Speech #1090053151

There are different levels where we need to address this issue. I mentioned the guest worker program would be a major effort in this area. but in the area of just plain security. there are initiatives that need to be pursued. So what we did was we looked at what was happening with our border security effort and concluded there were certain programs on the border that needed really significant increase in resources in order to be effective. Some of them. unfortunately. could not take as much resources as we would like to have given them because they simply could not handle it effectively. The first was just simply feet on the ground. We need more Border Patrol agents on the ground. especially on the southern border. That is a feetontheground issue. Unfortunately. because of the training capacity and because of the ability to hire people who want to go into the Border Patrol as a career. we cannot add as many people as we would like to add. As was mentioned by the Senator from West Virginia. there was. 3 or 4 years ago. a proposal to hire 2.000 a year. What we found was the Border Patrol simply could not find the people. And then they could not train the people when they did find them. However. we decided a significant increase was important. Working with the Senator from West Virginia again. in the supplemental. we added 500 new Border Patrol agents this year. We have now added another 1.000 agents with this bill. for an additional 1.500 agents. So that is actually a little bit outside the envelope of what the Border Patrol can effectively train. We are also significantly increasing the commitment to the training facilities so we can increase training capacity so that next year. when we have this bill. it is my intention to add more than 1.500. I hope to get up to 2.000 next year. The year after that. I hope to get to 2.500. The goal is to get to 10.000 new Border Patrol agents within 5 years. Whether we can reach it. I do not know. But if we can get the training facilities up. get the infrastructure up that supports these people. and get the Border Patrol agents up. then maybe we can do it effectively. But the first step is to add these additional 1.500 agents. Now. once you have the Border Patrol physically on the ground. they are going to catch people. That is their job. The problem today is that when they catch people they have to let them go.