Oh. gosh. Well. lets talk about it. They said: Well. we started out in this legislation with 18.000 additional Border Patrol officers. we will increase detention capacity to 27.500 beds. and another onethis is former Governor Jed Bush and Ken Melman-"It doubles the border patrol and expands the border fence." That is what they said in their May 31 Wall Street Journal Open Borders editorial. It doubles the Border Patrol and expands the border fence. Maybe these people think this. All right. Lets see if we can get this straight. Before we address whether this bill actually will secure the border. it is important to clarify for the record that the bill does not require a doubling of the Border Patrol. it does not require more bed space than required by current law. and it does not require more fence than current law requires. If anybody doesnt agree with that. come on down and show me that I am wrong. This is a promotion. What about agents? The bill does not add 18.000 Border Patrol agents. Senators. When these statements were made. the trigger only required that a total of 18.000 Border Patrol agents be hired. Since then. Senator JUDD GREGG got the number up to 20.000. I think we have that. So we are close to that number now. We are close to 18.000 now and are already on track to have that number hired by the end of 2008. so no more Border Patrol agents are required to be hired under this bills enforcement trigger than current law requires. Those of you who want to see enforcement are not being given anything on Border Patrol officers. What the bill does do for agents outside the trigger is add 6.000 to the total authorized level by requiring 2.400 agents to be hired in 2011. and again in 2012. and increasing the numbers that are supposed to be hired in 2008. 2009. 2010. from 2.000 to 2.400 per year. In other words. we are already projected to hire 2.000. they say we will add 2.400 a year. Current law authorization only went through 2010 at 2.000 a year. so this bill does increase the authorization by about 30 percent. But it certainly does not require an actual doubling of the Border Patrol. and a 30percent increase is not in the trigger. The reason that is important is. if It is not required as part of the trigger that kicks off the amnesty and the permanent residence. then appropriators in the future are not likely to do it. I can give you a string of examples of us authorizing Border Patrol. authorizing fencing. and never coming up with the money to fund it. What about bedspace? What is inside the trigger?
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