Speech #720184799

Mr. Chairman. in my judgment there is both merit and justice in the amendment offered by the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Immigration. the gentleman from New York . I contend there is even economy in it. If the Members knew the Mexican border as I know it. they would say the same thing. To begin with. this is the rankest kind of discrimination. as provided in the original bill. against a class of men who are rendering as fine service for as little money as any class of men in the Government service. In the second place. I believe the Government would have to spend more money on the aliens who come to this country in supporting them for a while and then deporting them than would be spent in keeping up this splendid service. For many years I have had personal and official relations with many of these men who work along the Mexican border. After the revolutions a few years ago in Mexico aliens by the thousands came into this country. May I remind you that along that meandering Rio Grande from El Paso to Brownsville there is a distance of approximately a thousand miles. Since the Government built the Elephant Butte Dam the Rio Grande near El Paso can be forded at most any season of the year. The result in my own little city was that our schools were literally jammed and packed with Mexican children. many of them children of immigrants from Mexico. Not only that. but our hospitals were filled to where we could not take care of them. and. still worse. our court dockets were crowded with Mexicans who had landed in jail for criminal offenses. Then came the border patrol. They rode up and down that border for several hundred miles. most of them on horseback. They subjected themselves to danger every day. and within the last year several of them have lost their lives. They are a fine. honest. patriotic. lawabiding class of men who are enforcing the immigration laws of this country. They have rendered a distinct service to the cause of Americanism. Why single them out and say that the clerk in the Treasury Department in Washington or the clerk in the post office in San Francisco will only take his 30 days furlough. but those men riding that long Mexican border keeping out the Chinese referred to by the chairman. and about which I know something personally. keeping out Mexicans by the thousands. when we can not provide employment for our own people. shall take a two to six months furlough without pay? We can not take care of the unemployment situation among our own people. If there ever was a time in the history of our country when we ought to see America and patronize America and employ Americans. it is now. There never was as good reason for strict enforcement of our immigration laws as now. Take away the border patrol along the Mexican border from San Diego. Calif.. along the Arizona and New Mexico line. from El Paso to Brownsville. a distance of about 2.100 milestake those men off another month in addition to the month furlough they. must take now without pay. and within less than six months thousands of Mexicans and other aliens will come across that border and be a charge on the charity of our people. violate our laws. and put our taxpayers to additional expense. There is no economy in it.