[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 42 (Monday, October 24, 2005)]
[Pages 1554-1558]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations 
Act, 2006

October 18, 2005

    Thank you all. Please be seated. Thanks for coming. Welcome to the 
White House.
    The most solemn duty of the President and the Congress is to protect 
the American people. To help meet this responsibility, we created the 
Department of Homeland Security. This Department united 22 Federal 
agencies under a single command with a clear mission, to protect the 
American homeland.
    To protect our homeland, we tore down legal and bureaucratic walls 
that separated our intelligence agents from our law enforcement 
officers. We've disrupted terrorist planning and financing as a result 
of the reforms. We've used the PATRIOT Act to break up terror cells and 
prosecute terrorist operatives and supporters. At the same time, the 
Department of Homeland Security, by working with the United States 
Congress, has increased the number of people guarding our borders, 
hardened security at our airports and seaports and bridges and tunnels 
and water treatment facilities and nuclear plants.

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We've helped give those most likely to encounter terrorists, our 
partners in local and State government, the tools they need to do their 
job.
    The bill I sign today supports our ongoing efforts to protect our 
homeland with $30.8 billion in discretionary funding for fiscal year 
2006, an increase of $1.8 billion over the 2005 levels. This bill will 
help us identify terrorists seeking to enter our country, safeguard our 
cities against weapons of mass destruction, and better prepare the 
Federal Government to respond to catastrophic attack.
    The bill also includes $7.5 billion in vital funding to address the 
serious problem of illegal immigration. We're going to get control of 
our borders. We're going to make this country safer for all our 
citizens.
    I want to thank Secretary Mike Chertoff for the job he's doing. I 
want to welcome Josh Bolten, Director of OMB. He's the money man. 
[Laughter] I appreciate Ambassador John Negroponte for joining us, the 
Director of National Intelligence; Director Porter Goss of the CIA; Vice 
Admiral Scott Redd, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
    I want to thank the Members of Congress who are up here with me: 
Thad Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of the Appropriations Committee; 
Senator Judd Gregg, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Homeland Security; Senator Jon Kyl, chairman of the Senate Republican 
Policy Committee.
    I want to thank the Members of the House who've joined me up here: 
Congressman Hal Rogers, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on 
Homeland Security; Congressman Pete King; Congressman John Shadegg; 
Congressman Chet Edwards, who happens to be my Congressman; Congressman 
Sanford Bishop; Congressman Sheila Jackson-Lee. Thank you all for 
joining us. I appreciate so many Members of the House and Senate who 
have joined us here today. Thank you for working hard on this good bill.
    I appreciate Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Rebekah Salazar, who's 
joined us on stage--thank you--Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Elizabeth 
Briones as well as Patrol Agent in Charge Felix Chavez. They all work 
for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Thanks for representing the 
good folks who--[applause]. I appreciate those first-responders who've 
joined us today. Thanks for bringing honor to the--[applause].
    To defend this country, we've got to enforce our borders. When our 
borders are not secure, terrorists and drug dealers and criminals find 
it easier to come to America. This administration is going to work with 
Congress to make sure we do our job, and that starts with having a clear 
strategy. And here's how the strategy has got to be: We've got to 
strengthen security along our borders to stop people from entering 
illegally. In other words, we've got to stop people from coming here in 
the first place. Secondly, we must improve our ability to find and 
apprehend illegal immigrants who have made it across the border. If 
somebody is here illegally, we've got to do everything we can to find 
them. And thirdly, we've got to work to ensure that those who are caught 
are returned to their home countries as soon as possible. The bill I 
sign today will provide critical resources for all these efforts.
    For the past 4 years, we've worked with Congress to implement the 
strategy. To stop illegal immigrants from coming into the country, we've 
increased manpower; we've upgraded technology; and we've improved the 
physical barriers along our border. In other words, we've worked 
together to implement the strategy.
    Since I've been to office, we've increased funding for border 
security by 60 percent, and we've hired more than 1,900 new Border 
Patrol agents. We've deployed new technology to help our agents do their 
job, from unmanned aircraft to ground censors to infrared cameras. We've 
made better use of physical structure to help our agents do their job. 
We've taken steps to complete a 14-mile fence running along the San 
Diego border with Mexico.
    Stopping people from crossing our borders illegally is only part of 
the strategy. The other part of our strategy is enforcing our 
immigration laws. Since 2001, we've increased funding for immigration 
enforcement by 35 percent. We've added nearly 1,000 new agents and 
criminal investigators to help us find and

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return illegal immigrants. We've targeted violent criminal gangs, whose 
members are here illegally.
    Under a new program launched in February, our Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement agents have arrested nearly 1,400 illegal immigrant 
gang members. And this country owes them a debt of gratitude for working 
so hard to protect our citizens. We're going after criminal 
organizations and ``coyotes'' that traffic in human beings. These people 
are the worst of the worst. They prey on innocent life. They take 
advantage of people who want to embetter their own lives.
    And we're working hard. In Arizona, we prosecuted more than 2,300 
people for smuggling drugs, guns, and illegal immigrants across our 
borders. And I want to thank the Federal officers as well as the folks 
from Arizona, both local and State, who have made this kind of work 
possible.
    As part of our enforcement efforts, we're working to send the 
illegal immigrants we catch back to their home countries as soon as 
possible. It's one thing to catch them; it's the next thing to get them 
back home. To make progress--to make our progress more effective, we're 
going to work with--we'll continue to work with foreign governments to 
have their counsel officers review cases and issue travel documents more 
quickly--in other words, to expedite the return.
    These efforts are getting results. Since 2001, we've removed several 
million illegal immigrants from the United States, including nearly 
300,000 with criminal records. Our Border Patrol and Immigration 
Enforcement officers are really doing good work. Yet today we capture 
many more illegal immigrants than we can send home, especially non-
Mexicans. And one of the biggest reasons for that is we don't have 
enough bed space in our detention facilities. When there's no bed space 
available, non-Mexicans who are caught entering our country illegally 
are given a slip that tells them to come back for a court appearance. 
And guess what? They don't come back.
    And so this bill--and by the way, as a result of that--this process, 
the lack of beds, the lack of detention facility, we return home only 
30,000 of the 160,000 non-Mexican illegal immigrants we caught coming 
through our Southwest border. And the system is not fair to those who 
are working the border. You got agents working hard to do their job, the 
job Americans expect; 160,000 non-Mexican illegal immigrants were 
caught, yet only 30,000 of them went home.
    And so the bill I sign today--and I appreciate Congress' work on 
this matter--will help us expand our reach and effectiveness in two 
important ways. First, the bill provides more than $2.3 billion for the 
Border Patrol, so we can keep more illegal immigrants from getting into 
this country. In other words, we're expanding the number of agents in a 
rational, planned way. This bill gives $139 million to improve our 
technology and intelligence capabilities, including portable imaging 
machines and cameras and sensors and automated targeting systems that 
focus on high-risk travelers and goods. In other words, we've increased 
the number of people, but we've given them new technology so they can 
better do their job.
    The bill also includes $82 million to improve and expand Border 
Patrol stations and $70 million to install and improve fencing, 
lighting, vehicle barriers, and roads. What I'm saying is Congress did 
good work in helping us build a smarter system, so we can say to the 
American people, ``We're doing our job of securing our border.''
    Secondly, the bill provides $3.7 billion for immigration and customs 
enforcement, so we can find and return the illegal immigrants who are 
here. This bill will fund the hiring of 100 new immigration enforcement 
agents and 250 criminal investigators.
    As a result of the bill I'm about to sign, we're going to add nearly 
2,000 new beds to our detention facilities. That will bring the number 
of beds up to nearly 20,000. This will allow us to hold more non-Mexican 
illegal immigrants while we process them through a program we call 
``expedited removal.'' Putting more of these non-Mexican illegal 
immigrants through expedited removal is crucial to ending the problem of 
catch-and-release. As Secretary Chertoff told the Senate earlier this 
morning, our goal is clear, to return every single illegal entrant, with 
no exceptions. And this bill gets us on the way to do that.

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    For Mexicans who cross into America illegally, we have a different 
strategy. Now most of the 900,000 illegal immigrants from Mexico who are 
caught each year are immediately escorted back across the border. The 
problem is, these illegal immigrants are able to find another ``coyote'' 
or human smuggler, and they come right back in. One part of the solution 
is a program called ``interior repatriation,'' where we fly or bus 
Mexican illegal immigrants all the way back to their hometowns. See, 
many of these folks are coming from the interior of Mexico. And so the 
farther away from the border we send them, the more difficult it will be 
for them to turn around and cross right back into America. By returning 
Mexicans to their homes, far away from desert crossings, we're helping 
to save lives. These efforts are going to help us enforce our borders, 
and I want to thank you for your good work.

    As we improve and expand our efforts to secure our borders, we must 
also recognize that enforcement work--that enforcement cannot work 
unless it is part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform program. 
If an employer has a job that no American is willing to take, we need to 
find a way to fill that demand by matching willing employers with 
willing workers from foreign countries on a temporary and legal basis. 
The best way to do that is through a temporary-worker program that gives 
those workers we need a legal, honest way to come into our country and 
to return home. I'm going to work with Members of Congress to create a 
program that can provide for our economy's labor needs without harming 
American workers, without providing amnesty, and that will improve our 
ability to control our borders.

    You see, we got people sneaking into our country to work. They want 
to provide for their families. Family values do not stop at the Rio 
Grande River. People are coming to put food on the table. But because 
there is no legal way for them to do so, through a temporary-worker 
program, they're putting pressure on our border. It makes sense to have 
a rational plan that says, ``You can come and work on a temporary basis, 
if an employer can't find an American to do the job.''It makes sense for 
the employer. It makes sense for the worker, and it makes sense for 
those good people trying to enforce our border. The fewer people trying 
to sneak in to work means it's more likely we're going to catch 
smugglers--drug smugglers and terrorists and gun runners.

    A critical part of any temporary-worker program is work site 
enforcement. To deal with employers who violate our immigration law, 
this bill strengthens our enforcement capabilities by adding new agents 
and doubling their resources. We've got to crack down on employers who 
flout our laws. And we will give honest employers the tools they need to 
spot fake documents and ensure that their workers are respecting our 
laws. America is a country of laws, and we're going to uphold our laws 
for the good of the citizens of this country.

    The bill I'm about to sign funds a lot of important programs. It 
helps people do the job they've been called on to do, which is to 
protect the American people. A key component of this bill is to make 
sure we enforce the borders of the United States of America. And I want 
to thank the authors of the bill, those who have worked hard to get this 
bill to my desk, for putting forth a rational plan, a way to do our job.

    We've got a lot of work to do in this country. There are enemies 
still out there who want to hurt us. But this bill is a step toward all 
of us, Republicans and Democrats, being able to say to the American 
people, ``We're coming together to do the best job we can possibly do to 
protect this country.''

    Again, I want to thank the Members for being here. Thanks for your 
good work. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our country.

Note: The President spoke at 1:33 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. H.R. 2360, approved October 18, was assigned Public Law No. 109-
90. The Office of the Press Secretary also released a Spanish language 
transcript of these remarks.

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