Speech #1090173628

Great Britain and across the planet." This is Newt Gingrich saying that this has been a real failure in leadership on the war on terrorism. Then you come back to homeland security. You come back to what are we doing here at home with the ports. with the immigration issue. with what the Democrats want to do compared to what the Republicans want to do. If you look at what we were able to accomplish under President Clinton compared to what has gone on with President Bush. this is just border security numbers. Mr. Speaker. the average number of new Border Patrol agents added per year. In the Clinton administration. 642. New border agents per year under the Bush administration. 411. Under the Clinton administration. we actually increased the number of Border Patrol agents much more so. by 230some a year more than the Republicans have under the Bush administration. Immigration. INS fines for immigration enforcement. In 1999. 417 under President Clinton. Only three in 2004 under President Bush. The Clinton administration was much more aggressive on the Border Patrol issue. There were 78 percent fewer completed immigration fraud cases by the Bush administration. Look. in 1995. 6.455. and 1.389 in 2003 under the Bush administration. If you look at what we followed as the immigration debate here in Congress has raged. you will see that if Democratic amendments. the amendments that we tried to get on over the last 5 years. would have succeeded. there would be 6.600 more Border Patrol agents. 14.000 more detention beds. and 2.700 more Immigration enforcement agents along our borders than now exist. It is clear that the Democratic Party doesnt only provide the rhetoric. but we provide the solutions necessary to try to solve some of these problems. Day in and day out. as we continue to have this debate. we can talk about it. or we can put our money where our mouth is and fund these Border Patrol agents. We can make sure that more than 6 percent of the cargo that comes in and out of the United States is checked for weapons of mass destruction. and for illegal immigrants. for that matter. We have to do this. and we have to be willing to put the resources necessary into the programs. That means that there are going to be some difficult decisions. because over the last few years we have seen the budget in the United States of America go bust. billions and billions and billions of dollars wasted. billions given to the pharmaceutical industry. billions given to the oil industry. to corporate welfare.