[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11659]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            BORDER SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. McClintock). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Speaker, as an FBI agent, my job was to keep the 
American people safe from all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
  On the national security front, those components include a sound 
counterterrorism strategy, a sound counterintelligence strategy, a 
sound cybersecurity strategy, a sound foreign policy, and a sound 
border security strategy.
  Before us today, Mr. Speaker, is the issue of border security, an 
issue that, quite frankly, has been largely ignored over the past 
several decades by both parties. As a result, our national security 
remains compromised at a point in time where we live in a more 
dangerous world now than we ever have.
  When you combine the fact that our enemies are now both more 
sophisticated and better funded, coupled with our border security 
apparatus which is underfunded, outdated, and compromised, this is a 
recipe for disaster for our Nation. The time is now to act on securing 
our border: north, south, east, and west--all of its components in all 
of our geographic regions.
  As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, I have spent time on 
the border with our brave women and men on the front lines, working 
with CPB officers and Border Patrol agents. I have spent time both on 
the ocean and in the sky with brave women and men in our Coast Guard. 
Mr. Speaker, they are pleading for our help, and shame on us if we do 
not deliver for them.
  Their requests are simple: increase their manpower to provide them 
with a sufficient number of agents to interdict not just drugs and guns 
from cartels, but also criminals and terrorists who seek to do us harm; 
invest in the technology that they need to do their jobs, to include 
drones and aerial surveillance, infrared technology, heat sensors, 
motion detectors both above and below the ground, and an array of 21st 
century, high-tech options that serve as force multipliers along the 
border.
  They need physical barriers in various forms along various stretches 
of the border in order to slow down the cartels and allow for 
sufficient response time for the agents to interdict. Moreover, we must 
invest heavily in a robust human intelligence program, giving our 
agents the resources they need to recruit human sources on the other 
side of the border to provide our agents with the advance notice of 
both the sources and the methods of criminal conspiracies that are 
forming along the border.
  In addition, we must bolster the Office of Inspector General to crack 
down on border corruption through the use of drug testing, financial 
screening, and polygraph examinations.
  Mr. Speaker, the concept of border security is a multipronged 
challenge that requires action on all fronts, not just one or two, and 
I urge my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Please do 
not politicize this issue.
  Securing operational control of our border is a national security 
emergency. My former law enforcement colleagues who are putting their 
life on the line every day while protecting our borders are asking for 
our help. Let us not let them down.

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