Din over border money grows

By Mark Flatten, Tribune
East Valley Tribune

USA - Top state lawmakers are asking their federal counterparts to keep the heat on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to account for money that an agency whistle-blower says should have been spent to help secure the Arizona border.Republican leaders from the House and Senate said it is "unfathomable" that money meant to help bring technology to the Arizona border could have been misspent on bureaucratic initiatives in Washington, D.C.

That charge was leveled by Charles Cape, southwestern zone manager for Homeland Security, in a story published July 31 by the Tribune.
"It is disturbing enough that Arizona is burdened by the lion's share of the federal government's inability to gain operational control over our border," the lawmakers say in an Aug. 9 letter to Republican members of the state's congressional delegation. "The fact that tens of millions of dollars intended to tackle this problem have now possibly vanished is unfathomable."

The letter was signed by GOP leaders, including House Speaker Jim Weiers of Phoenix, and Senate President Ken Bennett of Prescott.
Cape told the Tribune he was sent to Arizona to find ways to use wireless technology to help guard the border against terrorists, smugglers and illegal immigrants. But when he tried to get money for the system, he found it had been misspent on nrelated programs by top agency administrators, despite specific instructions from Congress to use the funds for wireless technology, he said.

After the Tribune story was published, Reps. J.D. Hayworth and John Shadegg, both R-Ariz., took Cape's complaints to the House Committee on Homeland Security, which opened an investigation.
Before speaking with the Tribune, Cape filed separate complaints with Homeland Security's inspector general and the independent federal Office of Special Counsel.

Those investigations languished until Hayworth and Shadegg made inquiries.In their letter to Arizona's congressmen, the state lawmakers expressed sympathy for Cape's frustration in trying to report his assertions that the border money was misspent.
"It is particularly noteworthy that a high-ranking official with DHS would feel so discouraged about the status of the funds that he was compelled to bring this matter to the media after apparently exhausting every other avenue within his own department," the letter says.
House Majority Leader Steve Tully, R-Phoenix, whose district includes Paradise Valley, said he began circulating a letter asking Congress to investigate Cape's charges shortly after the Tribune story was published. But since members of the state's delegation acted quickly to pursue the charges, the letter was rewritten to express the lawmakers' concerns, Tully said.

Homeland Security has said the money was not misspent. The equipment Cape requested has not reached the border because it must go through normal testing and procurement channels, said agency spokesman Larry Orluskie in a previous interview.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9000226/

__________________________________________________

Ernesto Portillo Jr.: Polls guide the pols on illegal entry



Opinion by Ernesto Portillo Jr.
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

So Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is playing politics when she declared a state of emergency and released $1.5 million to Pima and three neighboring countries to pay for costs due to undiluted illegal immigration.
Politics? Yes, said some shocked and awed Arizona Republicans.
I'm stunned to know politics is being played in the parlor of illegal immigration, to paraphrase actor Claude Rains playing police inspector Louie Renault in the movie "Casablanca."
Just like Rains' character knew there was gambling in the club's back room, we know politics is in play over illegal immigration. We just act shocked.
From President Bush to local elected officials, Democrats and Republicans are jostling for the best position to appeal to voters.
Politicians read the polls. Voters want politicians to act and sound tough on illegal immigration, even if the get-tough measures will not resolve illegal immigration fueled by economic and political forces that can outmuscle stricter controls.
Napolitano is reading the polls, as is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. The two Dem-ocrats calculated political gains and losses when they declared an emergency zone in eight counties abutting Mexico.
Napolitano wants to get re-elected next year. She's looking to deflect Republican criticism of "being soft" on illegal immigration.
Before declaring Pima, Santa Cruz, Cochise and Yuma counties disaster zones, she had taken several public steps to ward off Republican chiding.
In February she asked the federal government to pay the state $118 million that Arizona spent to incarcerate undocumented immigrants.
Republican opponents still criticized her. But in other parts of the country, Republican officeholders have made the same headline-grabbing gestures.
Also this year, Napolitano called for a meeting of state and local enforcement officials - in Flagstaff, away from the border and media attention - to discuss strategies to deal with criminal activity related to illegal immigration.
Republicans play politics, too.
Last month the Los Angeles Times published a story that Bush and his advisers will craft an immigration-reform plan that will attract Latino voters in the 2006 congressional elections.
Bush and some top Republicans believe an angry debate over illegal immigration will split the party and alienate the growing Latino electorate, said the July 24 story.
Other Republicans want to follow a different political script.
When Don Goldwater, a political unknown, announced his wish to be Napolitano's Republican challenger, he made sure he would make news. He blamed virtually all our problems on undocumented immigrants.
Likewise, Randy Graf is taking his second shot to unseat Jim Kolbe in the Republican-safe 8th Congressional District on a promise he can put the squeeze on illegal entrants.
Build a fence? Go ahead, since it plays well even if hungry and jobless people will find a way over or under it.
Put more guns and guards on the border? That's a vote-getter even if increased border enforcement in the past 10 years has not led to lower illegal immigration.
People want solutions to reduce illegal immigration but really don't want to pay the price.
An effective solution is a guest-worker program for undocumented immigrants and a program to legalize the millions of undocumented immigrants here.
But that would require politicians to accept a humane comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws. That hasn't happened because too many politicians are busy playing politics.

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/sports/89214.php