Speech #1050060661

Second. he showed several areas where in remote areas we are going to have problems. Now we had over 600 robberies in 1 year withthe rail line in El Paso. We had it with the rail line that comes into Laredo. we had over 36.000 illegal aliens pulled off that rail line last year. and the President of Southern Pacific in that area asking the President of the United States for the entire increase in border patrol for the Nation. That is 500 new border patrolmen going just to protect his railroad. Now the happy talkers in San Diego say that will never happen to us. and that is all they say. They do not offer any experience that is any better than the gentleman from Texas who was chief of the Border Patrol for some 20 years. who was in fire fights on the border. who understands acrossborder crime problems. They just say it will not happen. and I would just suggest to my colleagues we have had a vote on this thing before. It was overwhelmingly defeated because we do not have that guarantee of security for Mexico. we do not have that guarantee from the Clinton administration that they have an extra thousand Border Patrol agents to put 500 in south Texas just to guard one railroad and to put another contingent similar to that in southern California. Right now. our eyes should be on the ball. The ball is border control. We are building fences. we are building roads. we are building lights. and we are putting more border patrolmen at the border. and the last thing we need to do is complicate the security situation by weaving a railroad in between this situation on rickety tracks across precipitous canyons and inviting at least in the words of. in the opinion of probably the best expert on border control in this Congress. and that is the gentleman from Texas . at least the complexity in border patrol.