in detail how the 
     illegals got their papers. This was apparent in the following 
     exchange between the undercover federal agent arranging for 
     illegals and the manager of a Tyson facility in Glen Allen, 
     Va. The manager is talking about a go-between named Amador 
     who had delivered workers in the past.
       TYSON MANAGER: When I went to Tyson and I met Amador, we 
     had very few Spanish-speaking people. With Amador's help, in 
     a couple of years, we went from very few to 80%.
       FEDERAL AGENT: My job . . . is to get the people in Mexico 
     to come to the border. When they cross the river, I pick them 
     up, and then I take them to Amador. And he says he can get 
     them, you know, their cards--their IDs and their Social 
     Security cards, and they can go to work that way.
       TYSON MANAGER: Excellent. That's what we're needing.
       Two Tyson managers later pleaded guilty to conspiring to 
     hire illegal aliens. Three other managers were acquitted of 
     the charges, as was the Tyson Corp. itself. The company 
     insisted that it did not know that illegals were being hired 
     at some of its plants. A company spokesman said the charges 
     were ``absolutely false. In reality, the specific charges are 
     limited to a few managers who were acting outside of company 
     policy at five of our 57 poultry-processing plants.''
       One of the arguments that is regularly advanced to justify 
     hiring illegal workers is that they are merely doing jobs 
     American workers won't take. President Bush echoed the theme 
     earlier this year when he proposed the immigration-law 
     changes that would allow millions of illegals to live and 
     work in the U.S.: ``I put forth what I think is a very 
     reasonable proposal, and a humane proposal, one that is not 
     amnesty, but, in fact, recognizes that there are good, 
     honorable, hardworking people here doing jobs Americans won't 
     do.''
       While there is no doubt that many illegal aliens work long 
     hours at dirty, dangerous jobs, evidence suggests that it is 
     low wage rates, not the type of job, that American workers 
     reject. That also surfaced in the Tyson case. The two Tyson 
     managers who pleaded guilty contended that they had been 
     forced to hire illegals because Tyson refused to pay wages 
     that would let them attract American workers.
       One of those two managers was Truley Ponder, who worked at 
     Tyson's processing plant in Shelbyville, Tenn. In documents 
     filed as part of Ponder's guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney's 
     office noted, ``Ponder would have preferred for the plant to 
     hire `local people,' but this was not feasible in light of 
     the low wages that Tyson paid, the low unemployment rate in 
     the area from which the plant drew its work force, and the 
     general undesirability of poultry processing work when there 
     were numerous other employment opportunities for unskilled 
     and low skilled employees.
       ``Ponder made numerous requests for pay increases in 
     Shelbyville above and beyond what the company routinely 
     allowed, but Tyson's corporate management in Springdale 
     rejected his requests for wage increases for production 
     workers. This refusal to pay wages sufficient to enable Tyson 
     to compete for legal laborers, plus the limited work force in 
     the local area, dictated Ponder's need to bring workers in to 
     meet Tyson's production demands.'' Needless to say, hiring 
     illegals had benefits for Tyson. A government consultant 
     estimated that the company saved millions of dollars in 
     wages, benefits and other costs.
       When asked whether the company has any illegals on its 
     payroll today, a Tyson spokesman said, ``We have a zero 
     tolerance for the hiring of individuals who are not 
     authorized to work in the U.S. Unfortunately, the reality for 
     businesses across the country is that it is becoming 
     increasingly difficult to determine just who has proper 
     authorization.

[[Page 18784]]

     The tangle of laws and the increasing sophistication of those 
     providing false documentation puts employers in a very tough 
     position . . . Given the scope of undocumented immigration to 
     the U.S., we and countless other American businesses face a 
     very difficult task in trying to figure out who is eligible 
     to work.''
       The impact of the below-market wage earners tends to fall 
     hardest on unskilled workers at the bottom of the wage 
     pyramid. ``Any sizable increase in the number of immigrants 
     will inevitably lower wages for some American workers,'' says 
     George Borjas, a professor at the Kennedy School of 
     Government at Harvard. Borjas calculates that all 
     immigration, by increasing the labor supply from 1980 to 
     2000, ``reduced the average annual earnings of native-born 
     men by an estimated $1,700, or roughly 4%.'' Borjas says 
     African Americans and native-born Hispanics pay the steepest 
     price because they are more often in direct competition with 
     immigrants for jobs.


              Why Alien Criminals Are at Large in the U.S.

       Perhaps the most alarming aspect of having 15 million 
     illegals at large in society is Congress's failure to insist 
     that federal agencies separate those who pose a threat from 
     those who don't. The open borders, for example, allow 
     illegals to come into the country, commit crimes and return 
     home with little fear of arrest or punishment.
       From Oct. 1, 2003, until July 20, 2004, the border patrol's 
     Tucson sector stopped 9,051 persons crossing into the country 
     illegally who had criminal records in the U.S., meaning they 
     committed crimes here, returned to Mexico, then were trying 
     to re-enter the country. Among them: 378 with active warrants 
     for their arrest. In one week, said border patrol spokeswoman 
     Andrea Zortman, there were two with outstanding ``warrants 
     for homicide.''
       And those were just the illegals the border patrol 
     determined had arrest records. Most go undetected. Reason: 
     the border patrol's electronic fingerprint-identification 
     system, which allows officers to determine how many times an 
     alien has been caught sneaking into the U.S., has only a 
     limited amount of criminal-background data. The FBI maintains 
     a separate electronic fingerprint-identification system that 
     covers everyone ever charged with a crime. In true 
     bureaucratic fashion, the two computer systems do not talk to 
     each other. In the 1990s, the two agencies were directed to 
     integrate their systems.
       They are still working at it. The most optimistic 
     completion date is 2008. Until then, illegals picked up at 
     the border may have any number of criminal charges pending, 
     but the arresting officers will never know and will allow the 
     intruders to return home.
       In any event, the numbers suggest that tens of thousands of 
     criminals, quite possibly hundreds of thousands, treat the 
     southern border as a revolving door to crimes of opportunity. 
     The situation is so out of control that of the 400,000 
     illegal aliens who have been ordered to be deported, 80,000 
     have criminal records--and the agency in charge, the Homeland 
     Security Department, does not have a clue as to the 
     whereabouts of any of them, criminal or noncriminal, 
     including those from countries that support terrorism.
       What's more, those figures are growing. Every day, prisons 
     across the U.S. release alien convicts who have completed 
     their court-ordered sentences. In many cases, the INS has 
     filed detainers, meaning the prisons are obliged to hold the 
     individuals until they can be picked up by immigration agents 
     and returned to their native countries. But state law 
     enforcement authorities are not permitted to keep prisoners 
     beyond their original sentence. When Homeland Security agents 
     fail to show up promptly, which is often, the alien convicts 
     are released back into the community. In addition to all 
     these, at least 4 million people who arrived in the U.S. 
     legally on work, tourist or education visas have decided to 
     ignore immigration laws and stay permanently.
       Again, Homeland Security does not have the slightest idea 
     where these visa scofflaws are.
       The government's record in dealing with the 400,000 people 
     it has ordered to be deported is dismal. A sampling of cases 
     last year by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector 
     General (oig) found that of illegal aliens from countries 
     supporting terrorism who had been ordered to be deported, 
     only 6% of those not already in custody were actually 
     removed. Of 114 Iranians with final orders for removal, just 
     11 could be found and were deported. Of 67 Sudanese with 
     final-removal orders, only one was deported. And of 46 Iraqis 
     with final-removal orders, only four were sent packing. All 
     the rest, presumably, were living with impunity somewhere in 
     the U.S. Those statistics tell only part of the story. Most 
     people charged with an immigration-law violation do not even 
     bother to show up for a court hearing. Imagine for a moment a 
     majority of people charged with a crime in state or federal 
     courts flouting the indictment or charge and refusing to 
     appear in court. They would be swiftly arrested.
       But immigration law marches to a different drummer. Most 
     illegals, including those with arrest records, are not jailed 
     while awaiting a hearing. That's because Congress has failed 
     to appropriate enough money to build sufficient holding 
     facilities. Rather, the immigrants are released on their 
     promise to return. They don't. And the odds are they won't be 
     found. The oig investigation revealed that of 204 aliens 
     ordered to be removed in absentia, only 14 were eventually 
     located and shipped out.
       The situation is even worse when it comes to those aliens 
     whose requests for asylum are rejected and who are ordered to 
     be deported.
       The oig study found that only 3% of those seeking asylum 
     who were ordered removed were ultimately located and 
     deported. That pattern, like failed immigration-law 
     enforcement across the board, bodes well for potential 
     terrorists. In the 1990s, half a dozen aliens applied for 
     asylum before committing terrorist acts. Among them: Ahmad 
     Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef, who entered the country in 1991 and 
     1992, respectively, seeking asylum. According to the oig, 
     Ajaj left the U.S. and returned in 1992 with a phony 
     passport. He was convicted of passport fraud. Yousef 
     completed the required paperwork and was given a date for his 
     asylum hearing. In the meantime, in 1993, the two men helped 
     commit the first World Trade Center attack, for which they 
     were convicted and imprisoned. At the time, Yousef's 
     application for asylum was still pending.
       So what does the failed immigration system mean for 
     ordinary people?
       Just ask Sister Helen Lynn Chaska. Actually, you can't. You 
     will have to ask her family and friends.
       It's the waning days of summer in 2002 in Klamath Falls, 
     Ore., a city of about 19,000 on the eastern edge of the 
     Cascade Mountains. Two nuns who belonged to the Order of the 
     Immaculate Heart of Mary in Bellevue, Wash., had made one of 
     their periodic trips to Klamath Falls to carry out missionary 
     work. As they had in the past, Sister Helena Maria (her 
     church name), 53, and Sister Mary Louise, 52, checked into a 
     Best Western motel. On Saturday, Aug. 31, they spent the 
     evening proselytizing and selling religious items outside an 
     Albertsons supermarket.
       After returning to the motel, the two set out on their 
     ritual prayer walk shortly after midnight. They were dressed 
     in the blue habits they always wore as they walked on a 
     darkened bike path behind the motel, reciting their rosaries. 
     As they reached the midway point in their prayers and turned 
     back toward the motel, they heard a bicycle coming up behind 
     them. A Hispanic male in his 30s or 40s got off, grabbed both 
     women and began kissing them. The more they resisted, the 
     angrier he became. He finally punched Sister Mary Louise in 
     the right eye so hard that she fell and hit her head on a 
     rock, leaving her dazed. While holding Sister Helena Maria so 
     tightly by the rosary knotted around her neck that she gasped 
     for breath, he raped her first and then raped and sodomized 
     Sister Mary Louise and raped Sister Helena Maria a second 
     time. The man pulled the veil over Sister Mary Louise, told 
     her not to move or he would kill her, climbed back on his MTB 
     Super Crown bike and pedaled off. Sister Helena Maria was 
     dead. The rosary had been wound so tightly, its marks were 
     embedded in her neck.
       Later that day, police tracked a suspect to another motel, 
     where they began questioning him. He gave his name as Jesus 
     Franco Flores, which turned out to be one of many names he 
     used. In the end, he confessed to beating and raping both 
     nuns. He was not supposed to be in the U.S.; he had been 
     deported at least three times. By his account, his unlawful 
     entries into the U.S. began in 1986 at the age of 17. Under 
     the name Victor Manuel Batres-Martinez, which may have been 
     his legal name, he found his way to Oregon, where he was 
     arrested for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. His 
     sentence to a juvenile facility was suspended, with the 
     understanding that the INS would deport him. The agency did 
     so and in May 1987 granted him a voluntary return to Mexico, 
     with a notation on government records that ``subject has many 
     good productive years ahead of him.''
       Assuming he went as the INS promised, he didn't stay long. 
     In September that year, he was arrested and convicted of 
     theft and shoplifting in Wenatchee, Wash., under the name 
     Manuel Martinez. Two months later, he was convicted of felony 
     sales of marijuana and hashish in Los Angeles and sent to 
     jail for 60 days. In March 1988 he was arrested in Los 
     Angeles, once for robbery, once for possession of a 
     controlled substance. Another possession arrest followed in 
     April.
       In August he was arrested in Los Angeles for robbery. In 
     December he was sent to prison in California for second-
     degree robbery and kidnapping. While there, he was treated 
     for what was deemed to be ``a significant psychiatric 
     disorder.''
       In January 1992, after his release, the INS sent him back 
     to Mexico by way of Nogales, Ariz. Six months later, he was 
     back again, spotted by border-patrol officers as he attempted 
     to come back into the U.S. near El Paso, Texas. When agents 
     tried to stop him, he ran into rush-hour traffic on 
     Interstate 10, ``narrowly avoiding collision with several 
     cars,'' according to immigration records. He subsequently was 
     arrested, that time under the name Mateo Jimenez, and ordered 
     to be returned to Mexico. It didn't stick. In November he was 
     arrested by Portland, Ore.,

[[Page 18785]]

     police for possession and delivery of a controlled substance. 
     He never showed up for court appearances.
       On two occasions in January 2002, border-patrol agents 
     again apprehended him as he tried to re-enter the U.S. Both 
     times they returned him to Mexico. If the border patrol's 
     electronic fingerprint identification system had been in 
     synch with the FBI's, the agents would have discovered 
     Batres-Martinez's extensive criminal record. Given his prior 
     deportations, Batres-Martinez could have been charged with 
     re-entry after deportation, a felony that carries a 
     substantial prison sentence. In any event, Batres-Martinez 
     told police in Klamath Falls that he entered the U.S. on Aug. 
     11, 2002, that time coming through New Mexico. He said he 
     hopped a freight train for San Bernardino, Calif., and looked 
     for work, without success, from Los Angeles to Stockton. When 
     he heard that he might have better luck in Portland, he 
     hopped another train but got mixed up in a freight yard and 
     ended up in Klamath Falls.
       To avoid the death penalty, Batres-Martinez pleaded guilty 
     to the murder of Sister Helena Maria, attempted aggravated 
     murder of Sister Mary Louise and rape of both nuns. He was 
     sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of 
     parole.
       As for U.S. immigration authorities, they were 
     characteristically ineffectual. On Sept. 5, four days after 
     the murder, the INS faxed an immigration detainer to the 
     Klamath County jail, concerning Maximiliano Silerio Esparza, 
     also known as Victor Batres-Martinez: ``You are advised that 
     the action below has been taken by the Immigration and 
     Naturalization Service concerning the above-named inmate of 
     your institution: Investigation has been initiated to 
     determine whether this person is subject to removal from the 
     United States.''
       Both political parties and their candidates pay lip service 
     to controlling the borders. But neither President Bush nor 
     Senator Kerry supports a system that would end the incentives 
     for border crossers by cracking down on the employers of 
     illegals. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border 
     Patrol Council, a labor organization that represents 10,000 
     border-patrol employees, believes the solution is obvious. 
     The U.S. government, he says, should ``issue a single 
     document that's counterfeit proof, that has an embedded 
     photograph, that says this person has a right to work in the 
     U.S. And that document is the Social Security card. It's not 
     a national ID card.
       It's a card that you have to carry when you apply for a job 
     and only then. The employers run it through a scanner, and 
     they get an answer in short order that says, Yes, you may 
     hire, or No, you may not. That would cut off 98% of all the 
     traffic across the border. With your work force of 10,000 
     border-patrol agents, you actually could control the 
     borders.''
       But Bonner doesn't see that happening anytime soon because 
     of pressure from corporate America. And all the available 
     legislative evidence of the past quarter-century supports 
     that view. ``All the politicians--it doesn't matter which 
     side of the aisle you're on--rely heavily on the donations 
     from Big Business,'' he says, ``and Big Business likes this 
     system [of cheap illegal labor].
       Unfortunately, in the post-9/11 world, this system puts us 
     in jeopardy.''
       In the 9/11 commission's final report, now on the best-
     seller lists, the panel of investigators took note of the 
     immigration breakdown in general, saying that ``two systemic 
     weaknesses came together in our border system's inability to 
     contribute to an effective defense against the 9/11 attacks: 
     a lack of well-developed counterterrorism measures as a part 
     of border security and an immigration system not able to 
     deliver on its basic commitments, much less support 
     counterterrorism. These weaknesses have been reduced but are 
     far from being overcome.''
       Folks on the border who must deal daily with the throngs of 
     illegals are not optimistic that the Federal Government will 
     change its ways.
       As Cochise County Sheriff Dever dryly observes, ``People in 
     Washington get up in the morning, their laundry is done, 
     their floors are cleaned, their meals are cooked. Guess who's 
     doing that?''

                          ____________________