Speech #940094970

In the spring of 1975. the INS submitted to the Department of Justice a budget amendment calling for 3.227 additional positions and $70.653.000 additional. He wound up with 100 additional positions and an additional $3.500.000. We sit here and clamor for an end to the illegal alien problem. yet when we are afforded the opportunity to provide sufficient funding to the agency which can bring this about. we fall tragically short. Perhaps the members of the subcommittee are not affected by the illegal alien problem in their districts. but I would be surprised perhaps the committee is not aware of the fact that 1 million illegal aliens hold jobs in this Nation which belong to American workers in a time when unemployment is at record levels. While the committee has a number of rural members there are some from States with large cities. For example. it is estimated that 250.000 illegal aliens are employed in California. 20.000 in Detroit and Michigan. and 6.500 in Boston. Is the committee aware of the fact that employed illegal aliens pay little. if any. taxes and instead send great sums of money out of our Nation causing tax revenue losses in the billions of dollars? Illegal aliens are also collecting welfare in many of our major cities. During congressional hearings I held several weeks ago it was disclosed to me by the New York City Commissioner of Social Services that illegal aliens were using fraudulent voter registration cards to collect welfare. This has had a profound effect on overburdening welfare rolls. not only in New York City but other cities as well. Finally there are organized groups in this Nation making enormous profits smuggling illegal aliens in across the border. Payments can be as high as $300 per illegal and most individuals bring hundreds over yearly. These are some of the problems caused by illegal aliens. The Immigration Service is supposed to be in the position to guard our borders. and seek out illegal aliens who have made it safely into the Nation. Yet despite the growing magnitude of the problem. what is done? Congress gives the Immigration Service 750 new men and expect that this will be enough for them to do their jobs. What further confounds me is the fact that the Immigration Service has made sizeable gains in the illegal alien areas despite our efforts. The border patrol. the Immigration Services most important enforcement unit has had to contend with an estimated increase of new illegal aliens seeking entry of more than 2.000 percent while themselves only being provided a 20percent increase in personnel. This problem exists throughout the Service and last year the limitations in their budget caused Commissioner Chapman to issue a operational directive for fiscal year 1975 under which they were forced to assign functions on a priority basis. despite the fact that all of INS enforcement functions are critical to solving the illegal alien problem. A specific casualty under this new directive were what are known as area control apprehensions which are responsible for locating illegal aliens living in our major urban areas. I have been advised by the Immigration Service that the budget appropriations contained in the bill is insufficient enough for the Service to cancel this directive. Even with this fiscal restrains the INS has performed admirably. In the past 10 years they have increased apprehensions by over 1.300 percent including 800.000 apprehending fiscal year 1974. In the past 3 years they have increased deportations by 71 percent. Yet any INS employees would tell you that more personnel would mean increased apprehensions and deportations. My amendment will bring their total new personnel to a level which both INS officials and our own Subcommittee on Legal and Monetary Affairs have concluded will allow the INS to free the 1 million jobs held by illegal aliens while making major inroads in slowing the influx of new illegals into our Nation. The INS provided me with a rough breakdown of how the 1.750 new personnel in my amendment would be deployed and I would like to compare this to what is presently in the bill: .(1) Total new personnel ---------- 750 Border patrol ------------- 200 V2) 1. 750 1.000 (1) (2 Investigators ---------------0 40 Detentions and deportations-- 200 275 Committee bill. Biaggi amendment. The numbers do tell the whole story.