Introducing New House Intel Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes. Remember the Border?
News: Nancy Pelosi's pick to head the influential House Intelligence Committee used to be the top border agent in El Paso, back when he looked like an up-and-coming Republican. Now he may be the perfect man for one of the Dems' most difficult jobs.
December 3, 2006
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Back in 1993, Representative Silvestre Reyes, who was chosen Friday by House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi to lead the House Intelligence Committee, seemed less like an aspiring Democratic power broker than an ascendant right-wing Republican. The top border agent in El Paso, he’d delighted conservatives and incensed everyone from the local Catholic bishop to the Mexican government with a crackdown known as Operation Blockade, in which 400 border cops and a helicopter stanched a brisk flow of illegal immigrants across the Rio Grande. The militarized spectacle might have struck some in El Paso as a bit too evocative of Reyes’ days as a helicopter gunner in Vietnam. Protestors of the blockade occupied four of the city’s five international bridges, where they burned an American flag and an effigy of Uncle Sam. Two years later, Reyes’ opponents were no doubt surprised when he cashed in on his newly earned name recognition to run for Congress as a Democrat. Many in the party opposed him in the primary as too conservative, but support from prominent Republicans that November easily swept him to victory.
Some of those Republicans might now be wishing they’d stayed home. Reyes has emerged as a well-placed critic of Republican policies, not only on matters of intelligence (he voted against a congressional resolution authorizing the United States to go to war in Iraq), but also on immigration policy, where his intelligence post and border control credentials could become tools for Democrats to tackle the debate from a national security angle. Reyes opposes building the 700-mile border fence, which he calls an "empty gesture" that won’t stop migrants. He advocates addressing the root causes of illegal immigration by aiding border communities, providing workers with a path to legalization, and cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers. (He co-sponsored HR 98, which would ID workers with a "smart" social security card.) Reyes has simultaneously become immensely popular with Latinos in Congress, where he led the Hispanic Caucus, and in predominately Hispanic El Paso, where more than half of voters in a recent El Paso Times poll said he was doing a good or excellent job.
Reyes' former colleagues in the Department of Homeland Security see sensible ways for the intel chair to improve border control where Republicans have failed. T.J. Bonner, head of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing border control agents, thinks lawmakers should have put a priority on creating a comprehensive intelligence database to help agents weed out terrorists and criminals from the thousands of illegals that they routinely detain and release across the border each year. "The boots-on-the-ground agents at the border, those people all believe something like that would be tremendously helpful," he says. Reyes has supported the idea, but, Bonner adds, he’ll have to overcome major turf battles within the intelligence agencies if he pushes it.
One day into Reyes' new role as chairman-elect, the only thing certain is that he’ll be a busy man. He’s charged with overseeing intelligence activities regarding Iraq and global terrorist networks, as well as the surveillance of regular U.S. citizens. "It is important for the committee to ask the tough questions and enact strong policies to keep us safe," Reyes said in a press release, "while protecting the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans." Perhaps more than past appointees, he’ll keep in mind the rights of the non-Americans among us too.
Josh Harkinson is an Investigative Reporter at Mother Jones.
