[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4] [Senate] [Pages 4511-4513] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]IMMIGRATION REFORM Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I wish to talk about immigration reform and border security. In particular, since this debate will be continuing for this week and the next, I want to emphasize the importance of border security, and, obviously, enforcement begins at the border. But before I talk about border security and enhanced enforcement, I want to address the issue of the 12 million immigrants who are already here who have come to this country in violation of our immigration laws. We know why people come to America. It is the same reason they have always come: because too often they have no hope and no opportunity where they live. So we understand at a very human level why it is that people want to come to the United States. Yet I think we all acknowledge America cannot open its borders to anyone and everyone who wants to come here or we would literally be drowned in a wave of humanity. We have to regain control of our broken immigration system, and that means to deal with enforcement at our borders, to deal with enforcement in the interior of our country, and to deal with verification of the eligibility of prospective employees to actually work legally in the United States. We cannot repeat the mistake this Nation made with the 1986 amnesty bill. I remind my colleagues that in 1986, that legislation required illegal aliens to pay a fee, to learn English, to improve themselves by working in this country for a set time. I also remind my colleagues that everyone agrees on two points when it comes to the 1986 experience with the amnesty bill. No. 1, they agree it was amnesty. And No. 2, they agree it was a complete and total failure. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to find a solution to this great crisis that confronts our country, but I won't accept a repetition of the mistake of 1986 when this country granted amnesty in the hopes of that being the end of it and in the hopes that there would be a reciprocal obligation on the part of the Federal Government to actually sanction employers who violate our immigration laws. I am afraid the numbers speak for themselves, with 3 million illegal immigrants who benefitted from the amnesty and now roughly 12 million who are here awaiting the next amnesty. Thus we can see what a magnet amnesty becomes and why it is so counterproductive. I am proud to represent a border State, the great State of Texas, and I [[Page 4512]] know from personal experience what problems the border States face. I know the strains that illegal immigration and our broken borders have placed on local taxpayers when it comes to education, when it comes to health care, and I know the anger and frustration that many people feel at the Federal Government's abject failure when it comes to enforcing our immigration laws. I also know the nature of immigration across our borders is changing. There is more and more violence on the northern border of Mexico in cities such as Nuevo Laredo. I have listened to the concerns of my fellow Texans, including ranchers and those who are well accustomed to the movement of people across the border into the United States who want to work here and who then go back home with the savings and skills they have established. I have listened to the ranchers and the Good Samaritans who live and work along the border who were happy to lend a helping hand to the occasional traveling immigrant worker, to those seeking a better life. But I have to tell you, these people are now scared. They are terrified because drug smugglers and human traffickers are wreaking havoc along our Nation's borders. Let's not delude ourselves. This debate isn't just about drugs, and it isn't just about violence, as horrible as those are. This debate is also--and I would say first and foremost--about our Nation's security. In a post-9/11 world, border security is national security. I say that again: In a post-9/11 world, border security is national security. Make no mistake about it. Today we do confront a crisis that threatens our security. We all know that our immigration system is broken and has been for many years. And it is not getting any better on its own. So I applaud the majority leader and those who have worked so hard on both sides of the aisle to try to bring this debate to the Senate floor. This is the greatest deliberative body on the face of the planet, and I would hope that we could have a debate about this urgent need to fix our broken immigration system and to restore security to our border and do it in a way that is dignified and civil and worthy of this great institution and of this great democracy. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and I have teamed up to work on this issue from top to bottom. We have worked closely together over several years to address this challenge in a comprehensive way. We have held numerous hearings, and we have heard testimony from a diverse array of experts across the political spectrum. We have also inspected our Nation's failed immigration system and its relationship with the terrible events of September 11. And we have examined why it is important for America's neighbors to raise living standards for their own citizens to help relieve some of the pressure on our border. Senator Kyl and I have sought to lay a foundation for a comprehensive solution to fix our broken borders, a comprehensive solution that would avert another crisis 5, 10, or 20 years down the road. When we sat down to draft legislation, we were alarmed that many of the bills already introduced at that time simply called for more studies and more reports. One so-called comprehensive bill failed to contain a single provision on interior enforcement. This is not a time for more studies or more reports. This is a time for action. We need to act, and we need to act prudently and in America's best interests. So our goal was to craft an immigration bill that would be comprehensive. We understood that any truly comprehensive bill must address both border security and enforcing the law in our Nation's interior. Over a dozen of the strong and sensible enforcement provisions we crafted made their way into the bill that is now before the Senate in the form of the Judiciary Committee bill. I want to talk about these enforcement measures and why they are a necessary precondition to everything else that we do when it comes to reforming our broken immigration system. I repeat: National security and border security begin at the border. Congress can no longer ignore the realities on the ground. We can no longer afford to under-fund and under-man our borders. What we see in my State of Texas is that the mandates that the Federal Government issues when it comes to health care, when it comes to education, when it comes to law enforcement are foisted off on State, and most often, local taxpayers. It is considered a local problem when self-evidently, it should be a national mandate. When it comes to any of those issues, we have a national responsibility, and the Congress and the Federal Government must step up. Let's look at the reason many Texans and others who live and work along the border are scared, people who are very much accustomed to immigrants moving back and forth across the border. It is because they know the face of illegal immigration across our border has changed. We have a chart, chart No. 1, that illustrates the changing nature of illegal immigration and the rise in the number of people coming from countries other than Mexico. You can see on this chart that the aliens who have been detained along the border are from special interest countries--countries with ties to international terror such as Syria, Iraq, Iran. Just 2 weeks ago, I talked to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and he told me there were 39,000 Chinese who had been detained coming across our southern border and, unfortunately, once they were detained, China refused to accept any of them back. So we have to use every diplomatic tool in our toolbox to make sure we not only detain people who come across our border illegally, but that we then, in an expeditious way, return them back to their country of origin. Second, in the bill that Senator Kyl and I proposed, we proposed a doubling in the number of Border Patrol agents. And while we have heard a lot of talk about additional Federal agents at the border, the Federal Government really hasn't stepped up yet. There is a lot of good and, I think, well-intentioned talk. But on 9/11, we saw that 9,788 Border Patrol agents were funded by the U.S. Government. Here we are today, and we have seen a small increase to a little over 11,000. But lest some people think that is a lot of Federal agents on the border, let me remind them we have a 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico--a 2,000-mile border--and now a little over 11,000 Federal agents, when the city of New York has somewhere on the order of 39,000 policemen. So if you compare a 2,000-mile border and 11,000 Border Patrol agents with the fact that the city of New York has 39,000 police officers, you can see why I suggest to my colleagues that we are both underfunded and undermanned when it comes to the sheer volume of people coming across the border. Last year, about 1.2 million--that's 1.2 million--people were apprehended coming across the border. So how can we in good conscience say that we are doing everything within our power to enforce our borders and enforce our laws when we simply deny the Federal agents, who are doing a very good job, the number of people they need in order to be successful? Then there is the issue of detention beds. Once you detain someone coming illegally across the border, they are entitled, ordinarily, to a deportation hearing, if they come from a country other than Mexico. People who come from Mexico are returned expeditiously--usually the same day. Of course, many of them try to come back and, after enough tries, they usually make it past the border. But we have had a flawed policy of catch and release. In other words, when we have apprehended people at the border who come in illegally from countries other than Mexico, we said: Please show up in 30 days for your deportation hearing. Are we surprised that the vast majority of people don't show up but just merely melt into our landscape and become part of that 12 million people who come to our country in violation of our immigration laws? Well, it is because we only have 20,000 detention beds--20,000-- with 1.2 million people coming [[Page 4513]] across our borders just last year. That is the fundamental, root problem with the catch-and-release policy that the Department of Homeland Security has had for far too long. Senator Kyl and I would not only raise the number of detention beds to 50,000, but we would end the catch-and-release policy by improving and increasing and mandating the use of expedited removal across our borders. This chart reflects that Border Patrol apprehensions of people from countries other than Mexico were 165,000 last year. Yet 114,000 of them were released under the catch-and-release program. As I say, most, if not all, of them melted into the landscape and became part of this shadow culture living in America today of people who have come to this country in violation of our immigration laws. We may assume we know why they have come here. We may assume that they are people in search of a better life and, indeed, many of them are. But the fact is, we can't assume in a post-9/11 world; we have to know who is coming into our country and why they are here because we know there are those who have evil intent toward America. We know there are common criminals. We know there are drug dealers and drug smugglers. We know there are arms dealers. We know there are international criminal syndicates who will do anything for a buck, whether it is smuggling drugs, guns, weapons of mass destruction, or smuggling terrorists across our borders. In addition to the 10,000 more Border Patrol agents, I believe the solution to securing our borders is in the technology we have, our technological advantage. But we are not using technology along the border the way we should. We know the Department of Defense, our military, is the finest, most professional military the world has ever known, and in large part it is because of the technology they are able to use. We need to use ground sensors. We need to use unmanned aerial vehicles. We need to use technology to provide a secure border. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired. Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds to conclude my remarks. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, as I pointed out, border security is national security. I see the chairman of the Subcommittee for Homeland Security of the Appropriations Committee on the floor, and he has been a great champion of getting more money allocated for this important effort. But we are a far cry from where we need to be. We can do this if we have the national will and commitment. But our national security depends on border security, and we have to make a credible effort-- indeed, more than an effort--we need to be successful in providing security to our borders in order to keep the American people safe. I yield the floor. ____________________