[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 55 (Tuesday, April 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H1850]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SECURING OUR BORDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Kinzinger) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to just say before I 
actually get started, we just saw the space shuttle fly over on the 
back of a 747, and I salute the end of an amazing era in space 
exploration, and I look forward to the next day of NASA being able to 
talk about space exploration and how we're going to get out there so we 
won't have to rely on Russians to get to space to continue to do what I 
think is a very important role of the Federal Government.
  I was in Houston--I actually went through the NASA center there about 
3 or 4 days ago--but I was in Houston for military duty. I am a pilot 
in the Air National Guard. I fly an airplane called a RC 26, which is a 
reconnaissance plane. I did 9 days of duty. And what we did is we were 
in Texas flying missions on the border of Mexico in order to help the 
Border Patrol secure that border, to ensure that those people that want 
to come in here come in here legally and, just as importantly, if not 
more importantly, to ensure that the drug trade is not being brought 
into our country, to reduce the amount of drugs being brought in from 
Mexico, as well as to ensure that terrorists are not making their way 
through the border by sneaking in through that border of Mexico.
  Now, before I went, I expected to see a border that was basically 
secure because that's what I've been hearing from the administration, 
that the border is basically secure. Yeah, there are examples of people 
coming across outside of that but, for the most part, it's pretty good 
to go. Well, what I saw was something completely different.
  I'm going to tell you just a quick story about somebody who's on the 
border every day trying to protect this country against drugs and 
against terrorism coming through that border. This guy is a Border 
Patrol agent affectionately known as Uzi. Uzi is a former marine. He 
was a marine for about 5 years, started a small business when he got 
out of the Marine Corps, and made the decision that, you know what, he 
wants to go continue to serve and protect his country.
  Now, I flew missions with Uzi. He was on board my aircraft as we went 
down and we assisted Border Patrol. And the one thing Uzi said to me 
is, Congressman, look, we're out here every day in the heat and the 
sweltering sun trying to continue to protect this country. Make sure 
you give us what we need here.
  And when you hear the stories about how hamstrung they are from 
actually enforcing the border, and how there are many tools available 
to them that they're not allowed to use, it's actually pretty sad.
  Now, look. We want to be a Nation of immigration. We want to be a 
Nation of legal immigration. But one thing we don't want to be is a 
Nation that wakes up one day and finds out that there was another 
terrorist attack in a major United States city and that, potentially, 
that weapon of mass destruction or those terrorists actually came in 
through an unsecure border with Mexico.
  I went down there really believing that there was a fence along the 
line, and I saw nothing of the kind in southern Texas.

                              {time}  1010

  Let's tell the American people the truth. The truth is, we want to be 
a Nation that respects immigration because most of us here actually are 
immigrants removed ourselves, but we want to be a Nation that has a 
legal process to do it. When we have an open border, we're encouraging 
people to go around that legal process, and we're opening ourselves up 
to attack.
  Let's stand together. Let's say to respect the immigration and the 
immigrant history of this country, but let's do it in a legal way. My 
eyes were opened, as I did military duty on the border, to the fact 
that we have a long way to go. This can be a bipartisan issue--it 
doesn't need to be Republican versus Democrat--but it needs to be 
something that we actually finally do, and we stand together and we say 
we'll be a Nation that is safe once and for all.

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