Speech #1090120497

Mr. President. today. I speak on the SpecterLeahy substitute to S. 2454. the Frist border security bill. At the present time. the Frist bill contains no amnesty for illegal aliens. However. if the SpecterLeahy substitute is adopted. it would effectively attach a massive amnesty for 8 to 12 million illegal aliens and provide those illegal aliens with a path to U.S. citizenship. According to immigration experts. the pending substitute amendmentwith its guestworker program and amnesty for undocumented alienswould open the gates to 30 million legal and illegal immigrants over the next decade. I oppose this amnesty proposalabsolutely and unequivocally. I urge the Senate to pass a clean border security bill like the House didwithout amnesty. without a guestworker program. and without an increase in the annual allotment of permanent immigrant visas. For more than 4 years. the Nation has wondered how 19 terrorists managed to penetrate our border defenses to carry out the September 11 attacks. It chills the blood to think of those terrorists crossing our borders not once. but several times. in the months before the attackeasily outsmarting our border security checks to plot their dastardly scheme. They walked among us as tourists. students. and business travelers. Three of them even stayed in the United States as illegal aliens. Today. more than 4 years later. our country remains dangerously exposed to terrorists seeking to penetrate our border defenses. Since September 2001. an estimated 2 million new illegal immigrants have successfully beaten our border and interior security. and are now settled in the United States. Thats 2 million new illegal immigrants since the Government pledged to regain control of the border after the 9/11 attacks. Our immigration agencies are plagued with management and morale problems. They still do not have an exitentry system with interoperable. biometric watch lists to accurately identify who is entering the country. We still cannot tell who is leaving the country. The requirement for foreign visitors to use biometric. machinereadable passports continues to be delayed. exempting millions of aliens each year from background checks. The administration. still. stubbornly refuses to support the resources our border and interior enforcement agencies need to effectively do their jobs. Meanwhile. the immigrant population continues to surge. The Center for Immigration Studies calculates that 1.5 million immigrants are settling both legally and illegally in the United States each year. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration will be a major cause of the population of the United States increasing to 400 million people in less than 50 years. The National Research Council estimates that the net fiscal cost of this massive immigration ranges from $11 billion to $22 billion per year. with the infrastructure of our Nationour schools. our health care system. our transportation and energy networksincreasingly unable to absorb this untenable surge in the population. Many tout the additional border and interior enforcement personnel authorized since September 2001. but the Presidents budget has not come anywhere close to funding those authorizations. Homeland security expenditures have been capped at levels that prohibit the Congress from adequately filling the gaps. Senator GREGG and I have had to fight for every additional nickel and dime that goes into our border security. It is never enough. Immigration enforcement in the United States remains decidedly halfhearted. We are pulling our punches. Tougher border security mandates are signed into law. but then not fully funded. Statutory deadlines are set. but then indefinitely postponed. Undocumented aliens are denied Social Security cards. but then issued drivers licenses and taxpayer identification numbers. Employers are warned not to hire illegal labor. but then allowed to sponsor. without penalty. their illegal workforce for legal status. Funds are not requested to perform even the barest level of work site enforcement.