Obama to close nine border patrol stations

Posted on July 11 2012 – 9:09 AM – Posted by: Doug Brady

First Obama sues any state that seeks to protect its border. Then, he ignores the law and unilaterally announces amnesty for close to a million illegal aliens.  Now, to remove any doubt that his re-election is more important than, well, anything at all, he decides to close 9 border patrol stations in four states, via Fox News:

The Obama administration is moving to shut down nine Border Patrol stations  across four states, triggering a backlash from local law enforcement, members of  Congress and Border Patrol agents themselves.

Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug  and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico  border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and  central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of  illegal immigrant activity — one soon-to-be-shuttered station in Amarillo,  Texas, is right in the middle of the I-40 corridor; another in Riverside,  Calif., is outside Los Angeles.

The Obama Administration, naturally, claims closing these border control stations is consistent with securing America’s borders.  I’m not making this up:

“These deactivations are consistent with the strategic goal of securing  America’s borders, and our objective of increasing and sustaining the certainty  of arrest of those trying to enter our country illegally,” CBP spokesman Bill  Brooks said in a statement. “By redeploying and reallocating resources at or near the border, CBP will  maximize the effectiveness of its enforcement mandate and align our investments  with our mission.”

[...]

Brooks said that the closures do not mean agents will be out of contact.

“Though Border Patrol agents would no longer be located in these areas, the  Border Patrol intends to maintain strong and meaningful law enforcement  partnerships with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement  agencies in these areas through continuing to actively share intelligence and  information” and other avenues, he said.

Let’s see if we can sort out what the Obama Administration is saying. We need to redeploy the federal Border Patrol agents directly to the border. This will leave state and local law enforcement, through “strong and meaningful” partnerships with the federal government, to assume responsibility for apprehending illegals once they inevitably cross the porous U.S.-Mexican border and flee into the interior. Do I have that right? Is my logic flawed somehow?

Assuming that it’s not, I’m confused about something: Didn’t Obama recently terminate a key program whose only purpose was to foster cooperation between the federal government and state and local law enforcement in the area of illegal immigration?  Why yes, he did, via Daniel Horowitz:

After the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s right to contact federal agents concerning the legal status of those apprehended for other lawless activity, Obama summarily terminated the 287(g) program.  The 287(g) program is a vital state-federal partnership created in 1996 in an effort to assist local law enforcement to deal with illegals apprehended in their jurisdictions.  It has enjoyed bipartisan support and has served as the basis for any “comprehensive immigration” agreement dealing with border enforcement.  Yet, with the flick of the wrist, Obama decided to terminate this act of Congress in order to punish Arizona and ensure that their immigration-related phone calls are ignored.  But fear not, they did set up a hotlinefor illegals to air their grievances about Arizona law enforcement officers.  Welcome to Saul Alinsky’s America.

One would think that Republicans would jump on this appalling disregard of our laws.  Unlike the first administrative amnesty granted a few weeks ago, this one essentially grants amnesty to everyone – even those who came here from “a fault of their own.”  So why is there no response?  Is it the polls?  Well, ironically, Rasmussen published a poll a few hours before the SCOTUS decision showing that, by a 55-26 margin, Americans wanted the law to be upheld.

So what this effectively means is that once the illegals get past the border, they’re home free. State and local law enforcement officials, with their hands tied by the federal government, can’t do much of anything other than watch. If they call the feds for assistance, they’ll be ignored per Obama’s orders. Understandably, the people who are actually concerned about illegal immigration — which excludes the Obama Administration – are not amused:

But at least one Border Patrol supervisor in Texas has called on local  officers to “voice your concerns” to elected officials, warning that the  “deactivation” will remove agents from the Texas Panhandle, among other places.  Several members of Congress have asked Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher to  reconsider the plan. And local officials are getting worried about what will  happen once the Border Patrol leaves town, since they rely on those federal  officials to assist in making immigration arrests.

“It could impact us tremendously since we’ve only got two agents up here now  for 26 counties,” Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas told FoxNews.com.

[...]

Border Patrol’s resident agent in charge in Amarillo expressed similar worries,  in a recent memo to local law enforcement alerting them to the planned closure.  The official, Robert Green, warned that the “entire complement” of two agents  would be reassigned from Amarillo to somewhere closer to the border. He said  “there is no active plan” right now for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to  fill the void on assisting local officials with stops.

Nor will there be. Obama has an election to win, and he needs every vote he can get. Whether the votes he receives are legal or not is inconsequential.

Article source: http://conservatives4palin.com/2012/07/obama-to-close-nine-border-patrol-stations.html