Speech #1090119644

I am very proud of the people who work on our borders. Again. we need a serious strategy to address the crisis that we haveand it is one. Immigration reform is a matter of national security. We must know who is crossing our borders. when they cross our borders. who is living and working in our country. We need tough and smart enforcement at the border and throughout the country. And we need realistic immigration laws that bring immigrants out of the shadows. paying taxes. learning English. and contributing to our communities. I strongly support enforcement. but I also know that enforcement alone cannot solve the problem. We have tried that. We tried it for the last many decades. We have tripled the number of Border Patrol agents over the last two decades. I am glad we have. I voted for every one of them. We increased immigration enforcement in the budget 10 times over. We need to do more. but during the same time we tripled the number of border agents and increased our immigration enforcement budget 10 times over. the probability of catching someone illegally crossing our borders has fallen from 32 percent to 5 percent. My recent visit to the border convinces me all the more that enforcement alone is not the answer. I flew over miles of the borderSan Diego going into Arizona. As I said. I have talked at length with the Border Patrol agents. They recognize better than anyone in this Chamber that fences dont keep people out. Near San Diego. we have a big metal fence.