Border Bill Signing

President Obama on this Friday will sign into law that $600 million border security bill which was rushed through the House and Senate this week.

The bill won final approval on Thursday in the Senate, as two Senators brought that body back into a special August session for a half hour.

"I have made securing our Southwest Border a top priority since I came to office," the President said in a written statement released Thursday afternoon, as he used the approval of the bill to make another pitch for overall immigration legislation.

"So these steps will make an important difference as my administration continues to work with Congress toward bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders, and restore responsibility and accountability to our broken immigration system."

How do I say this best?  Fat chance.  As in, fat chance that the Congress will act on "comprehensive" immigration reform this year.

But that isn't stopping Democrats from urging action.

As for what's in this bill, here is the release from the White House, to show you the talking points of the Obama Administration on this bill.

Fact

Sheet on the President's Strategic and Integrated Southwest Border Security Strategy:

$600 Million in Additional Resources

·      

communications to support enforcement activities, and $80 million for new ICE agents and supporting investments along the border, and $8 million to train new law enforcement staff.

• The supplemental provides $196 million for the Department of Justice to surge federal law enforcement officers in the Southwest border region and the temporary deployment of personnel to high crime areas. Location of assignments will be operationally dependent. Specifically, Justice funding would increase the presence of federal law enforcement in the Southwest border districts by adding seven (7) ATF Gunrunner Teams, five (5) FBI Hybrid Task Forces, additional DEA agents, equipment, operational support, and additional attorneys including over thirty (30) prosecutors and immigration judges. It also would provide additional funds for detention and incarceration of criminal aliens in coordination with Department of Homeland Security enforcement activities.

• The supplemental request would also provide funding to support Mexican law enforcement operations with ballistic analysis, DNA analysis, information sharing, technical capabilities, and technical assistance, including over twenty (20) Deputy US Marshals dedicated to the Mexican Investigative Liaison Program and the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) to address cross-border investigations.

Additional

National Guard Deployment

Unprecedented Resources Already Being Dedicated

• Doubled the personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces by deploying additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents;
• Tripled the number of ICE intelligence analysts focused on cartel violence along the Southwest border;
• Quintupled deployments of ICE Border Liaison Officers.
• Begun screening, for the first time, 100 percent of southbound rail shipments for illegal weapons, drugs, and cash;
• Deployed thousands of technology assets along the Southwest Border and currently has 150 operational aerial assets along the Southwest border.
• Deployed two new DEA SWB enforcement groups in El Paso and Phoenix, and added 25 new DEA intelligence analysts;
• Deployed two new FBI Border Corruption Task Forces in Del Rio and Houston.
• Added 200 new U.S. Marshal service positions including Deputy U.S. Marshals and Asset Forfeiture Criminal Investigators at the Southwest Border to increase fugitive apprehension and cross border violent crime response; to identify and seize the financial assets of the cartels; to increase court security and prisoner operations; and to investigate and mitigate security threats and improve security awareness for judiciary and other court personnel;
• Surged ATF agents to Arizona to target gun trafficking to Mexico. 
• Hired nearly 50 additional Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys to prosecute drug and arms trafficking and bulk cash smuggling by the Mexican cartels, and added five DOJ attorneys to focus exclusively on extradition requests from Mexico. There were 107 extraditions from Mexico to the United States in 2009, a record, compared to 12 in 2000;
• Increased cooperation with U.S. and Mexican law enforcement to target money laundering and bulk-cash smuggling, including $50 million in DOJ grants to federal, state, and local law enforcement, a 120-day multifaceted ICE operation, and the hiring of a DOJ prosecutor dedicated exclusively to targeting money laundering cases in and to Mexico;
• Resumed DOJ asset-sharing of forfeited proceeds with the Mexican government as a result of successful bi-lateral criminal investigations;
• Trained 5,462 Mexican prosecutors and investigators at the state and federal level and in the executive and judicial branches, on target to reach 9,261 trained by the end of 2010;
• Planned the expansion of El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) to include additional staffing to collect, analyze and disseminate intelligence and support law enforcement operations against a broad array of transnational threats; and

·       Repositioned $80 million of existing resources in the Border Security Fencing, Infrastructure, and Technology account to higher priority replacement and repair of fences to enhance physical infrastructure along the Southwest border.

• Seized, through the combined efforts of CBP and ICE, more than $103 million in illegal currency, more than 1.7 million kilograms of drugs and more than 1,400 firearms - increases of more than $47 million, more than 450,000 kilograms of drugs and more than 300 firearms compared to 2008.
• Seized, through the combined efforts of CBP and ICE, more than $39.2 million in southbound illegal currency - an increase of more than $29.4 million compared to 2008.
• DOJ-led multi-agency law enforcement investigations (which may include DEA, FBI, ATF, ICE, CBP, and others) "Project Deliverance" resulted in more than 2,200 arrests, seizure of approximately 74 tons of drugs and $154 million in U.S. currency; "Project Coronado" resulted in the arrest of 303 individuals in 19 states and seizure of $3.4 million in U.S. currency, 729 pounds of methamphetamine, 62 kilograms of cocaine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons and 109 vehicles; "Operation Xcellerator" resulted in the arrest of more than 750 individuals on narcotics-related charges and the seizure of more than 23 tons of narcotics and more than $59 million in cash;