Speech #1050176993

President. I am pleased that after many months of debate. the Senate has finally passed S. 1360 today. This bill. "The Border Improvement and Immigration Act of 1998." will ensure that free trade and tourism continue to flourish along our nations borders. It will preserve the status quo for our friendly neighbors to the north and will provide us with the necessary time to study and develop an appropriate way to monitor our nations borders and sea ports. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of S. 1360 and have spoken repeatedly about the need for this remedy. Without this type of legislation. the Immigration and Naturalization Service might be obligated to begin implementing an enormously expensive automated entryexit monitoring system at all of our nations borders this fall without having the opportunity to study the situation and develop a workable system. The passage of this legislation means the Attorney General will now have one year to study and report to Congress on the feasibility of various means of tracking the entry and exit of immigrants crossing our countrys land borders. Over the past year. I have worked hard to ensure that this legislation does not negatively impact the thousands of people and the millions of dollars of trade which cross our borders each day. This bill preserves the integrity of our open border with Canada and ensures that no additional burden is placed upon Canadians who plan to shop or travel in the United States. Mexican nationals will also have additional time under this bill to acquire new border crossing cards and will be able to obtain border crossing cards for their children under age 15 at a reduced cost. Vermonters and others who cross our nations land borders on a daily basis to work or visit with family or friends in Canada and Mexico should be able to continue to do so without additional border delays. The Border Improvement Act also takes a more thoughtful approach to modifying U.S. immigration policies than that contained in section 110 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act ("IIRIRA"). By requiring an automated system for monitoring the entry and exit of "all aliens". section 110 would subject Canadians. and others who are not currently required to show documentation. to unprecedented border checks at U.S. points of entry. This sort of tracking system would be enormously costly to implement along the borders. especially since there is no current infrastructure in place to track the departure of individuals leaving the United States at our land borders or sea ports.