Speech #1090172474

Mr. President. in May of this year. this body passed comprehensive immigration reform. We are a nation of immigrants. but we are also a nation of laws. We must honor both of those heritages. Accordingly. we pursued in this body a fourpronged approach to reform: first. fortify our borders. second. strengthen worksite enforcement. third. develop a strong temporary worker program. fourth. develop a fair and realistic way to address the 12 million people here already who entered our country illegally. but under no circumstances would we offer amnesty. Unfortunately. at this point it is pretty clear to everyone that we will not reach a conference agreement on comprehensive Immigration reform before we break in September. While I have made it clear that I prefer a comprehensive solution. I have always said that we need an enforcementfirst approach to immigration reformnot enforcement only but enforcement first. We share a 1.951mile border with Mexico. and it doesnt take too much creativity to imagine how terrorists might plot to exploit that border. It is time to secure that border with Mexico. As a national security challenge. that is absolutely critical to fighting a strong war on terror. That is the approach of this bill. the Secure Fence Act of 2006. a bill on which we will shortly vote. Earlier this year. with passage of the supplemental appropriations. we provided almost $2 billion to repair fences in hightraffic areas. to replace broken Border Patrol aircraft for lower traffic areas. and to support training for additional Customs and Border Patrol agents. In addition. we deployed more than 6.000 National Guard troops to our southwest border. and subsequentlyand this is tremendous newswe saw a 45percent drop in border apprehensions. But we have to do more. The Secure Fence Act picks up where that supplemental left off. It lays the groundwork for complete operational control over our border with Mexico. and it will go a long way toward stopping illegal immigration altogether. Customs and Border Protection will take responsibility for securing every inch of our border with Mexico. Engineers and construction workers will erect twolayer reinforced fencing along the border. Hundreds of new cameras and sensors will be installed.