Border crossers quizzed on Bush plan
What is asked
* Illegal border crossers apprehended here, like those caught in other states, are being surveyed by the U.S. Border Patrol about their motivation for making the trek. Among the questions here:
* Have you been to the United States before?
* Where are you going?
* Type of employment: with list of options such as construction, service industry, agriculture or any employment available.
* Are you entering because of the guest-worker program?
View the U.S. Border Patrol's questionnaire (PDF file) >>
Read more on this story, and get more border coverage on StarNet's Border site.
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
The U.S. Border Patrol is asking illegal entrants it apprehends whether President Bush's immigration proposal drove them to come to the United States.
The Tucson Sector started doing the surveys two weeks ago in its Douglas and Nogales stations, said Mike Albon, spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, Local 2544, the agency's local union.
"It's just additional paperwork that is not necessary. They're going to lie anyway, so it's meaningless," Albon said.
Tucson Sector spokesman Rob Daniels said he could not confirm the survey was being conducted and referred further questions to Washington, D.C.
Asking illegal border crossers questions is not new, said Mario Villarreal, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"We have done it periodically whenever there is a natural devastation - in a certain part of Mexico, for example," he said
But some experts believe Customs and Border Protection is trying to put the best face on something it can't control - the Border Patrol's hostility toward Bush's immigration proposal.
Under Bush's proposal, illegal border crossers already in the United States would have the opportunity to work here legally for three to six years. The proposal is vague, giving no cut-off date for when crossers would have had to enter the country, said Demetrios Papademetriou, the co-director of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.
"This is something that the Border Patrol is going to resist in their own way," he said.
The survey results probably will be used by agency sector chiefs to testify against Bush's immigration proposal before congressional hearings, he said.
He pointed to what he called the leading questions in the survey - such as "Do you plan to apply for amnesty if it is offered?" - as the type of question that arrested illegal entrants probably are going to answer only one way: yes.
The question gives the illegal entrant an opportunity beyond deportation, and so "what else can they say?" Papademetriou said.
If the Border Patrol can come back with a high percentage of surveys marked "yes" to amnesty, the agency will be able to show Bush's proposal is driving up illegal entry, Papademetriou said.
"They're being asked to do things that are fundamentally contradictory. Now the folks back in Washington are turning the tables on the agency," he said.
* Contact reporter Michael Marizco at 573-4213 or mmarizco@azstarnet.com. |
