Speech #1040162968

Justice. State. and the Judiciary appropriations bills. Immigration. both legal and illegal. is an issue that affects every American. The Federal Government must take seriously its responsibility to establish and maintain a credible immigration policy that benefits American families. taxpayers. and workers. and serves Americas national interests. I introduced H.R. 2202. the Immigration in the National Interest Act of 1995. to address many of the problems in current immigration law. H.R. 2202 recently passed the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote of 23 to 10. and has 114 cosponsors. This legislation is designed to reduce illegal immigration. and to reform our immigration system. Funding is crucial to the effective Implementation of these immigration policies. Chairman Hal Rogers and I have worked together to ensure that the immigration programs and objectives contained in H.R. 2202. especially those that provide for stronger enforcement of our borders. are funded in H.R. 2076. I would like to thank Chairman ROGERS for his tireless efforts to secure our borders. Both bills contain enforcement initiatives to secure Americas borders. These include an increase of 1.000 border patrol agents on the front lines. additional support staff and improved equipment for the Border Patrol. and 400 additional land border inspectors. Both bills also contain initiatives to remove criminal and illegal aliens from the United States. H.R. 2076 funds the removal of illegal aliens and criminal aliens after they have served their sentences and provides $500 million to reImburse States for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. Mr. Chairman. Americas immigration policies have failed in the past largely because the Immigration and Naturalization Service has often been ignored and underfunded. Both H.R. 2202 and H.R. 2076 will change that. I urge my colleagues to support this conference report.