As the adjacent graphic shows, there has been substantial progress in some aspects of reforming our nation’s broken immigration system. It is in no way complete and we continue to lament the fact that Congress refuses to take up this issue in its entirety.

 

For the past year, The Monitor’s Editorial Board has dissected pieces of this complicated issue and offered various suggestions and solutions. We are delighted that many of the ideas we brought forth are currently being implemented or have already been enacted, as seen in the graphic. Unfortunately, many ideas have not been.

 

However, a few innovative lawmakers have steadfastly pursued unique laws and creative funding methods as a go-around to the partisan bottleneck in Congress that is stifling the passage of long-term and meaningful immigration reform measures. Some, like U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, have repeatedly demonstrated their success at incrementally pushing this issue forward and achieving some momentum where the vast majority of representatives have not.

 

Cuellar, who sits on the prestigious House Appropriations Committee, has smartly wielded his authority by influencing where and how federal money will be applied to help resolve our country’s immigration crisis.

 

He successfully inserted language into the 2016 House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science Subcommittee Bill — which has passed the full House and is headed to the Senate — that will fund about 55 additional U.S. immigration judges and increase the number of immigration courts and staff throughout the country to help reduce the enormous backlog of 400,000 cases.

 

A few months ago, he also helped pass legislation that requires the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) to reimburse cities and counties and nonprofit organizations that offered humanitarian assistance due to the tremendous influx of immigrants. The City of McAllen and Hidalgo County are among the top spenders in that category and desperately in need of repayment. Nevertheless, FEMA has yet to reimburse any funds, claiming that such items had not previously been budgeted.

 

Such is an example of how Washington can work, and hopefully will not transcend to the next item that Cuellar also helped pass — to bring greater transparency to the heated issue of full-time immigration detention facilities.

 

Last week, the full House passed the Fiscal Year 2016 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, which included language, that Cuellar inserted, that should bring more transparency within Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — the two federal agencies that deal with immigrants arriving in South Texas and oversee the care and treatment of those who are arrested. The bill will require monthly reporting of the happenings at these detention facilities.

 

Several lawmakers have toured the two full-time facilities in South Texas — in Dilley and Karnes City — and have called for closing both, saying it is an inhumane way to house immigrants.

 

We have not endorsed that. We respect our country’s right to detain those who commit crimes, which include crossing illegally our borders. However, we have repeatedly called for more transparency of these privately run facilities, and for better treatment of immigrants in these centers.

 

Therefore, the requirement to produce monthly reports to Congress on the treatment of these individuals, their medical care, how many are being housed, their ages, homelands, their length of stay, numbers of those deported and other information, is a smart move by Cuellar to ensure better transparency at these centers.

 

In addition, the measure will ensure continued funding for the Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence (PRIDE) Initiative — which Cuellar helped to usher in last year to ensure positive treatment of immigrants crossing our borders (both legally and illegally) — via agent training, education and possible usage of body cameras by agents in the Laredo Border Patrol sector, his office tells us.

 

“Thousands of people legally cross at our international ports of entry daily,” Cuellar said in a statement after Tuesday’s House passage of the bill. “These people are an integral part of our community, family and local economy and deserve to be treated fairly and respectfully by our agents. I look forward to my ongoing partnership with Customs and Border Protection to make sure we bring transparency and fair treatment to the people who are legally crossing.”

 

So do we.

 

In addition, we believe that the usage of bodyworn cameras and similar technology by federal agents will not only help to keep all agents acting on the highest level of professionalism possible, but could also help to safeguard them against any allegations that may be leveled against them as a usable means of video defense.

 

CBP is currently in the final phase of studying whether to use body cameras in the field and Cuellar’s office has requested that if Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson approves such a pilot program, possibly later this year, that it be launched in the Laredo Port of Entry.

 

We call on Johnson to approve this program and for testing to also be done in the RGV Border Patrol Sector, which includes McAllen, and which is the busiest sector for apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the entire United States.

 

We hope Johnson will initiate this new technology program, and start it here and that his office will be fully compliant in submitting monthly reports to Congress on the full-time immigration detention facilities where thousands of families are currently being held.

 

http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/editorial-transparency-of-our-border/article_126fe420-2e5f-11e5-af94-43a0bbd64a31.html