Some Texas officials talk tough about border security. In the Obama era, the Lone Star State took it upon itself to spend millions deploying officers to plug security gaps left by the feds.<\/p>\n
But legislation proposed by two top Texas Republicans doesn\u2019t measure up.<\/p>\n
Rep. Michael McCaul this year introduced the tough-sounding \u201cBorder Security for America Act of 2017.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Like Sen. John Cornyn\u2019s \u201cBuilding America\u2019s Trust Act,\u201d<\/a> these bills are less about actual immigration enforcement and more about the appearance of immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n Both measures focus on border control. That\u2019s not wrong, per se, but they appear oblivious to the fact that nearly half of the illegal aliens in this country arrived not as border crashers, but on legal visas. Then these individuals \u2013 millions of them \u2013 illegally overstayed, landed unlawful employment and settled in.<\/p>\n The failure to address interior enforcement is a fatal shortcoming of the Cornyn-McCaul bills. This myopia explains why a bona-fide employee-screening program like E-Verify remains optional and underutilized.<\/p>\n Back on the border, the Cornyn-McCaul bills \u201ctend toward micromanagement, right down to the Border Patrol sector level, in assigning equipment,\u201d notes the Center for Immigration Studies<\/a>. \u201cThis smacks of two Texas legislators going out of their way as good Santa Clauses to an agency that just happens to have an outsized presence in the state of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n The Government Accountability Office<\/a> questioned the tech-centric approach espoused by Cornyn-McCaul. Drones are featured prominently on their spending list, even as DHS\u2019s Office of Inspector General panned the Border Patrol\u2019s drone program for cost overruns, lack of clear mission and vague metrics.<\/p>\n Last month, Michelle Malkin<\/a> poked holes in the types of technology touted by Messrs. Cornyn and McCaul. \u201cIt\u2019s a monumental waste of taxpayer funds and a dangerous redistribution of wealth to crony contractors,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n Amidst their technological tinkering and manpower shuffles, Cornyn, McCaul and their congressional colleagues have done little or nothing to promote construction of an actual border wall<\/a>. It\u2019s the same misdirection game that has played for far too long on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n Seeing such tall hats and so little cattle, American citizens are left to wonder: Where\u2019s the beef?