Senator Tom Coburn released his Senate Homeland Security Committee’s report on immigration this week, and the findings demonstrate the dire situation America is in. Though the report has been all but ignored by Obama’s cheerleaders in the mainstream media, anyone who cares about the future of the country should be interested in what Coburn has to say.
According to the report, less than 3 percent of illegal aliens will ever be deported. Worse, we still have more than 700 miles of unsecured border between the United States and Mexico, meaning that the problem is far from solved. The report hints at serious corruption in the Border Patrol agency, but concludes that the worst of the problem is based in policy rather than enforcement.
“Ten years of oversight of the Department of Homeland Security finds that the Department still has a lot of work to do to strengthen our nation’s security,” Coburn said of the report. “Congress needs to review the Department’s mission and programs and refocus DHS on national priorities where DHS has a lead responsibility.”
Fight or Flight?
The report comes as the Republican-controlled Congress comes into session for the first time, and many analysts expect that immigration will be one of the first issues on the docket. Several congressmen have indicated a likely January vote on Obama’s executive actions, but that’s going to be met with a quick veto even if it gets to the president’s desk. The next step will be a fight over funding. For now, the Department of Homeland Security is funded only until the end of February.
Some have advocated attaching a border-security bill to DHS funding, which would grant Republicans a small victory while still allowing the administration to carry out Obama’s wishes. But that sort of victory may not be enough for voters who wanted to see Republicans take a harder stance against Obama’s amnesty. In a recent interview, Senator Ted Cruz said, “If Republicans stand united in January or February and use the constitutional check and balance, the power of the purse, to stop President Obama’s illegal amnesty, nobody will be happier than I.”
But that kind of talk sounded more likely back in October. Since winning the midterm elections, Republican leaders have widened the gap between the establishment and the Tea Party. Boehner and McConnell seem more interested in greasing the wheels of the congressional treadmill than they do in appeasing conservatives. Libertarians like Cruz have been marginalized, and conservatives on the ground are worried that, in the end, Obama is going to get everything he originally wanted.
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