PLEASE DEFINE ‘SECURE BORDER’
It is a paradox. The nation’s political attention seems to be focusing more intensely than at any time since 2007 on the possibility that Congress really may produce immigrationreform legislation.
Serious Republicans, like Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and John McCain of Arizona, are locked in close-quarters negotiations with serious Democrats like Charles Schumer of New York and Richard Durbin of Illinois. They keep telling us they are close.
Yet, at the same time, one of the key ingredients in the debate has become amazingly uncertain, infuriatingly elusive:
What, in fact, constitutes a secure border?
It is an elemental question, and one of paramount importance to the “Gang of Eight” U.S. senators working feverishly toward comprehensive immigration reform. But it is a question that the Obama administration, for reasons that remain difficult to fathom, has concluded cannot be fairly answered.
In a wide-ranging discussion with the Editorial Board late Friday afternoon, Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, addressed that perplexing position, as well as other concerns such as the growing threat of cyberattacks waged against the country’s electronic infrastructure.
She also talked about what sounds like a promising development, that of President Barack Obama’s commitment to hiking spending on U.S.-Mexico ports of entry, including those in Arizona. Considering the sclerotic mess at so many of these ports, especially for truck traffic, caused by small, outmoded facilities with too few lanes, the announcement was good news, indeed.
Border-security metrics
But it was the question of border security that dominated our discussion. And it split in conflicting directions. The former Arizona governor emphatically insists the border is more secure, citing, in part, the fact that apprehensions of illegal border crossers are down an astonishing 80 percent from a year ago and 50 percent from five years ago.
At the same time, however, Napolitano contends that those who use apprehensions as the sole metric for measuring border security are raising “straw men.” There are, she said, many metrics for measuring security.
Most of those metrics seem to be moving in a good direction, despite recent Customs and Border Protection figures indicating a slight uptick in arrests from a year earlier.
Said Napolitano: “Using the analogy of baseball, there is no single statistic that tells you someone is a good player.”
Well, yes. But despite the clear complexity of determining who qualifies as a Hall of Famer, ballplayers nearly every year join the likes of DiMaggio and Ruth in Cooperstown. Yet Napolitano’s department has been searching for the proper combination of border-security metrics for over two years.
It seems clear that Napolitano’s Homeland Security is no closer to a definition of security, whether it be “operational control” or “situational awareness” or something else.
As a result, we can only conclude the administration does not wish to be held responsible for defining the measurement that Republicans are holding up as the key to an immigration reform law. That is not a helpful position to take at this critical moment when lawmakers seem so tantalizingly close to an agreement.
Border-security metrics are essential to a bipartisan resolution of the issue. Republicans simply will not agree to reform without it, and indications are they may propose some of their own. It would be far better to have the department with the boots on the ground at the border leading this discussion about security metrics.
Thwarting cyberattacks
The Homeland Security secretary addressed other concerns, chief among them the disquieting (and rising) threat of cyberattacks, especially against the national power grid. “These attacks are only increasing in frequency and sophistication,” Napolitano said.
It is not difficult to read between the lines about where Napolitano’s concerns lie. One regards long-standing worries about the level of resources devoted to cybersecurity, including private-sector resources.
The other is the difficulties her department faces in recruiting the kind of top high-tech talent required to staff the nation’s front lines in cyberwarfare. World-class computer geeks do not come cheap. And they often do not easily qualify for security clearances.
The hard truth about effective cybersecurity precautions is that American companies often are unwilling to share information about perceived cyberthreats for fear of being sued for divulging that information. A bill addressing exactly this issue was diluted into pointlessness on the House floor last year.
Napolitano said the administration supports tort reform that protects companies willing to share what they know of cyberthreats. Considering the enormous stakes, that is good news indeed.