Speech #1100083253

What Senator SALAZARs and my amendment simply does is to make sure that we are. in fact. looking at all of our International borders and allocating the resources appropriately. Now. unless this debate is about something more than protecting the United States. we should have a resounding vote. Because if you are concerned about one terrorist coming through a border. you should be concerned about a border that is far more porous. far greater in length. the one that actually has a history of having someone who sought to commit an act of violence within the United States crossing that northern borderone that is totally undermanned in the context of protecting that border and. obviously. it means we have far greater numbers than the 69.000. at the same time. one in which we have actually seen the number of Border Patrol agents decrease. We have a mandate in the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act that mandated that the Canadian border receive increases in Border Patrol agents equal to 20 percent of the Border Patrol agents that exist. And. ultimately. we have seen a reduction during fiscal year 20052006 in the total number of Border Patrol agents by nearly 9 percent. So we have a history of people crossing the border. a history of the millennium bomber. Yet we have a decrease in Border Patrol agents who are on the northern border. You are either for protecting the country or you are not. By the way. if I were a terrorist. and I wanted to get into the United States. and the bottom line is that I know they are going to put everybody down at the southern border. guess what. I would be coming through the northern border because with over 5.500 miles and with only 965 total Border Patrol agents for three shifts around the clock for that whole stretch. that makes it a much greater percentage for me to be able to come over the northern border than to face the challenges of the southern border. I know our colleagues here who care so much. as we do. about the national security and the defense of this country are going to give this amendment an overwhelming vote. I expect it to be accepted by a voice vote. If the answer is no. we are not concerned about the northern border. then I have to question the motives of some in this debate because we are either concerned about the security of the country or we have a certain prejudice over a certain part of what we consider a threat to the United States. Porous borders are a collective threat. But when we focus all of our time and attention at one end. lets leave a wide gaping hole on the other part. the one that has over 2% times more territory to cover and has probably 10 percent of all the Border Patrol agents in the country. I am sure this will be accepted by voice or we will have an overwhelming vote because the absence of having an overwhelming vote to make sure we protect our country indicates to me that the concern of some is not about protecting our country. the concern of some is that. in fact. they have a concern about who comes to this countrynot because they seek to provide an act of terrorism. but because of who they are. So I think this will be a defining moment in which we can collectively work to protect our country. make sure we have the appropriate resources and allocations of them to the northern border as well as the southern border. make sure that we fill up all of our security gaps and. therefore. strengthen the security of the country.