Speech #1090179612

It includes vehicle barriers because much of the illegal entry into the United States now is accomplished by vehicles. It includes technology. such as cameras and sensors and other means of identifying people who are crossing our border illegally. Some people say that we dont need a fence or these infrastructure barriers because someday we are going to adopt comprehensive immigration reform. and when we take away the magnet of illegal employment. then we are not going to have the problem anymore. That is my fervent hope with respect to the people who cross the border to gain employment here. But the sad reality is that even if we solve that problemand we havent gotten very far down the road because we havent adopted comprehensive immigration reform yeteven if we were to accomplish that in the future. we still have a very high percentage of people coming across the border whom we dont want here no matter what. What am I speaking of? I am speaking of drug dealers. drug cartel members. gang members. and criminals. people wanted for crime. people who have committed crime. much of it very serious crime. As a matter of fact. before the subcommittee I chair on terrorism and homeland security. the head of the Border Patrol testified a few months ago that over 10 percent of the people apprehended for crossing our border illegally have criminal records. and many of these are serious criminal records. In fact. the statistics for this fiscal year. which is almost over. show that the percentage is closer to about 13 to 14 percent. and of those a significant number have committed serious crimes. Here are the statistics year to date: Over 1 million illegal immigrants have been apprehended on the southwest border. Of that number. almost half have come through Arizona. the Yuma and Tucson sectors. so far about 475.000. And of the illegal immigrants apprehended crossing our border to date in this fiscal year. 141.000plus have criminal histories. Of that number. well over 20.000 are considered to have committed major crimes such as homicide. kidnapping. sexual assault. robbery. assault. dealing in dangerous drugs. and the like. A fence. barriers to illegal entry into this country are important not just to ensure that we enforce our laws with respect to employment but to keep out people who would do our citizens harm. The papers in my State are full of stories every week of people who came to this country illegally and then committed crimes on citizens of the United States and on other illegal immigrants. It is not at all uncommon to see stories of crimes committed against people who just came here for a better way of life but who were assaulted. who were robbed. who were kidnapped for more ransom so their families back home would have to pay money to these coyotes. or kidnappers. and all manner of heinous crime that we have to stop. we have to prevent. And the best way to do that is to have barriers to illegal entry into this country.