Chertoff Sets Border Security as Top Priority This Year By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

Jan. 18, 2006 – 12:41 p.m.

As Congress prepares to wrestle anew with immigration and border security issues, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Wednesday set border security as his department’s top priority in 2006.

He avoided commenting directly on a sweeping border security bill passed by the House last year (HR 4437), which faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.

But he said any strategy to address border security should also include President Bush’s proposal for a “guest worker” visa program that would allow illegal immigrants to become legal residents and eventually even citizens.

“There has to be a guest worker program to address the economic pull, then you can focus on the national security threat,” he said.

Chertoff vowed to bolster staffing, technology and detention policy as part of his comprehensive “Secure Border Initiative.”

After the administration irritated appropriators last year with its budget for the Border Patrol – it proposed funding for just over 200 new agents, 10 percent of the annual number called for over five years by the 2004 intelligence overhaul law (PL 108-458) – the administration is expected to recommend funding for a greater number this year.

Congress shifted funding from first-responder grant programs to border security in the fiscal 2006 Homeland Security spending bill (PL 109-90), sparking complaints from cities and local governments. But Chertoff noted that some state and local government officials also have been calling for increased border security funding.

“If we take money to make that [border security ] a priority, does that mean we have to give less to the states themselves?” he said. “It may mean we just have to spend the money we have more wisely.”

Chertoff said his other priorities for the year, besides strengthening border security, would be enhancing preparations for catastrophic disasters and restructuring the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Both the preparedness efforts and the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina have drawn blistering criticism from the public, state and local governments and Congress.

Source: CQ Today