On February 15, 2011, a House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security hearing revealed that the Obama Administration was not adhering to the 2006 Secure Fence Act. That law requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to achieve and maintain operational control of the borders and defined \u201coperational control\u201d as \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 Instead, Chairwoman Candice Miller (R-Mich.) 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.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Obama Administration officials further revealed that they were not using the statutory definition of \u201coperational control.\u201d Instead, Michael Fisher, Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol (CBP) testified that the agency prefers to define \u201coperational control\u201d as the \u201cability to detect, identify, classify, and then respond to and resolve illegal entries along our U.S. borders.\u201d Then-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said at the time: \u201c[I]t\u2019s important to recognize that \u2018operational control\u2019 is a very narrow term of art in Border Patrol lingo\u2026 [it]should not be construed as kind of an overall assessment of what\u2019s happening at the border.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remarkably, instead of investing the energy needed to secure the border (as required by law), the Obama Administration decided to abandon<\/a> the use of \u201coperational control\u201d as a metric\u2014both the statutory version and the definition illegally concocted by the Administration.\u00a0 Perhaps most appalling is that DHS \u2013 the agency responsible for ensuring the security of the United States \u2013 abandoned the old metric for gauging border security without formulating a new metric.<\/p>\n In February 2013, Napolitano promised that DHS would have a new metric by the end of the year. The calendar has turned to 2014 and DHS has yet to release a new standard, Napolitano is gone, and the border is still not secure.<\/p>\n Read more at FAIR\u2019s President Obama’s Record of Dismantling Immigration Enforcement<\/a>.