Protecting America's Borders

Protecting America's Borders
May 23, 2005

It is widely known that America's porous national borders are not being effectively guarded. The silent invasion of illegals has been steadily increasing for decades and the American people are rightly demanding that their government stop it.

Four years after the terrible attacks of 9/11/01, the Federal government has not totally learned the sad lessons of that day. Terrorists can still exploit lax border security as well as loopholes in immigration enforcement to gain access to our streets. Once here, they lie in wait to hatch their next attack on an unsuspecting public.

The 9/11 Commission and Congress's own intelligence investigations have concluded that until we can successfully plug our borders, we are at greater risk from terrorists determined to do us harm. The statistics are not encouraging. It is estimated that 11 million illegal aliens are currently in America. Each year, the total number of illegal aliens in this country grows by 700,000.

While the Federal government has tried to devote more resources and personnel to this alarming threat, it is clear that we are just not doing enough. Over the last decade, Congress has quadrupled spending on immigration related border security and enforcement, from $1.2 billion to $4.7 billion. What's more, we've also more than doubled the number of border patrol agents from 5,000 to 11,200. What was the result? During the same period, the number of illegal aliens in America has also more than doubled - from five million to 11 million.

It's time to not only bolster border control and immigration agents, but also change the way we track and process illegals so that they cannot escape into society. Last week, the U.S. House passed the Homeland Security 2006 Authorization and Appropriations bills which address many fronts in protecting the homeland from possible terrorist attack, including controlling illegal immigration.

The legislation provides $19.4 billion for border protection and immigration enforcement - nearly $2 billion over last year's budget. It will add 1,000 new Border Patrol and 350 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the front lines, on top of 500 new Border Patrol and 568 more ICE agents already being added by the recently-passed 2005 Supplemental Appropriations bill.

This is not enough. Tough action must be taken by the Department of Homeland Security to make its operations more effective. The House-passed legislation pushes the Federal bureaucracy to revitalize the immigration enforcement process and actually follow through on the removal of illegal aliens that have been apprehended.

These steps, combined with those recently passed by Congress in the Supplemental Appropriations bill, including toughening driver's license standards and speeding up the deportation of known illegal aliens are just the beginning. Dramatically increased enforcement, together with high tech border security technology, must be employed effectively if we are to gain the upper hand over illegal aliens and potential terrorist attackers.

We must also take away incentives for illegals to come to the U.S. Accordingly, I have cosponsored separate legislation to end the practice of granting automatic citizenship to children born to illegals.
Congress is committed to protecting our borders. It's time for results.

http://wwwc.house.gov/everett/news/columns/col_052305.asp