It is a complex initiative. but it is one which will work. we hope. and one which we are well down the road toward doing. But for it to work effectively and for it to be properly built. the amount of resources that needs to be committed to it exceeds by a factor of about 30 percent what is in this bill. The same is true in the area of Border Patrol agents and in the area of detention beds. although less is needed. So what I have done in this amendment is essentially propose that we take the numbers that we know are necessary to gain operational control over the border and put those numbers into this bill. And that we allow the trigger. which is this exceptional idea Senator ISAKSON came up with. to function off those numbers. rather than backing into the trigger by using the number of months which we think we want to use before we move on to the rest of the bill. The difference. as I said. is not dramatic. significant but not dramatic. For example. instead of 18.000 border agentswe had a lot of testimony. a lot of discussion. and the head of the Border Patrol at the time. Robert Bonner. said he needed 20.000 agents on the bordernot 16. 20. So there is a 2.000 agent difference.
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Border Patrol