Speech #1010209668

Mr. President. I rise today to introduce legislation which will assist us in the battle against illegal immigration. In 1986. Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act [IRCA]. Two of its central features were critical to the goal of controlling illegal immigration: First. penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. employer sanctions. and second. an increase in border patrol personnel levels. In fiscal year 1986. the INS made 1.6 million apprehensions of illegal aliens on our Southern border. In fiscal year 1987. after IRCA was enacted. the number of apprehensions fell to just over 1 million. In fiscal year 1988. apprehensions fell to 943.000. and in fiscal year 1989. apprehensions fell again to 854.000. Unfortunately. this positive trend has reversed itself. Southern border apprehensions for fiscal year 1990 are up 25 percent. If present trends continueand the the border patrol predicts that they surely willapprehensions will reach 1.060.000 by the end of this fiscal year. In addition. drug smugglers have taken increasing advantage of the illegal flow of people on our Southern border in order to smuggle controlled substances into our country. In fiscal year 1985. the INS seized $120 million worth of drugs on the Southern border while performing its routine border control duties. In fiscal year 1986. that dollar amount increased to $185 million. In every year thereafter. the value of drugs seized on the Southern border has increased: $582 million in fiscal year 1987. $700 million in fiscal year 1988. and $1.19 billion in fiscal year 1989.