Speech #1030055826

Chairman. I wish to speak about the amendment that I am going to offer. I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky . and I also want to thank the chairman. the gentleman from Iowa . for the work that they did in trying to restore the Border Patrol moneys back up to at least the level of last year. We appreciate that deeply. The problem is that the problem of smuggling of illegal immigrants and narcotics across the borders of the United States has grown by leaps and bounds. There is absolutely a torrent of cocaine flooding through the land borders right now. We have increased the interdiction of cocaine in the CaliforniaMexico border by 1.000 percent over the last several years. According to the GAO. 20 percent of the Federal inmate population are illegal aliens. The social service costs for California and every State in the Union has gone up markedly as a result of delivery of services to illegal aliens. We have estimated in San Diego County that we spend $143 million a year in unreimbursed costs for social and criminal justice costs for illegal aliens. We have extrapolated that out to a cost that we feel is fairly reliable of $3 billion a year paid in California for social services and justice costs and other costs for illegal aliens. Mr. Chairman. we have had now an increase of 1.000 percent of Chinese illegal aliens coming across the land border between Mexico and the United States over just the last 4 months of the year. That is. over 500 Chinese illegal aliens have been arrested coming across the land border. Lastly. and perhaps most critical. Mr. Chairman. we have done an experiment in which we took illegal aliens who had been convicted of major crimes. After they did their time in the United States we sent them in deep repatriation to Mexico City. So far 34 of those 300 criminal aliens have been recaptured coming back across the border between the United States and Mexico. Mr. Chairman. if you consider that at any given time our Border Patrol is so small that we only have about 50 to 60 agents on the entire CaliforniaMexico border. and if you consider the fact that in excess of 5 illegal aliens come through for every 1 that is captured. that means that roughly half of these criminal aliens have already made their way back into the United States. Mr. Chairman. there are many reasons. with our very liberal immigration policy. for having a border that has integrity. And that requires people. We need desperately to add about 2.000 border patrolmen to our present force. Mr. Chairman. the amendment that I am going to offer will add some 600 Border Patrol agents. It is not up to what we need. but it will help us greatly. I hope that every Member will support this amendment.