Speech #1090177585

I support cloture on H.R. 6061. the Secure Fence Act. The sooner the Congress passes this bill. the sooner the Congress can put aside the misguided amnesty legislation passed by the Senate earlier this year. The American people have listened and rejected the call to offer U.S. citizenship to illegal aliens. They have said NO to amnesty! Hallelujah! Comprehensive immigration reform is a euphemism for amnesty. and I oppose it absolutely and unequivocally. I voted against the amnesty bill passed by the Senate. and I will continue to vote against amnesty as long as I am in the Senate. I have seen how amnesties encourage illegal immigration. with the amnesties of the 1980s and 1990s corresponding with an unprecedented rise in the population of unlawful aliens. I have seen how amnesties open the border to terrorists. with the perpetrators of terrorist plots against our country taking advantage of amnesties to circumvent the regular border and immigration checks. I have seen how amnesties afford special rules to some immigrants. Amnesty undermines that great and egalitarian American promise that the rules will be applied equally and fairly to everyone. We are a nation of immigrants to be sure. but that does not mean that we are obligated to give away U.S. citizenship. According to immigration experts. until 1986. the Congress never granted amnesty to any generation of immigrants. The Congress encouraged immigrants to learn the Constitutional principles of our Government and the history of our country. Immigrants learned English. and tried to assimilate. U.S. citizenship was their reward. The Congress did not reward illegal aliens with U.S. citizenship. Now that this idea of amnesty has been rejected by the Congress. perhaps the administration will begin. at long last. to focus its efforts on actually reducing the number of illegal aliens already in the country. Such an effort will require a significant investment of funds to hire law enforcement and border security agents. and to give them the resources and equipment they need to do their job. In the years immediately after the September 11 attacks. those funds had not only been left out of the Presidents annual budgets but had been continuously blocked by the White House in the appropriations process. I and others tried to add funds where possible. but not until recently did the administration begin to respond to the inadequacies along the border.