Democrats Bow to Republican Border Security Lies, Spend $600 Million On Non-Solutions

America's Voice Blog

Posted 08/05/10 at 02:12pm

Today, leading Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) unveiled a plan to spend an additional $600 million on border security.

This follows months of Republican complaints that the President is "doing next to nothing to secure the border," despite the cold hard fact that spending on border security is higher than ever and that crime rates in Arizona are down. Republicans have been pegged with blatantly false claims such as Phoenix being the “number two kidnapping capital of the world” (false) or that there is a frightening surge of beheadings in the state (false).

According to America’s Voice Executive Director Frank Sharry:

The irony of course is that the U.S.-Mexico border is in fact safer than ever, our spending on border security is the highest in U.S. history, and illegal immigration rates are at a historic low. Nevertheless, Democrats are charging towards the red flag waved by the Republicans who mindlessly repeat the mantra of border security first. They all know that the only way to secure the border is through comprehensive immigration reform that fixes our dysfunctional immigration system instead of playing politics with it.

They know that hundreds of millions more in border funding won't crack down on illegal hiring, won't deal humanely and practically with the 11 million undocumented immigrants settled in the U.S., and won't reform the legal immigration system going forward. But hey, this is Washington, where gamesmanship trumps statesmanship.

In other words, the facts matter little to those Republicans who can’t seem to do anything on immigration except play politics or to Democrats who, instead of pressing for a real solution that the vast majority of Americans support, continue to play a losing game of catch-up to politicians like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The only ones winning here are those trying to obstruct real solutions to solving our immigration crisis. Americans - and American taxpayers - deserve better.