Speech #1090179678

I have no doubt this legislation will pass and that it will be used by those it benefits between now and the November 7 election. So I plead with my colleagues and with the House to finish this job when we return after the elections. Lets have the Homeland Security Committee on which I serve and other committees claiming jurisdiction to ask the border security experts themselves what else must be done to make this fence effective. Lets get the House to drop their political preelection posturing and deal with the present and future realities of our illegal immigration problem by passing key parts of the Senate bill. It is necessary to be tough on illegal Immigration. but being tough and stupid is stupid. Lets challenge the House to get tough and smart about protecting our southern border. as President Bush has proposed and as the Senate has enacted. But lets not fool ourselves and lets not try to fool the American people that this legislation by itself will solve or even substantially reduce the very serious flood of illegal aliens crossing our southern border. This bill is also incomplete and inadequate because it does nothing to strengthen our national security along our countrys northern border. even though that border spans 5.500 miles and is over three times longer than our 1.800mile southern border. Our northern border has not. as yet. experienced the same volume of illegal traffic as the southern border. Yet it is even more unguarded and thus unprotected. There are over 11.000 Border Patrol agents stationed along our 1.800mile southern border. There are only 950 agents along our entire 5.500mile northern border. If you are what the Border Patrol agents call an economic immigrant. meaning someone who is coming into this country for a job. and you live south of the United States. you will probably try to cross our southern border. The Border Patrol agents with whom I talked last month in Texas. New Mexico. and Arizona estimated that over 95 percent of the people crossing our southern border illegally are doing so for economic reasons. The really dangerous illegal entries are by criminals trafficking people. narcotics. and other illegal activitiesand most dangerously. possibly terrorists. Our northern border is just as much a target of those most dangerous criminals. and many of them are smart and sophisticated enough to know that their chances of illegal entry are increasingly better along our northern border than along our southern border. Border security for our Nation is not one border or the otherit is both. Yet until now most of the attention. most of the policy. and most of the funding has gone only to southern border security. As I mentioned before. there are over 11.000 Border Patrol agents stationed along our southern border. and the major training facility for all of them is located in New Mexico. But there are only 950 agents along our entire northern border and no training facility is devoted to that specialized training. So I am very pleased that the fiscal year 2007 Homeland Security appropriations bill directs 10 percent of its funding and 10 percent of the new agents hired to be committed to our northern border. That is almost $38 million and over 150 new Border Patrol agents. which is most of what my amendment that was adopted by the Senate would accomplish. It is a 15percent increase in the number of northern Border Patrol agents. It is an essential first step in the right direction. However. it is only a first step.