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[tvoivozhd <tvoivozd AT infionline.net>]

Bush integrity is an oxymoron---all important programs, including border 
security, all safety net programs brought into being by each of a half 
dozen prior Administrations, even Dole's Food Stamps are being 
sacrificed to the Bush Mania of rewarding his superbribers with 
unnecessary tax cuts and burdening our grandchildren with public debt. 
Consistent with the Bush lack of integrity and deception---he refuses to 
put the well-known Iraq costs in his budget---chooses to deceive 
taxpayers into thinking those costs are buried somewhere in his budget.

This business of Bush approval of added border agents, and 
surreptitiously removing them from the 2006 budget is typical Bush Bait 
and Switch.


Immigration officials hit lack of new hires


By Jerry Seper and Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Bush administration's decision not to hire 2,000 new Border Patrol 
agents for fiscal year 2006 will seriously hamper efforts to control 
illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border, said current and 
retired officials.
President Bush is expected to seek an increase of only about 200 agents 
for the new fiscal year, according to law-enforcement authorities and 
others, significantly short of the 2,000 per year authorized for each of 
the next five years in the recently passed intelligence overhaul bill.

Passed by Congress and signed into law by Mr. Bush in December, the bill 
authorized 10,000 new Border Patrol agents as part of Congress' response 
to the September 11 commission's findings. The panel revealed deep 
institutional failings and missed opportunities by U.S. authorities in 
stopping the al Qaeda terrorists who crashed jetliners into the World 
Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing about 3,000 people.
The proposed influx of new agents would nearly double the size of the 
Border Patrol in the next five years as concern increased over new 
terrorist threats and a significant rise in the number of assaults 
against agents assigned along the border. Fears were heightened 
particularly in Arizona, where agents captured more than 40 percent of 
the 1.15 million aliens caught last year trying to sneak into the country.
Agents on a 260-mile stretch of Arizona-Mexico border, known as the 
Tucson sector, are being assaulted at a rate of once every two days, 
according to Border Patrol statistics.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Undersecretary 
Asa Hutchinson, who heads border and transportation security, confirmed 
separately that Mr. Bush will not seek funding for the extra agents this 
year. His fiscal 2006 budget request is due in February.
Mr. Ridge, who has resigned and will leave office tomorrow, referred to 
the intelligence bill authorization of 10,000 agents as "fool's gold," 
saying it would be an inefficient use of Homeland Security funds. Mr. 
Hutchinson, who has quit effective March 1, said funding issues within 
the department precluded such a large increase in manpower.
Mr. Hutchinson told reporters in Arizona that although there would be 
"some increase" in the number of agents, he would "leave it to the 
president" to determine how many. He said the addition of 2,000 agents 
this year "would not be doable within our budget constraints."
The intelligence overhaul bill also authorized increasing the number of 
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to find 
and detain the 8 million to 12 million illegals in the United States 
from 2,000 to 6,000 and the number of beds where illegal aliens can be 
held from 20,000 to 60,000. The bill called for both changes in the next 
five years.
In a letter to Congress during the debate on the bill, Mr. Bush 
specifically praised those increases, calling them "an important step in 
strengthening our immigration laws."
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican and chairman of 
the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters last week that he was 
"disappointed in Secretary Ridge's comments" because they seemed to go 
against what Mr. Bush had promised in the letter.
In a letter to Mr. Bush, he asked the president to fully fund the 
increases authorized in the bill, particularly the number of Border 
Patrol agents — a staffing provision that was among the recommendations 
of the September 11 commission.
"Now that you have signed into law the conference report implementing 
the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, we as the conferees to the 
House-Senate conference committee are asking you to join us in seeking 
full funding for the resources it authorizes," the letter said.
It was signed by all five House Republican leaders on the intelligence 
bill: Mr. Sensenbrenner and Reps. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, chairman of 
the House International Relations Committee; Duncan Hunter of 
California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; Peter 
Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House intelligence committee; and 
David Dreier of California, chairman of the House Rules Committee.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), 
which represents all 11,000 of the agency's nonsupervisory agents, said 
it was a "mistake" not to fund the staffing increases. He said the NBPC 
would push members of Congress to persuade Mr. Bush to rework the 2006 
budget to include funding for the additional 2,000 agents.
"Foreign terrorists continue to pose an extreme threat to the safety of 
our nation, and illegal immigration remains out of control," said Mr. 
Bonner, a 27-year Border Patrol veteran.
He also described as "unwise" a Bush plan to substitute $64 million for 
sensors and surveillance technology and $10 million for unmanned aerial 
vehicles instead of increasing the number of agents, saying, "While such 
technology can be useful in pinpointing the location of those who cross 
our borders illegally, it cannot catch a single violator.
"As long as our borders remain porous, they are just as open to 
terrorists and other criminals as they are to illegal aliens," he said.
Michael W. Cutler, a retired U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service 
(INS) senior agent who lead major INS drug-trafficking investigations 
for more than two decades, said it was "difficult to understand" why the 
administration would not fund authorized staffing increases as Border 
Patrol agents face a significant increase in assaults, particularly in 
the volatile Tucson sector.
"Just last week, the State Department issued a traveler's warning about 
escalating violence in the northern regions of Mexico, including 
incidents of kidnapping and murder," Mr. Cutler said. "These crimes are 
being committed on our southern doorstep, many of them against our own 
agents. It's time they got a little help."