Speech #1090135511

I hope. in the not too distant future. the American people will see the fruits of that headway. I hope I can explain in my time allotted how we are going to do more and what we are doing. Border security and immigration enforcement should be top priorities in our debate this week. Whether they are top priorities will influence my vote on any border and immigration package considered in the Senate. The first step to secure our border is more border security funding. I believe Senator JUDD GREGG. as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. understands this. Sometimes it has been difficult to let the American people hear what is going on. what he is doing in his subcommittee. what the Senate is doing when it follows his lead. and what happens when we finish work with the House on the bills that start out in his committee. He helped us provide $635 million for border security in fiscal year 2005 in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. With his efforts. we provided more than $9 billion for border security and immigration enforcement in the fiscal year 2006 Homeland Security appropriations bill. He worked to include $1.9 billion for border security in the Senate fiscal year 2006 emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Add that up. and one can understand that Congress is finally responding to the gigantic needs of making our International borders secure. The fiscal year 2006 emergency supplemental funding I have alluded to includes such items as $100 million for sensors and surveillance technology. $120 million for new Border Patrol stations. checkpoints. and vehicle barriers. $80 million for Border Patrol vehicles. and $790 million for border security helicopters and other air assets. Believe it or not. until recently. while we have talked a great deal about the Border Patrol and what they must do. they had helicopters from the Vietnam era. We have finally decided to buy them a new fleet of helicopters. After all these years of talking. we are finally doing something.