Border
security is about border walls, virtual fence projects, drones, and a
proliferation of drug-sniffing canine teams and Border Patrol agents. But border security is also about expansive
big government bureaucracy, which aims to incorporate all other bureaucracies
under its own mission goals and apparatus.
Border
security is the province of the federal government’s most unwieldy and
directionless bureaucracy – namely the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Immigration enforcement and border security account for the largest part of the
DHS’s $56-billion annual budget.
The BorderEnforcement Security Task Forces (BEST) teams constitute a little known but
illustrative dimension of the ever-expanding bureaucracy of border security.
The BEST
program is one of numerous attempts by DHS to associate other federal agencies
and local law enforcement agencies with its border security and
counternarcotics missions.
Launched in
2006, the BEST program is now getting a new boost in Congress.
Two leading
border hawks in Congress, Michael McCaul and Henry Cuellar, are sponsors of new
border-security legislation to support the network of anti-drug task forces
sponsored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a DHS agency. The Jaime
Zapata Border Enforcement Security Task Force Act was approved by the House
in a 351-2 vote and also has been approved by the Senate.
The new
border-security bill would institutionalize the BEST teams as part of the DHS
apparatus and designate $10 million in annual funding for the anti-drug teams.
Named after
Jaime Zapata, an ICE agent who was killed in Mexico last year apparently as
part of the drug wars, the proposed act now awaits the signature of President
Obama.
ICE established
its first BEST team at a time when DHS was ramping up the departmental border
security programs through the Security Border Initiative and under the
direction of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff.
By
establishing the BEST program, ICE was hopping on the border security
bandwagon, which was benefiting from an array of new budget allocations.
Although almost all of the billions of dollars in new border security funding flowed
to CBP and the Border Patrol, ICE aimed to show that it too was an important
border security player. The program was also a way to put ICE at the top – at
least on paper – of a multiagency effort to “secure the border” and “combat
transnational criminal organizations.”
Keeping Alive Border-Security Alarmism
McCaul and
Cuellar, both from Texas, have help drive border security spending by their
alarmist assessments of cross-border threats.
McCaul, the
Republican set to become the new chair of the House Homeland Security
Committee, and Cuellar, the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Border
Security, say that ICE’s BEST teams are essential components of the border
security buildup.
According to
Cuellar, the BEST teams “help secure our Nation’s borders and help
dismantle criminal organizations by creating cross-agency teams to combat them.”
McCaul
boasts to his constituents of his role in getting this new piece of border
security legislation passed. After getting the nod to head the homeland
security committee, McCaul sent a newsletter to his constituents stating: “Texas is rich with critical
infrastructure and potential terrorist targets including the Port of Houston
and adjacent petrochemical facilities…. Our border… remains a gateway for
the undetected entry of Mexican drug cartels and terrorist operatives who have
increased their presence in Latin America. On my watch we will make
progress securing the border.”
“Expanding
BESTs,” says ICE, “will help dismantle the leadership and supporting
infrastructure of criminal organizations responsible for perpetrating violence
and illegal activity along our borders and in the nation’s interior.”
ICE contends
that the southern border “has experienced a dramatic surge in cross-border
crime and violence in recent years due to the intense competition between
Mexican drug cartels and criminal smuggling organizations.” What’s more, ICE
says that the northern border shouldn’t be ignored in border security spending
since “law enforcement agencies at the northern border face similar challenges
from transnational organizations.”
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