Speech #1040269407

Is the President? Let me go over just a few of the items in the conference report that the President is helping to delay action on. This is the illegal immigration conference report. On border control and illegal immigration control. we provide for 5.000 new Border Patrol agents. which are dramatically needed at this time if we are going to make any headway in this battle. 1.500 new Border Patrol support personnel. and 1.200 new Immigration and Naturalization Service investigators. which are very badly needed. They will not be there unless this bill passes. We provide for improved equipment and technology for border control. for an entryexit control system to keep track of the aliens who are supposed to leave the United States. and for additional and improved border control fences in southern California. All of that is included in just part of this bill. Let me go on. With regard to alien smuggling. document fraud. and illegal immigration enforcement. we provide: Increased criminal penalties for alien smuggling and document fraud. New document fraud and alien smuggling offenses. New Federal prosecutors to investigate and prosecute immigration violations. That alien smuggling penalties will be calculated for each alien a smuggler has smuggled in. Wiretap authority in alien smuggling and document fraud cases. and A new civil penalty for illegal entry. We also make it unlawful to falsely claim U.S. citizenship for the purpose of obtaining Federal benefits. which has been going on now for years. and it is time to bring a stop to it. This bill will do it. and this President is stopping this bill. With regard to removal of illegal aliens. we streamline the removal procedures so it can happen. so it can be done. Illegal aliens who are removed will be inadmissible for certain periods. We revise expedited exclusion provisions of the Terrorism Act to ensure that those with valid asylum claims receive adequate protections from persecution. We take care of those with valid asylum claims. You can see. these are just a few more of the things that this bill does. all of which are absolutely critical to solving this illegal alien problem in our country. Let me just go on. With regard to criminal aliensand we have plenty of those in this country right now. they are causing an awfully high percentage of the crimes in our country today. We have expanded the definition of "aggravated felon" for the purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act. We have mandatory detention of most deportable criminal aliens. We have improved removal of deportable criminal aliens. We eliminate loopholes under which criminal aliens have stayed within the United States. We improve the identification of deportable criminal aliens. We increase the Immigration and Naturalization Service detention space by 9.000 beds. something they tell us absolutely has to happen or we are going to have an even greater crisis on our hands than we have now. We also have additional financial resources for the detention of criminal aliens and other detainees. which is absolutely critical if we are going to fight and win this battle with regard to illegal immigration. Let me go a little bit further. With regard to interior enforcement. we provide that State and local authorities will be able to perform immigration control functions. including transporting illegal aliens to INS detention facilities across State lines. something that currently we have difficulty doing. A lot of States. just to get these people out of their States and get them into detention facilities. would pay for the costs themselves. Many States would provide the sheriffs deputies and others to get these people out of their States.