[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 41, Number 43 (Monday, October 31, 2005)]
[Pages 1574-1575]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

October 22, 2004

    Good morning. This week I signed into law a bill that supports our 
ongoing efforts to defend our homeland.
    To defend this country, we have to enforce our borders. When our 
borders are not secure, terrorists, drug dealers, and criminals find it 
easier to sneak into America. My administration has a clear strategy for 
dealing with this problem: We want to stop people from crossing into 
America illegally and to quickly return the illegal immigrants we catch 
back to their home countries.
    For the past 4 years, we've been implementing this strategy. To stop 
illegal immigrants from coming across our borders, we've added manpower, 
upgraded our technology, and taken the final steps necessary to complete 
a 14-mile barrier running along the San Diego border with Mexico. To 
enforce our immigration laws within our borders, we've hired more 
immigration agents, gone after criminal gangs, and targeted smugglers 
and ``coyotes'' who traffic in human beings. We are getting results: 
Since 2001, we have removed more than 4.8 million illegal immigrants 
from the United States, including more than 300,000 with criminal 
records.
    Our border patrol and immigration agents are doing a fine job, but 
we still have a problem. Too many illegal immigrants are coming in, and 
we're capturing many more non-Mexican illegal immigrants than we can 
send home. And one of the biggest reasons we cannot send them back is 
that we lack space in our detention facilities to hold them until they 
are removed. When there's no bed available, non-Mexicans who are caught 
entering our country illegally are given a slip that tells them to come 
back for a court appearance. Most never show up, and then they disappear 
back into the shadows of our communities. This is called ``catch-and-
release,'' and it is unacceptable.
    The bill I signed includes $7.5 billion that will help us address 
the problem of illegal immigration in two important ways. First, it 
provides more than $2.3 billion for the Border Patrol so we can keep 
more illegal immigrants from getting into the country in the first 
place. These funds will help us hire a thousand new border patrol 
agents, improve our technology and intelligence, expand and improve 
Border Patrol stations, and install and improve fencing, lighting, 
vehicle barriers, and roads along our border areas. I appreciate the 
help Congress has given us for our common goal of creating more secure 
borders.
    Second, this bill also provides $3.7 billion for Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement so we can find and return the illegal immigrants who 
are entering our country. With these funds, we can expand the holding 
capacity of our detention facilities by 10 percent. This will allow us 
to hold more non-Mexican illegal immigrants while we process them 
through a program we call ``expedited removal.'' This will make the 
process faster and more efficient. Putting more non-Mexican illegal 
immigrants through expedited removal is crucial to sending back people 
who have come here illegally. As Secretary Chertoff told the Senate this 
week, our goal is to return every single illegal entrant, with no 
exceptions. And this bill puts us on the path to do that.
    For Mexicans who cross into America illegally, we have a different 
plan but the same goal. 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 that these illegal immigrants are able to connect 
with another smuggler or ``coyote'' and come right back in. So one part 
of the solution is a program called ``interior repatriation'' where we 
fly or bus these illegal immigrants all the way back to their hometowns 
in the interior of Mexico. By returning illegal Mexican immigrants to 
their homes, far away from desert crossings, we're saving lives and 
making it more difficult for them to turn right around and cross back 
into America.

[[Page 1575]]

    As we improve and expand our efforts to secure our borders, we must 
also recognize that enforcement cannot work unless it's part of a 
comprehensive immigration reform that includes a temporary-worker 
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. I'll work with Members of Congress to create a program that will 
provide for our economy's labor needs without harming American workers 
and without granting amnesty, and that will relieve pressure on our 
borders.
    A critical part of any temporary-worker program is ensuring that our 
immigration laws are enforced at work sites. America is a country of 
laws. We must not allow dishonest employers to flout those laws. So 
we've doubled the resources for work site enforcement since 2004.
    We have much more work ahead of us. But the Homeland Security bill I 
signed this week provides vital support for our efforts to deal with the 
problem of illegal immigration and make all Americans safer and more 
secure.
    Thank you for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 12:20 p.m. on October 21 in Los 
Angeles, CA, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on October 22. The transcript 
was made available by the Office of the Press Secretary on October 21 
but was embargoed for release until the broadcast. The Office of the 
Press Secretary also released a Spanish language transcript of this 
address.