Speech #1090175505

I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me time and thank him for this resolution. Mr. Speaker. we also want to. in addition to the Border Patrol. praise all of the people in the Department of Homeland Security. in the Coast Guard. in ICE. and Customs and Border Protection at the points of entry. For those who may not be completely familiar. the Border Patrol are the people who are in between the points of entry. Obviously. the men and women at the point of entry. the ICE agents internally. as they pursue the investigations which often cross into the zones of the Border Patrol. and at ports of entry. and the Coast Guard which are at water points of entry. are all working together in a seamless organization. Unfortunately. the Border Patrol often gets the least attention of those different agencies. And this resolution correctly gives them some of the credit that they are due. Often they are not only in these very hot zones in the south. at times cold in the winter. and in the north. very cold: often we forget we have a northern Border Patrol as well. That is actually. not the numbers. but a bigger percent increase than the south. They are often also alone. One of the reasons we need a fence and virtual fencing and other technological things to help our Border Patrol agents is often there is one there. or there may be four scattered over a mile and a half. and all of a sudden there is a group of seven SUVs coming at them. as we have had in Arizona. armed to the teeth. Even when we get a tip and put a Blackhawk in. you are looking at heavily armored vehicles coming at a few agents with no warning. It may be a case of where you may have groups of 300 to 400 illegal immigrants coming at one or two or three or four agents. They have no idea whether they are armed or not armed. There are zones along the border where there is not as much pressure on illegal immigrants. but which are huge drugtrafficking areas. not only on the south border. but on the north border. along Blaine. Washington. Going east from there is the trafficking of socalled BC Bud. this highgrade marijuana that is basically the same as cocaine.