I returned from the southern border on May 1, having spent most of April on a trip to Arizona working with citizen groups assisting U.S. Border Patrol agents in their efforts to secure our border with Mexico.

The border is still as “unsecured” as it was when I made my first trip there in 2005 with the start-up of the Minuteman Project — an initiative of Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and Vietnam veteran from California. Gilchrist thought the effort could bring enough publicity to the U.S. open borders to force federal lawmakers to do something about it.

It didn’t happen. The number of people coming across the border is down significantly, but it is still, essentially, wide open.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, in 2005, the number of people apprehended when crossing illegally into the U.S. was 1.2 million, while in fiscal year 2013 it was down to 420,799. What is important, though, is the number of get-throughs — the ones who evade the patrol agents and continue on to their destinations in the U.S.

Chris Cabrera, vice president of National Border Patrol Council 3307, estimates in a recent video that 30 percent of illegal aliens coming across the border are apprehended. So, approximately one million are get-throughs (“The Border States of America with Nick Searcy,” Tea Party Patriots, 2014).”

To that, one must add the estimated 300,000 who overstay their visas each year (“Visa Overstays: Can They be Eliminated?” John Morton, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, March 25, 2010).

Contrast that to the number of removals and returns. Removals are the number of people deported from the interior of the country. Returns are the ones apprehended close to the border and sent back across the border. The total for both categories was 627, 792 in 2013 (“Aliens Removed or Returned: Fiscal Years 1892 to 2013,” Table 39, Department of Homeland Security).

Using a leaky boat analogy, our boat is leaking badly (1.3 million illegal aliens coming into the country) and we are not bailing fast enough (700,000 removals, plus returns) to keep the boat from sinking.

The border must be secured. Why isn’t it being done?

Cast your gaze 570 miles from here and to the southwest, to that once, and still, pestilent city on the Potomac.

For those people who were not around at the time, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act promised enforcement, along with amnesty, for 3 million illegal aliens. We got the amnesty; we didn’t get the enforcement.

They tried the same gambit in 2013 when the U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill by a vote of 68 to 30. Fortunately, it wasn’t taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives.

How does Maine’s Congressional delegation figure in all this?

U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King both voted for comprehensive immigration reform, officially known as S.744, the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act.”

Don’t you love the way they name these things? “Security,” “Opportunity,” and “Modernization” — who could oppose that?

The results would have been the same as in 1986: amnesty, this time for 11 million illegal aliens and little, if any, enforcement.

“Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

NumbersUSA is a non-profit, non-partisan education and research foundation immigration-reduction organization that gives the U.S. Congressmen and U.S. Senators a letter grade on immigration.

An “A” means that elected official voted for all (100 percent) of immigration measures that would serve to secure U.S. borders and reduce the current high levels of immigration. An “F” means they voted against all such measures.

What grades does Maine’s Congressional delegation get?

Rep. Chellie Pingree and Sen. King each get “F”; Sen. Collins gets a “D”; Rep. Bruce Poliquin gets a “B”.

Poliquin may be overrated; after all, one of his first votes was against amendments to the Defense Authorization Act that would have denied funding for President Obama’s program to defer deportation for up to 4.4 million illegal aliens. Poliquin was one of 74 Republicans to vote to fund Obama’s de facto amnesty program.

Mainers are definitely not in good hands with that crowd.

Robert Casimiro is a Bridgton resident and former executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform. He has been to the border seven times, and blogs at: https://mainersdiscussimmigration.wordpress.com/

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