Speech #1090184486

But when the House failed to act and would not act. when we recognized that we had to gain confidence with the American people that we knew what we were doing and we would do it right. we increasingly began to put pressure on the border. to secure it. to make it a real border. to recognize that to cross it you had to be legal. you had to have the right papers and credentials. That Is going on as we speak. I was one who encouraged our President to maximize the use of our National Guard to help the Border Patrol to focus on those concentrated areas where greater movement of illegals coming across our border was occuring. It is an issue of security. it is not just people wanting to cross the border to work. Last year. over 200.000 were apprehended who were nonMexican. They were from all over the world. Many of them. tragically enough. were drug traffickers and illegals trying to get into our country for illegal purposesnot just a hard days work in the hot sun of an agricultural field. Border security is critical. I hope this Congress will do now what it must do. what it has to do for the American economy. for the American agricultural industries. and that is pass a responsible. comprehensive reform of the H2A program. Yes. we need to deal with the illegals who are currently in the country. but we also need to create a legal. identifiable flow of people who come to work and then go home. Ninetyplus percent who work here want to do just that: they want to go back from where they came.