Speech #1090132331

Now. how did I arrive at that conclusion? Well. because we held a number of hearings. As chairman of the Immigration and Border Security and Citizenship Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. we have had a number of hearings. including the experts who have told us that. yes. it would be helpful in some areas along this 2.000mile border to have some strategic barriers. some fences. some ways to funnel traffic so that the Border Patrol can have an easier job trying to actually detain people who come into the country illegally. I would point out that under Senator SESSIONS amendment. it would authorize the building of up to about 370 miles of fence. About 70 miles is already in place. So really we are talking about 15 percent of that 2.000mile border which would be authorized to be built subject to the good judgment and discretion and professional decisions of the folks who are In charge. The Border Patrol. the Department of Homeland Security. they would be the ones deciding it because. frankly. I do not think we here in Washington are in any position to decide where it ought to go. We ought to leave it to the experts. But the fact is. it is expensive. This leads me again to remind my colleagues that we can pass some pretty expansive legislation here. we can talk in grandiose terms about border security. worksite verification. and dealing with this great challenge that confronts us. but sooner or later we are going to have to pay for it. And the $1.9 billion the Senator from New Hampshire succeeded in getting appropriated in the supplemental appropriations bill is a mere downpayment on what it is going to cost. So I hope Senators who talk in very sincere terms. no doubt. about making sure this bill is enforceable will be just as emphatic when it comes to paying for these measures. Let me say that we are not just talking about putting up some fencing in order to secure our borders. We are talking about doubling the number of Border Patrol agents. This is the primary law enforcement agency that is responsible for providing border security. The President announced on Monday night that he was going to authorize up to 6.000 National Guard troops to assist the Border Patrol on a stopgap basis. not to perform law enforcement per se but to provide support to the Border Patrol while we recruit and train more Border Patrol agents. Now. one thing I do not understand is why we are told that the Border Patrol can only train 1.500 Border Patrol agents a year. We need more. and we need them faster. In the last 3 years. the United States and the coalition partners have trained a quarter of a million Iraqi security officers and police and army. Why we can train. with the assistance of our coalition partners. 250.000 Iraqis but we can only train 1.500 Border Patrol agents a year is beyond me. We need to find out why that is and fix it. But I sincerely believe what we need is a combination of more boots on the groundwe need human beings. We need to roughly double the number of Border Patrol agents to about 20.000. And just by way of a footnote. let me point out in New York City alone there are about 40.000 police officers. So we are talking about half the number of law enforcement agents along our 2.000mile border than they have in New York City.