DHS Plans to Curb Illegal Immigration Revealed

New border agents could skip polygraph test: report
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 13, 2017 11:28 AM CDT
DHS Plans to Curb Illegal Immigration Revealed
A Border Patrol agent walks near the secondary fence separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego.   (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

How President Trump might curtail illegal immigration is laid out in a new Department of Homeland Security memo. How he might afford it is not, reports the Washington Post. The assessment reveals plans to quickly hire 5,000 new Customs and Border Protection agents—just 500 would cost up to $100 million—by allowing some to bypass polygraph and physical fitness tests. A portion of the entrance exam testing Spanish language skills may also be eliminated, though agents will still be required to demonstrate "the appropriate level of proficiency in Spanish," the assessment reads. A former CBP official calls such changes "preposterous," per the New York Times, but a rep for the department says the assessment is only an unapproved draft.

Though it notes funding is not guaranteed, the assessment also suggests border wall construction begin in the Rio Grande Valley and San Diego sectors. It adds at least 33,000 more detention beds have been found to house undocumented immigrants, though 2,100 remained unused as of late last year. Homeland Security is also considering expanding immigration enforcement powers to local law enforcement in at least 18 new jurisdictions, the assessment notes, while getting Mexico to hold individuals with cases in US immigration courts, who would then appear by videoconference, is another idea included. Video equipment would cost $50,000 per location, as opposed to $400,000 per location for US judges to be sent to courts at US ports of entry. (More Donald Trump stories.)

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