Operational Control Should Be Metric for Success
Washington, D.C. – Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, who represents Arizona’s Sixth District, today criticized the border security proposal outlined by the Department of Homeland Security’s Chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The five-year plan moves away from operational control as the metric for measuring effective and sustainable border security and shifts the focus of border security from being resource-based to risk-based.
“Unless the federal government has operational control, the border is not secured,” said Flake. “When the Tucson Sector looks like the Yuma Sector, the Obama Administration can start patting itself on the back. But to abandon operational control as the metric of success now makes me question the seriousness of the Administration’s proposal.”
“We have a plan in Congress that would put the federal government on the path to operational control – The Border Security Enforcement Act.”
In 2011, Congressman Flake introduced in the House H.R. 1507, the Border Security Enforcement Act of 2011, which is focused on increasing resources along the Southern U.S. border. Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl introduced the legislation in the Senate. Among the 10 key provisions of the bill is the deployment of up to 6,000 National Guard troops and 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents to the United States-Mexico border by 2016. It would create additional Border Patrol stations along the southwest border and six additional permanent Border Patrol Forward Operating Bases and would upgrade existing bases.
###



















