Speech #1050043544

Chairman. if the amendment of the gentleman from Ohio is adopted. the Department of Defense will be allowed to send 10.000 troops to our southern border. With more than 26 years of experience in the U.S. Border Patrol. I can tell the Members that this is a very. very bad idea. Exactly 1 month ago today a young 18yearold boy was shot and killed by a Marine assisting the Border Patrol in Redford. TX. Ezequiel Hernandez is the first American killed by troops on U.S. soil since 1970. in the Kent State incident. Unfortunately. we cannot do anything to bring him back. but we can and we should do everything we can to keep this from happening again. We already have almost 7.000 Border Patrol agents patrolling our Nations border. Congress. this Congress. has authorized an additional 1.000 agents every year until the year 2001. What we need to do is make sure that these men and women are professional. bilingual. welltrained law enforcement officers. properly trained to deal with situations and problems along our border. Their mission is dramatically different from the mission of the U.S. military. It does not make any sense to me or any of my former colleagues in the U.S. Border Patrol to put 10.000 troops on the southern border. By putting armed troops on our border. we will be forced to deal with a new set of problems: Problems of jurisdiction. problems of authority. and problems of responsibility and personal liability for those troops. Mr. Chairman. this body should focus its time and energy on giving the Border Patrol the resources they need. instead of jeopardizing our troops and civilians alike. The cost of doing this is. furthermore. outrageous. According to our own Department of Defense. if this amendment is adopted. it will cost the U.S. taxpayers $650 million a year to deploy 10.000 troops to our southern border. The military already spends more than $800 million per year assisting law enforcement with drug interdiction and border security. mostly through support and hightech equipment. For example. the U.S. Air Force provides AWACs aircraft to monitor the southwest border.