Speech #1030075300

Mr. President. I suspect that even our Founding Fathers could not have foreseen the tide of immigration that is. today. crashing against our shores. During the past decade. nearly 9 million people have immigrated legally into this countrya population greater than the population of most States. In the years ahead. we can expect that millions more will seek to immigrate into our country. and do so legally. But these numbers just tell half the story. The other half involves the millions of undocumented. illegal aliens who choose to evade our laws and enter our country without our consent. The Immigration and Naturalization Service. for example. estimates that more than 3.000 people illegally cross the MexicoCalifornia border each night. Nearly 60 percent of them succeed in entering our country without detection. In 1986. the apprehension of illegal. undocumented aliens reached an alltime high of 1.8 million. Last year. in 1992. the number of apprehensions was still staggeringmore than 1 million. In some areas of the country. the issue of illegal immigration has reached crisis proportions. In California. for example. there are an estimated 1.3 million illegal aliens. and more than half of these Illegals live in a single countythe county of Los Angeles. Not surprisingly. a staggering 10 percent of the budget of Los Angeles County was spent last year on providing services to illegal aliens. Now. the administrations recentlyannounced proposals to address the problems of alien smuggling and asylum fraud are steps in the right direction. In fact. in many respects. they reflect proposals first developed by my colleague from Wyoming. Senator SIMPSON. Earlier this week. Senate Republicans also introduced a bill. the Neighborhood Security Act. that recognizes the link between illegal immigration and criminal activity. Today. criminal aliens make up 25 percent of the Federal prison population. a shockingly high number. The Neighborhood Security Act cracks down on alien smuggling and asylum fraud. expedites the deportation of aliens who are in this country illegally. and authorizes funding for 1.000 additional border patrol agents. 1.000 additional INS criminal investigators. and a criminal alien tracking center. In addition. the Neighborhood Security Act authorizes funding for 10 regional prisons that would house illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes while in this country. These are important steps. but. again. we must do more. Mr. President. when the Congress returns in September. Senate and House Republicans will propose a comprehensive plan to deal with the immigration crisis. This plan may ruffle a few feathers. It will be applauded by some. and criticized by others. but it will represent a national policy. a comprehensive approach to this very complex. and delicate. issue.