Mr. Speaker. earlier this year I introduced legislation. H.R. 805. that authorizes the use of military personnel to assist the Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS] and the U.S. Customs Service in their border patrol functions. It passed in the House overwhelmingly as an amendment to the fiscal year 1998 Defense authorization bill was pulled during the deliberation of the conference report. Yesterday I introduced legislation that expands on that important piece of legislation. According to the official estimates. between 5 and 7 tons of illegal drugs are smuggled across our borders every day. In addition. thousands of aliens are snubbing Federal immigration laws and crossing our borders illegally daily. Federal agencies are complaining of being outmatched in both manpower and firepower by the drug lords and their henchmen. Law enforcement personnel are increasingly becoming targets of the violence.
Keywords matched
immigration Naturalization border patrol Immigration