Speech #1090179805

Mr. President. since all of our efforts to go to conference with the House and to secure comprehensive immigration reform were unsuccessful. 1 am reluctantly voting in favor of the H.R. 6061. the Secure Fence Act of 2006. After many hearings and a laborious markup. the Judiciary Committee produced a comprehensive bill providing for border security. employee verification. guest workers and a sensible plan to handle the 11 million undocumented immigrants. Despite repeated efforts. we were unable to secure a conference with the House to reconcile differences between the bills the House passed and the Senate legislation. There was successful opposition to piecemeal legislation by the House that would have. for example. enabled state and local police to enforce immigration laws. During a field hearing I held at the Philadelphia Constitution Center on July 5. 2006. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson testified that making local enforcement of immigration law would undermine the basic function of local police. He further testified that "once we start enforcing immigration law. then we are going to lose . . . that response from the immigrant community because they are not going to contact us. Nor will they contact us if they have information about other people. about other violencetype things." The one major issue which has reached the Senate for a vote despite our efforts to avoid piecemeal legislation is the fence issue. As to the substance of the construction of the fence. I have long supported this facet of border securityin fact. our bill produces 370 miles of fencing through major urban areas and adds 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the U.S./Mexico border. On this state of the record. since 1 do support the construction of the fence and since we have succeeded in avoiding any substantial piecemeal legislation. I am casting my vote in favor of H.R. 6061.