Speech #820177646

It will be recalled that last year when this same proposal was before the House. there was a request for funds for these various additional purposes. When the attention of the House was called to the purposes for which they were designed. and when an amendment was offered by the gentleman from California the House promptly struck out that entire request. Now the procedure that is followed at the present time is that if illegal aliens are picked up anywher6. they are put in jail where they belong. They have jails all up and down the border from California clear down to the Gulf of Mexico. The work has been proceeding so far as I know very well under that arrangement. Last year when the House struck out the request. $3.000.000 was restored in the Senate. and inally the conferees cut it to $1.000.000. Out of that $1.000.000 instead of building detention camps which they now claim they need. what was it used for? It was used principally. according to this hearing. on a gigantic airlift taking illegal aliens away into the interior of Mexico. Nearly $1.000.000 was spent for that purpose. Now of the items I propose to cut out. more than $500.000 would be used for a similar purpose during May and June. It seems to me. if these people need free airplane rides down into the interior of Mexicoof course. they should be deportedbut if they need these free rides. then why should not the Republic of Mexico pay that expense. and why should Uncle Sam bear the entire burden of transporting these Mexican nationals hundreds and hundreds of miles into the interior of their own country? Especially is that true when this country has already spent a million dollars or more on this one undertaking. It seems to me that expense could very easily be eliminated from this bill without doing any violence so far as the enforcement of the law with respect to illegal aliens is concerned. So it would seem that since there are over 700 permanent patrolmen already along the border area and enforcing that law. we can ill afford the cost of adding another 300 to that total. The Department of Labor has a major part in the administration of this labor program along the border.