On Wednesday, I attended a Homeland Security Committee mark-up on the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Authorization Act (H.R. 3846). There was bipartisan agreement on the Committee over the importance of this legislation. Most importantly, for the first time in the agency’s history, this legislation would establish CBP in law while also promoting principles of stability and transparency within the agency. To help in this process, the Committee accepted all four of my amendments, some of which included: • Providing greater congressional oversight on 4th Amendment issues such as personal searches performed by CBP Agents and Officers; • Strengthening the minimum standards of the short-term custody facilities that CBP uses to hold migrants, including proper access to food and water and basic legal rights; and • Ensuring that CBP provides Congress information on any incident resulting the use of deadly force by an Agent or Officer.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:59:11 +0000