[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 117 (Tuesday, September 19, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S9692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page S9692]]
                          SECURING OUR BORDERS

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to talk about the progress we have 
made relative to securing our borders because this is one of those 
situations where the facts on the ground have not yet caught up with 
the public perception, which is understandable. That happens a lot in 
all sorts of areas where things are moving in the right direction, 
which were broken but are being repaired; there is still a perception 
that things are fundamentally broken. We are moving in the right 
direction relative to the borders.

  Since 2005, we have made rather significant strides toward putting in 
place the infrastructure and the people necessary to secure the 
borders. I have the good fortune to chair the Subcommittee on Homeland 
Security. It may well be the only major appropriations bill that gets 
out of this Congress before we adjourn in October. That bill and the 
precursors to it, including the appropriations bills which we passed 
over the last 2 years and the supplementals that have gone with those 
bills, have allowed us to significantly expand our commitment to 
homeland security.
  This has been an aggressive step taken by the Republican Congress and 
the administration. Back in 2005 we took a look at the problem when I 
assumed the leadership of this subcommittee, and we basically 
reoriented this whole funding stream within the Homeland Security 
Department, relative to the issue of weapons of mass destruction and 
border security. We concluded that those were the two major threats on 
which we as a committee should focus. So we took significant amounts of 
funds at that time and moved them into those accounts. Initially, back 
in 2005, the administration wasn't too excited about that, but after 
they took a hard look at what we were doing, they felt it was a good 
idea and they decided to join us in our efforts.
  Now, since 2005, that effort has accelerated and has gained strength 
and has actually made significant gains. By the time this next bill 
passes, which I hope will pass before we leave at the end of September, 
it is expected we will have put in place almost 4,000 new border 
agents, which is a 40-percent increase in border agents--people 
physically on the ground; we will have put in place almost 10,000 new 
detention beds so that when we catch people, we don't have to release 
them. That was really an inappropriate policy that was being followed, 
which was when somebody was caught coming across the border, they were 
simply either taken back across the border if they were Mexicans, or 
they were released and told to come back and appear for a court date if 
they were not Mexican. And what we found was that nobody came back for 
those court dates. So with the 10,000 additional beds we put in place, 
that policy of catch and release will be curtailed.
  We have added hundreds of miles of new fence, and we will continue to 
add new fencing where it is appropriate. We have dramatically increased 
the Customs and Border Patrol agents so that we are now up to 18,000 
Customs officers, I am talking about--not Border Patrol--Customs 
officers who monitor our ports of entry, in addition to our Border 
Patrol individuals. We have greatly increased the commitment to the 
Coast Guard, which is the first line of defense relative to our ports 
and also plays a major role, of course, along the access points of our 
coastline for people who are coming into the country illegally. We have 
added $7.5 billion to the Coast Guard accounts which are going to give 
them the new capability they need for the boats and the aircraft, 
specifically upgrading their aircraft, upgrading their helicopters. All 
of this is in order to give the Coast Guard the ability to intercept 
people who may be coming here to do us harm.
  We dramatically increased our commitment in the area of nuclear 
detection. We set up the Nuclear Deterrence Office, which basically is 
a focused effort on the question of how to deter a nuclear attack and 
also respond to it should it ever occur--God forbid it should ever 
happen. That is obviously the intention of some of our enemies. They 
want to accomplish that. We need to be focused on trying to stop that 
from happening. We have dramatically expanded the intelligence 
capability of the Department of Homeland Security Analysis Center by 
adding over a half a billion dollars for that. These are increases that 
are making a difference in our capacity as a country to know who is 
coming into the country, what is coming into the country, and whether 
the people who are coming into the country represent a threat or 
whether they are just people who are coming to pursue appropriate 
lawful activity in the area of commerce or just in the area of visiting 
us or taking advantage of our educational system.
  These are major steps forward. All problems haven't been solved yet, 
and we all understand that. But if we continue on this path toward 
significantly upgrading our capabilities in the area of our feet on the 
ground, our boots on the ground, and technology supporting those 
boots--and later this week there is going to be the release of the 
accounting for the security program for the entire border, which will 
be a major step forward. It will mean we will be able to start 
construction of major technology improvements along the borders to use 
our advantages in technology to be able to police our borders. Then, in 
addition, recognizing that should somebody actually breach our borders 
with some weapon that might harm us, we will have the capacity to try 
to mitigate the effects of that through better technology and the 
research that surrounds that effort.
  We have basically made a huge commitment in this area, dramatically 
increasing our funding, dramatically increasing our personnel, and 
dramatically increasing our technological capability. It is very likely 
that within the next year--in fact, it is probable, not likely--the 
results of this are going to become very clear to the American people. 
But as with many things--the perception that the border remains an open 
sieve, which it was and it shouldn't have been, but it was, especially 
along the southern border; and the perception that we don't have in 
place the technology to protect ourselves, which we didn't; the 
perception that we had not adequately upgraded the Coast Guard to do 
its job, which we hadn't--all remain the perception in the marketplace, 
and understandably so.
  But the facts on the ground are that we are significantly upgrading 
our capabilities along the borders; that we have significantly upgraded 
our technological capability and we are continuing to expand that 
dramatically; that we are significantly improving the capacity of the 
Coast Guard, and that systems such as US-VISIT, which basically tracks 
who is coming into the country through a fingerprint process, are up 
and running and appear to be giving us significant results.
  So I think we should talk about the good that is happening and our 
efforts to do the right thing along the borders, which is secure them 
and the progress that we are making. We should recognize that although 
we are not there yet, we are clearly on a path toward accomplishing our 
goal, which is to make sure that the people who come into this country, 
first, come in legally and, secondly, when they come in they do us no 
harm and their purpose is to do us no harm; and thirdly, that the 
product that is coming into this country is for the purpose of 
commerce, not for the purpose of harming us.

  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont is 
recognized.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority controls 4 minutes 15 
seconds in morning business. The minority's time has expired in morning 
business.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to speak for up to 12 minutes as in morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without 
objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.

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