Border Bonanza: SBInet

(Second in "Era of Responsibility" on the Border series. First in the series: More Detention Beds.)

President Obama’s economic stimulus – officially the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – is overloading the Southwest border with unneeded infrastructure, lavish technological fixes, and new contingents of federal drug and immigration agents. In the name of “border security,” the administration is injecting more than $400 million in Homeland Security programs on the Southwest Border. At a time when congressional oversight committees and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), as well as the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security, expressing major concerns and reservations about the effectiveness, management, and oversight of the technological component of DHS’ Secure Border Initiative (SBI), the Obama administration is providing economic stimulus funds to accelerate SBInet. Among the mounting concerns about the viability of SBInet are these: Unknown Cost: Presenting no hard figures to justify its cost estimate, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has variously estimated that it will cost $6.7 billion or $7.6 billion to establish a technological surveillance system that covers all but one (Marfa) of the Border Patrol sectors along the Southwest border. OIG at DHS, however, cites estimates of $8 to $30 billion for the planned surveillance system that is now widely known as the “virtual fence.” History of Failure: The first deployment of SBInet on the border southwest of Tucson proved worthless. Despite the utter failure of the detection and communications systems by Boeing, the lead contractor for SBInet as well as for the border fence, in its Project 28, DHS told the company to rush the development of a new system, which is currently being installed in the same area. Management Mess: Because of the repeated CBP management failures since 2006 in the planning and implementation of SBInet, the House Homeland Security Committee charged CBP, through a provision in FY 2009 appropriations, with meeting 12 legislative conditions for the release of further appropriated funding ($400 million). A new GAO report (April 2009), building on a series of critical reports about SBInet management, found that CBP met only three of the dozen conditions. A year earlier, GAO had concluded: "Important aspects of SBInet remain ambiguous and in a continued state of flux, making it unclear and uncertain what technology capabilities will be delivered, when and where they will be delivered, and how they will be delivered.” Under the Recovery Act, $100 million of economic stimulus funding is being spent for technological border control. As CBP notes, this funding will contribute to CBP and DHS mission objectives by “accelerating development and deployment of SBNnet technologies on the U.S. southwest border, and modernizing CBP’s inventory of tactical mobile radios.” Specifically, $50 million in Recovery Act funding for SBInet will be used for “surveillance sensor technology,” including towers, cameras, radar equipment, and ground sensors. In its proposal for SBInet, CBP argues that it is fiscally responsible, stating: “CBP takes its stewardship of taxpayer dollars seriously.” What’s more it assures that there will be proper oversight of the controversial project, making no mention of the series of reports over the past three years by the Government Accountability Office criticizing CBP’s failure to provide adequate oversight, direction and evaluation criteria for SBInet. Similar concerns have been expressed by congressional committees responsible for homeland security operations. CBP asserts, however, that the SBInet program has in place the necessary “the end-user coordination, program management controls, management oversight, and external audit activities.” Furthermore, CBP says that is “extensive combination of internal controls and program management objectives “helps to preclude or minimize schedule delays and cost overruns.” Nor does CBP believe that there any obstacles to the effective deployment of SBInet detection and communications problems. “There are no known barriers to the effective implementation of activities associated with the accelerated deployment of SBInet technology components.” CBP, which through its Secure Border Initiative is also responsible for the border fence, also claims that it “takes seriously its stewardship of our Nation’s natural resources.” The “environment” and “sustainability,” says CBP, “will continue to be key considerations for projects under the SBInet program.” In its proposal, CBP couches its justification for the use of stimulus funds for SBInet in the context of national security. As CBP explains, “effective control of the borders will reduce the risk of potential terrorists and instruments of terrorism from entering the United States through our borders.” It also points to the “direct, short-term economic cost of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001” as a justification for stimulus spending on SBInet. In addition to the $27.2 billion in estimated short-term cost of Sept. 11, CBP argues that, in addition the short-term economic impact and the lost of lives, SBInet is economically justified because of the “longer-term impacts to many companies and industry sectors” as well as “increased security and military spending” caused by the Sept. 11 attacks. With SBInet in place, CBP argues it will be able to detect the illegal entry of terrorists, as well as smugglers of humans, drugs, and other contraband.

CBP, Boeing, and border subcontractors are busily installing the second array of towers, cameras, sensors, and microwave transmitters in the border area around Sasabe, Arizona, even as skepticism about CBP's capacity abounds.

(Next: Wish Fulfillment on Border: The Technilogical Fix)

Obama's "Era of Responsibility" for Border Security and Immigration

(The first in a series of articles on the boom in federal spending for border security and immigration enforcement.) The Obama administration has promised a new “era of responsibility” in Washington. New “fiscal responsibility,” promises the administration’s budget director, will cut the budget deficit by the of Obama’s first term. But this fiscal responsibility is difficult to detect along the Southwestern border or in the ever-expanding archipelago of immigrant prison towns. At the Department of Homeland Security, the 2010 budget is increasing by 6%, while its Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be rising by at 11% -- that’s before Senate and House Democrats pass their own budget resolutions with promised additional increases for border security and immigration enforcement. Similarly at the Department of Justice, the immigration-related and border security budgets are overflowing with new federal funding. At a time when other industries are stagnating or sliding into bankruptcy, industries and economic sectors dedicated to border security and immigrant imprisonment are benefiting from generous flows of federal appropriations. Rather than using the economic downturn as an opportunity to reevaluate the cost-effectiveness and social impact of the border security and immigrant enforcement initiatives of the Bush administration, the Obama administration has, for the most part, increased the funding for these initiatives and reinforced them with its own directives. More Detention Beds While most public and media attention on immigration and border security has focused on DHS, the Justice Department is another font of federal funding for border security and enforcement initiatives. The home of the legacy Immigration & Naturalization Service, DOJ lost of the government’s border control and immigration enforcement agencies after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Bush administration created the new monster federal bureaucracy, DHS. But, increasingly, DOJ is assuming an increasing role in border control and immigration enforcement. Through its Southwest Border Enforcement Initiative, for example, DOJ is playing a central role in the Obama administration’s Border Security Initiative. DOJ is also playing a rising role in immigrant detention as a result of new policy initiatives that criminalize illegal border crossing and broaden the definition of “criminal aliens.” One DOJ organization that has been called upon to participate in the immigrant crackdown is the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee (OFDT), which opened shop in September 2001 as the result of a congressional initiative that aimed to establish a coordinating office – to “avoid duplication” -- for all federal detention (immigrant and citizen) under DOJ. However, after the creation of DHS in March 2003 the new department refused to have its immigrant detention program coordinated by the DOJ, creating resentment within OFDT and leading to the sprawling and uncoordinated cross-departmental federal detention complex. As it turns out, though, immigrants are the driving force behind the expansion of DOJ’s own detention complex. At a time when falling crime rates have caused nonimmigrant federal detentions to plateau or fall, federal prison beds are being occupied by immigrants. So many immigrants are being channeled into the prisons of the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) – both DOJ agencies – that the OFDT trustee is seeking more federal funding, explicitly for immigrants. It’s all interrelated, as OFDT explains in its 2010 budget proposal. “The implementation of the Department of Homeland Security’s zero tolerance initiative, Operation Streamline, has substantially increased the number of immigration-related bookings at the Southwest Border,” says OFDT. OFDT notes that it “routinely anticipates growth in bookings for immigration offenses,” but “the growth observed since December 2005 has been unprecedented, based on trends in historical data.” As part of the president’s 2010 budget request, OFT is asking for an 11% increase in its $1.4 billion annual budget. Immigrant detainees are overwhelming OFDT’s capacity. In September 2008, immigrants composed 44% of all USMS detainees. In other words, nearly half of all the pre-trial detainees handled by U.S. Marshals were immigrants last year. If trends continue, as they are likely to do given the Bush-Obama continuity in immigration enforcement, then more than half of the detainees shackled by USMS will be immigrants. OFDT is having a hard time keeping up with the immigrant crackdown. In its 2009 budget it had projected 70,000 bookings for immigration offenses – a 13% increase over 2007. But if immigrant bookings continue at the current rate, OFDT projects that the number of immigrants booked in 2009 will be 96,000 – 26,000 more than it had projected in its budget request. OFDT says it needs a $44.6 million increase to “accommodate” the joint DHS/DOJ Southwest Border and Immigration Enforcement programs. “This program increase will support detention housing for an additional 7,000 immigration offenders apprehended by the DHS and processed by the USMS,” explains OFDT. In addition, ODFT is asking for a $95.8 million increase to sustain the USMS detention system’s operating costs, which will be strained in 2010 by “the increased costs associated with these law enforcement activities along with anticipated increases in per diem rates, medical hospital service costs, and fuel prices.” Border security and immigration enforcement have trumped fiscal responsibility at DOJ. Overall, DOJ is proposing, according to the Federal Times, a $1 billion budget increase for fiscal 2010 would help pay for 1,187 new agents and attorneys to help secure the Southwest border against drug smuggling and other criminal activity. At a time when the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform look dubious at best, the DOJ budget includes funding for what it calls “a comprehensive approach to enforcement along the Nation's borders.” This new comprehensive approach “combines law enforcement and prosecutorial component efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute illegal immigrants and other criminals.” DHS Detention Adviser Says More Beds Dora Schriro, the new DHS special advisor on detention, isn’t talking fiscal responsibility. Rather, she told the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, that more money is needed for detention. Neither party is objecting that additional detention costs for immigrants will further overburden U.S. taxpayers. Schriro, who Napolitano appointed to advise her on detention and removal operations (DRO), told the House members, “DRO is likely to get larger and may cost more in the immediate future.” According to Schriro, ICE has “an average daily census approaching 33,400 detainees and an end-of-year count exceeding 400,000.” ICE plans to increase its detention capacity by 1,400 beds during FY 2009 and is seeking funding to add about 1,000 beds in FY 2010. It is also in the process of renegotiating inter-agency service agreements with the 100 largest state and local facilities with which it contracts. With no argument from either Democrats or Republicans, Schriro closed her testimony asserting, “We all recognize more than that needs to occur.” When it comes to the priority issues of border security and immigration enforcement, fiscal responsiblity apparently does not apply.

Photo: GEO's Val Verde Detention Center for immigrants in Del Rio, Texas