Speech #1090055302

But. for now. we must tighten enforcement of our borders. And thats what this bill does. First. it dramatically increases the corps of border protection professionals. Congress has already added 500 border patrol agents this year. This bill adds 2.000 more patrol agents. investigators. and detention and deportation officers. After this bill. there will be nearly 41.000 people protecting our border. Our longterm goal should be 10.000 new border patrol agents within the next 5 years. Second. this bill gives our border patrol more technology and training and aircraft. This will bolster security by. for example. doubling the number of ports subject to highrisk container checks. Third. this bill strengthens the infrastructure that protects our borders. It provides more than $300 billion for frontline defenseswhich will help prevent people from entering our country illegally. Fourth. this bill increases funding for detention beds by 10 percentboosting the total number of beds to 23.000. It does no good to increase our border patrol forces and border monitoring technology if we dont have the space to hold illegal aliens while their cases are being processed. Simply put. we should not release individuals with criminal ties. Instead. our nation should detain them until their cases can be heard. Over 400.000 individualsnearly as many as live in Atlantahave simply walked away from orders of deportation and removal. This is unacceptable. By adding detention space. we can make sure that people entering the country illegally are not released back into the country while we are in the process of trying to send them back home. In all. this bill increases total spending on border security by nearly 12 percent for a total of nearly $10 billion. I congratulate Chairman GREGG and Senator BYRD for their leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. Immigrants have enhanced our history. And they will enhance our future. But we must make sure they to America legally.