Mr. President. I rise today with Senator KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON to introduce the Border Patrol Recruitment and Retention Act of 1999. In 1996. the Congress passed unanimously. and the President signed. my amendment to the Immigration Reform Act requiring that 1.000 Border Patrol agents be hired each year between the years 1997 and 20001. Last year. Congress provided the Immigration and Naturalization Service with $93 million to hire. train. and deploy 1.000 agents during 1999. We have now learned that the INS will not come close to hiring the required 1.000 agents during this year: and. in fact. may only hire 200 to 400. As a result. states that need the increased personnel the most will not receive them. Arizona. which itself was slated to receive 400 new agents. will now receive only 100 to 150 new agents. Thats not nearly enough. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector apprehended 60.537 illegal immigrants last month and seized over 28.000 pounds of marijuana. an alltime record in both areas. Project that annually and then factor in the estimate that 3 times as many illegal aliens successfully cross the border than are apprehended. The situation is so out of control in Arizona that recently. 600 people attempted to cross the border en masse in broad daylight. Some Arizonans are growing so anxious about the upsurge of illegal activity in their community that they have attempted to take matters into their own hands.
Keywords matched
Immigration illegal immigrants Naturalization Border Patrol illegal aliens