By Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:24am
Border Patrol agents work in dangerous situations which can lead to tragic consequences like the shooting death and wounding of agents in Arizona this week. There is no justification for such violence targeting law enforcement officers. Yet there is also a crisis regarding use-of-force by Customs and Border Protection that is severely damaging the agency’s integrity (CBP is the Border Patrol’s parent and includes officers who work at ports of entry). The many recorded incidents of CBP fatalities and abuses demand a comprehensive, independent investigation of CBP policies and practices, as requested by members of Congress, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A permanent, arm’s-length oversight commission for CBP must also be created.
If most employers learned that their employees had been falling asleep on the job out of sheer boredom, the last thing they would do is hire more people to do the same work. That, however, is just what U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has done in recent years — as spending continues to balloon in spite of a dramatic decrease in the number of apprehensions along the border.
Today, the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee will hold a hearing on a proposed budget for CBP in 2013, featuring testimony from Michael Fisher, Border Patrol chief, and several CBP assistant commissioners. Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security's 2013 budget request continues down the same path of excessive, wasteful spending that has characterized the last decade.
Over the weekend, "NBC Nightly News" aired a segment on ranchers in rural Arizona concerned with border security. As is so often the case with media coverage of the border, this segment only included one side of the story – ranchers concerned about smugglers. Not included in this piece were the voices of many community members in the southwest—including ranchers – who are critical of the massive scale-up of border security, and the effect that it's had on their communities and ranches. For example, we have heard complaints from ranchers in the New Mexico boot heel region, who are concerned with Border Patrol agents "tearing up their land" or killing their cattle without paying them for their loss.
