Former Border Patrollers have their say

Some 200 former Border Patrol agents offered their prescription for immigration reform yesterday in the form of a position paper opposing any form of amnesty and calling for meaningful employer sanctions along with a secure border.

"Our group has an institutional knowledge that is deep and broad. There is recollection going back to the early 1950s represented here, and there is a cumulative experience base reckoned in terms of centuries," wrote Kent Lundgren, coordinator for the National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents. "Among us are individuals who have served at all levels within the Border Patrol and its old parent organization, the Immigration and Naturalization Service."

The group called for:

• securing the border and tight screening of those permitted to enter;

• opposition to any legislation that would allow aliens to remain in the country who have entered illegally and remained illegally;

• meaningful employer sanctions;

• a guest worker program with tight restrictions.

"We do not delude ourselves, nor would we try to fool the American people into believing that the border can be made completely secure: it can't," said the group. "But it can be made secure enough. Nor will we ever succeed in removing every illegal alien from this country. What we can do, through the adoption and use of well-considered and effectively enforced laws, is gain control of a situation that now, in our opinion, threatens the national well-being. It will not happen overnight, or easily, but it can happen. To do less is to invite further chaos."

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The group includes two former chiefs of the Border Patrol – Buck Brandemuehl and Hugh Brien.

"It appears that there is a move under way to saddle the nation once again with law containing the same flaws found in the 1986 act, but now on scale unimagined at that time," the statement said, referring to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform and Control Act that included an amnesty program. "We believe that the results for the nation will be disastrous if anything is passed that resembles what has been under debate in the Senate recently."

Many of the signers participated in the administration of the 1986 amnesty program. They say the problems with it included:

• Rampant fraud

• Judicial extension of the program

• The effects of chain migration – whereby six family members ultimately follow to join each alien who achieves legal status.

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