Obama administration plans an “index” of southwest border security (incl environmental damage)

Houston Chronicle ^ | 5/4/2011

[markomalley]

The Obama administration is taking a new tack in an effort to blunt GOP criticism of security along the southwestern border and lay the groundwork for yet another bid for comprehensive immigration reform in time for the 2012 election.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano unveiled plans to develop an objective yardstick to “comprehensively and systematically” measure enforcement progress along the U.S. border with Mexico during testimony Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security.

The planned “border security index” would help combat “false and unsupported claims” that the southwest border is “wracked by violence” and inundated by waves of so-called “spill over violence” from Mexico’s drug wars, said Napolitano, a former governor of the border state of Arizona.

“Individual crimes do not tell the whole story,” Napolitano insisted. “With the reliable and trusted measures of border security that we are developing and validating with third-party experts, we can provide an accurate picture of the state of the southwest border, prevent misperceptions about these communities and more precisely guide future border security investments.”

Napolitano said describing “operational control” of the border is “an archaic term” and a “limited term of art” that “makes for a sound bite, but it doesn’t actually reflect the reality of what’s happening at the border.”

The index being developed by Customs and Border Protection will include crime data, immigration data, economic data and other information that will give authorities a better sense of the quality of life along the U.S.-Mexico border.

[markomalley]

Per this Arizona Republic article (link only per FR rules), the index would look at community concerns about environmental damage, economic losses and feelings of personal safety.

In other words, if you can't make progress using real numbers, invent your own. How typical for this regime.

[penelopesire]

When is the misery index going to make a comeback?

[basil]

Hey—if you don’t want to do anything to stop illegal dim voters from crossing our borders, the next best thing is to do a “study”, which will not be finished until after the next elections..................

[Truth29]

This reads like it is from The Onion.

[stephenjohnbanker]

The Arizona Republic is to the left of the New York Times.

[rocksblues]

My first thought also.

[KarlInOhio]

Let me guess. The environmental impact will focus on how a fence will prevent the clockwise spiral striped lizard from reaching its mating grounds and the ICE trucks run over them when they are crossing the road, but will ignore the tons of trash the illegals dump everywhere they go when treking northward.

[Honorary Serb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KcwIy_fQuU

[HollyB]

IOW, Be prepared for an increase of the propaganda.

“The planned “border security index” would help combat “false and unsupported claims” that the southwest border is “wracked by violence” and inundated by waves of so-called “spill over violence” from Mexico’s drug wars, said Napolitano, a former governor of the border state of Arizona.”

[Boogieman]

But will this index be color-coded?

[SweetCaroline]

*

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[catnipman]

“This reads like it is from The Onion.”

Yeah, when I first glanced at this, I looked at the source to see if it was satire. Sad to say, not.

Notice that the whole focus of this study is to prove that Obammunist border control is just hunky-dorky, that life is just a bowl of peaches on the border, and that nothing more need be done than what the Obammunists are pretending that they are already doing.