The Senate signaled bipartisan support for the heightened militarization of the United States-Mexico border Monday, passing an immigration overhaul bill that, if implemented, will double border police to 40,000, fill the skies within 100 miles of the border with drones and helicopters, and erect a stunning 700 miles of new border walls.<\/p>\n
The price tag of this military buildup?\u00a0An estimated 46 billion dollars<\/a>.<\/p>\n Colorlines<\/em>\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0concern among those who must live in the shadow of the escalated military presence:<\/p>\n \u201cBorder communities, and the DREAMers and families who live in the Southwest, have already been subjected to criminalization and militarization,\u201d Evelyn Rivera of the group United We Dream said in a statement. \u201cThis amendment is based on the false notion that our border is not secure or there hasn\u2019t been adequate enforcement up to this point.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Border militarization was thrown into the bill by republican senators as a\u00a0condition<\/a>\u00a0of including a track to citizenship for 11 million undocumented people already living in the United States.<\/p>\n Yet, it ultimately passed with the muscle of democrats, who threw their weight behind it with67 votes and 27 from republicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n The bill makes\u00a0small improvements<\/a>\u00a0to due process to immigrants incarcerated in U.S. criminal justice and immigration courts and slightly extends oversight of infamous Homeland Security jails. However, it will also\u00a0require<\/a>\u00a0employers to cross-check potential hires with federal databases to check their citizenship status.<\/p>\n Furthermore, it will continue incarceration prosecutions for ‘immigration offenses.’ As the ACLU\u00a0reports<\/a>, today there are a stunning 100,000 immigration prosecutions as year as undocumented people are shuttled into overcrowded prisons with dismal human rights records.<\/p>\n While the bill is being touted by democrats as a bipartisan compromise that allows a fast-track for citizenship, many immigrant justice groups are saying the bill is so compromised with the border militarization amendment that it will ultimately hurt immigrant communities.<\/p>\n The\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n A coalition of groups representing border communities urged senators to reject the amendment, which they called \u201can example of excessive and wasteful government spending\u201d and a \u201cpoorly thought-out policy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is an assault on our system of checks and balances and seriously threatens the quality of life of border residents,\u201d wrote the border groups, in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n