ACLU on Immigration Reform: Reduce Border Security

So the ACLU has their own plans for immigration reform, and you’ll never guess what they want to do about border security.

Oh, you guessed?

They want to reduce it.

In response to the proposal by the “Gang of Eight”, the ACLU responded:

The framework released by the ‘Gang of Eight’ rightly includes the creation of a roadmap to citizenship, but also includes provisions that endanger everyone’s civil liberties and do nothing to reverse the recent extraordinary and unwarranted increase in wasteful spending on border security.

Chris Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel:

The outline’s call for employers to be mandated to use E-Verify, an expensive electronic employment-verification system, is a thinly-disguised national ID requirement that undermines the privacy of every American worker while imposing new burdens on businesses. Mandatory E-Verify would not only lead to discrimination against those who look or sound “foreign,” but also increase the risk of identity theft and make it harder to get a job.

Vicki B. Gaubeca, Director of ACLU of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights:

While the plan released by the Gang of Eight provides a roadmap to citizenship that is encouraging, this progress should not be contingent upon more border enforcement. Already, there are almost 10 Border Patrol agents per mile along the U.S.-Mexico border–if lined up from San Diego to Brownsville they could see each other. This is on top of all the other federal agents deployed at the border, more than 650 miles of border fencing, and drones patrolling our skies, among other technologies. Since 2007, we have seen border enforcement on steroids. The fact is, there is a 40-year low in migrant apprehensions at the border, and border communities are safer than ever. Reform must downsize wasteful and unnecessary spending on the border. The 2012 election was a game-changer, not only in terms of demanding a roadmap to citizenship for new Americans, but also for demanding sanity be restored to our border enforcement efforts.

Well, what the hell. Why aren’t they paving the road with gold while they’re at it?