Speech #850248743

Mr. Speaker. I have today introduced a bill authorizing the Administrator of General Services to acquire sites and plan. design. construct. and equip an immigration and naturalization training school and adjunct facilities. including living quarters for officers. for use by the Attorney General for administration and enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The provisions of my bill concur with the request presented to the Congress on January 28 this year by the Department of Justice. On that date I wrote to the Honorable William P. Rogers. Attorney General of the United States. congratulating him on making the request for a permanent Immigration and Naturalization Academy. I pointed out to Mr. Rogers that the temporary Border Patrol Training School has been in the El Paso. Tex.. area for a number of yearsin fact. for more than 30 yearsand summarized some of the advantages that location has. It is my purpose to call to the attention of the House those advantages. and touch on the background of the Border Patrol Training School. Years ago the Immigration and Naturalization officials recognized many advantages of locating these training facilities in the El Paso area. El Paso is first the largest city on the United StatesMexico border. and Juarez. located just across the Rio Grande River. is the largest Mexican city on that border. El Paso has thousands of Spanish .speaking people. and daily contact with them has proved helpful to border patrolmen in their training. El Paso has the largest and busiest international bridge ifi the world. and the patrolmen may receive daily onthejob training at that .site. The Santa Fe Street Bridge in El Paso was crossed by 2.044.516 people going north during June of this year.