Speech #990201021

We continue to have day after day after day apprehensions in record numbers of people slipping across the border illegally. and yet we have done nothing to this point in this Congress or the previous Congress. or the Congress before that. or the Congress before that. or the Congress before that. to respond to that problem. Two weeks ago. we set a new record. We apprehended. unfortunately. our 1 millionth illegal alien in the United States in this calender year. If that continues. we will apprehend between 1.8 and 2 million illegal aliens in the United States in a single year. enough to make up four new congressional districts. and that is just the number who have been caught. There are all sorts of reasons why people are coming. We can sympathize. we can empathize with many of them. but the United States is a sovereign nation. It has a right to determine its own borders and to assure that it does have sovereignty and it exercises that sovereignty. The missing link in all this is action by the Congress. We hope tomorrow in the Judiciary Committee to be marking up a new bill. an immigration reform package. It is my hope that we will continue marking it up this week until completed and then expeditiously have it on the floor so that we might join the other body in answering the cries of many Americans across the land. "When is Congress going to act?"