Speech #1090114698

That cost. or part of that for 1 year could be included within the $2 billion that is specified in this amendment. Second. we are going to need worksite enforcement personnel. One of the areas that has been neglected in the current enforcement regime is the following up or auditing of employers who. in many cases. are employing illegal immigrants. The Bureau of Immigration Enforcement. responsible for enforcing immigration laws at the worksite. has requested 200 fulltime employees. about a $23 million expense in 2005. In 2006. an additional $18 million above the 2005 level. and the 2007 budget requests $47.1 million for worksite enforcement to add 206 agents and support staff for this effort. However. there are clearly a lot more requirements to be met. Some 24 million business entities file income tax returns and the number that can be checked is far less than that. So it is clear we need additional administrative personnel so the auditing can be done and we can lay the basis for a workable worksite verification and enforcement program. Any immigration bill that passes the Congress this year will fail unless the requisite number of worksite enforcement personnel is actually funded this year. Let me just restate that. Whatever we do this year. we are going to have to begin the process of adding the personnel. so that once we act. we can begin to enforce whatever it is we pass. If we wait until after the President signs a bill into law to do this. then there will be at least a year delay as we ramp up the personnel and necessary other systems to implement the law. So we need to begin this process now. There is a potential to fund additional Border Patrol agents that would be authorized under the program. There is. importantly. an estimate to increase the amount of detention space that we are going to need that could be funded from this. The 2007 budget for the Department of Homeland Security requests over $400 million to add about 6.700 additional detention beds. rather than the March 15. 2006 CONGRE 8.000 beds currently authorized each year. which would bring the total to 27.500. Clearly. at least 10.000 additional beds over the next 5 years are going to be needed. Let me explain the primary reason for this. The illegal immigrants who are apprehended here. who come from countries other than Mexico. cannot easily be returned to their home countries in every case. In fact. in most cases. there is quite a delay. In fact. in some cases. the countries will not even take them back.