Babeu: ‘Secure the border first, or repeat history’

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu opposes immigration reform offered by the Gang of Eight officially titled the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 or the Schumer-McCain Immigration Bill.

We must secure the border first, prior to any discussion of green cards and a path to citizenship offered to nearly 20 million illegals and their families. This plan gives everything to President Obama upfront, while border security is promised once again on the backend. We are about to repeat history, when in 1986 President Reagan gave amnesty to 2 million illegals. Now, the stakes are far higher, yet it seems that we haven’t learned our lesson. The failure to secure the border after the Reagan amnesty got us where we are today with 11 to 20 million illegals in our country. . . . this plan will repeat history.

Secretary Janet Napolitano almost daily proclaims that our U.S./Mexican border is already secure in an effort to pave the way to amnesty. One year ago, the Tucson sector alone had 122,000 illegals apprehended and now the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol recently testified that this number is up more than 13 percent.

Additionally, our Sheriff's Office recently led a multi-agency investigation (that) busted the largest drug smuggling operation in the history of Arizona, valued between $2 (billion) $3 billion, arresting 76 individuals of the Sinaloa Mexican Drug Cartel and seized 108 of their firearms. In law enforcement, we call these clues; the border is not more secure than ever.

This immigration reform plan gives Secretary Napolitano six months to come up with a border security plan. What has she been doing for the past four years? She deceptively proclaims border security in order to convince the American people that the border is secure and yet she tells law enforcement officials that the border can’t be secured. In Nogales, Arizona on July 7th, 2011 Secretary Napolitano personally told me and several law enforcement officials that ‘We are never going to seal the border, and since the beginning of time, we’ve always had contraband and smuggling going through it.’ I along with most Americans wonder how the person in charge of securing the border can say we can’t do it. The border can and must be secured. It has already happened in the Yuma Sector where border crossings have been reduced by 97 percent.