{"id":2402,"date":"2013-02-04T16:49:56","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T21:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2017-08-10T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T19:04:11","slug":"reid-i-don%e2%80%99t-know-what-operational-control-of-the-border-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2013\/02\/04\/reid-i-don%e2%80%99t-know-what-operational-control-of-the-border-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Reid: I Don\u2019t Know what Operational Control of the Border Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview airing on the Sunday morning talk show, ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) confessed his ignorance of U.S. immigration law and was outright dismissive of the importance of border security. (The Hill<\/em><\/a>, Feb. 3, 2013)<\/p>\n

When asked specifically about Senator Marco Rubio\u2019s (R-FL) statement that the government must achieve \u201coperational control\u201d of the borders before considering amnesty for illegal aliens, Majority Leader Reid replied , \u201cI don’t know what that means, and I don’t think [Sen. Rubio] does, either,\u201d Reid said. \u201cThe fact is, we have some metrics we’re talking about, some numbers, and we can do that. But this legislation is going to pass,\u201d he continued. (See ABC News <\/em>Transcript<\/a>, Feb. 3, 2013)<\/p>\n

Reid\u2019s statement that he does not understand the meaning of operational control indicates that the Senate Majority Leader is either ignorant of federal statute, unaware of Border Patrol practice, or simply does not care whether the border is secure.\u00a0 First, Congress defined the term \u201coperational control\u201d in the 2006 Secure Fence Act (a bill which he voted against). (See <\/em>Senate Roll Call Vote #262<\/a>).\u00a0 The Act defined operational control to mean \u201cthe prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.\u201d (See <\/em>P.L. 109-367<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Second, the Border Patrol for years measured its effectiveness by identifying the number of miles along the border that were under \u201coperational control.\u201d \u00a0Within the agency, the Border Patrol used\u00a0 a similar definition of \u201coperational control, \u201d characterizing it as the \u201cability to detect, identify, classify, and then respond to and resolve illegal entries along our U.S. borders.\u201d (See <\/em>Testimony of Chief Fisher; Feb. 15, 2011)<\/p>\n

Most important, however, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), has found that neither the northern nor southern border is close to meeting Congress\u2019 or the Administration\u2019s definition of \u201coperational control.\u201d In 2010, the GAO issued a report on border security, which noted that only 69 of roughly 4,000 miles along the northern border are under \u201coperational control,\u201d and that only 873 of about 2,000 miles are under \u201coperational control\u201d along the southern border.\u00a0\u00a0 (See <\/em> GAO-11-97<\/a>, Dec. 2010)\u00a0 The result of the government\u2019s failure to secure the borders has been a steady illegal alien population (despite some removals) and drug cartel activity in over 1,200 U.S. cities.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen how Majority Leader Reid\u2019s comments will be received by his colleagues in the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interview airing on the Sunday morning talk show, ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) confessed his ignorance of U.S. immigration law and was outright dismissive of the importance of border security. (The Hill, Feb. 3, 2013) When asked specifically about Senator Marco Rubio\u2019s (R-FL) statement that the government must achieve<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[5,3,1513,6,4,10,7],"tags":[447,1038,677],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14839,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/14839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}