In the meantime. we have some 5.000 miles of Canadian and Mexican border. with a total at any one time of 350 officers on duty350. The traffic on the Canadian border is not all that heavy. but believe me. from Texas to California. it is heavy indeed. We are asking the border patrol to do an impossible task. I am not naive enough to suggest that 160 more border patrol agents are going to stem the tide. but it is going to send an important message to the border patrol. whose morale is at an alltime low. They are forgotten. they think. They are abandobned. they think. They do not have enough funds to run their automobiles. to buy gasoline. or to repair their vehicles. Just let me quote one sentence. Herbert Walsh. president of the Border Patrol Supervisors Association and chief of the patrol in Tucson. Ariz.. said. and I quote: We do not have any control of this border right now. I do not know what more evidence we Would need. Now we will hear later in the debate a study is being conducted. It will be finished in March of 1981. on basic immigration policy. Good show. It is years late perhaps. but we need it.
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border patrol immigration Border Patrol