Illegal Immigration Crisis
SECURE THE BORDER. In the face of the McCain-Kennedy “comprehensive immigration reform”, a.k.a. Senate Bill 1639, the American people made their opposition to amnesty and an open border known by jamming the Senate switchboard and flooding legislator’s email accounts. In the October of 2006, President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act. It directed the Department of Homeland Security to construct approximately 700 miles of double layered fencing with cameras, motion sensors, and other barriers. The bill was funded by a seperate 1.2 billion dollar homeland security bill. The 700 miles was scheduled to be complete by December 2008. By February 2008, only 300 miles of fencing had been constructed. In the Yuma Arizona sector, a double and triple layer section of fence has been completed resulting in a 72% drop in illegal immigrant apprehensions. Before the fence, ICE would to catch approximately 800 illegal entrants a day. After the fence, apprehensions have dropped to 50 or less per day. The American people need to stay on top of the federal government until the fence project is completed as it was intended to be built.
Increase Funding For Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE needs to have its funding increased to increase the scope and tempo of its operations. In fiscal year 2005 (FY05) ICE had 18 Fugative Operations Teams. The number increased to 50 teams in FY06, and 75 teams in FY07. In FY07, ICE removed 276,912 illegal aliens from the United States. In addition to catching illegal aliens and prosecuting empolyers of illegal aliens, in FY07 ICE seized 1.3 million lbs of marijuana, 241,967 lbs of cocaine, 4,331 lbs of herion, and 2,731 lbs of methamphetamine.
No Amnesty. Illegal immigrants need to leave the country and fill out the paper work to come here to live and work just as the millions of legal immigrants have done and will continue to do. The United States granted amnesty to illegal aliens under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s and it hasn’t worked out well for our country. All the amnesty bill from the 1980’s did was encourage more illegal immigrants to enter the country due to the lack of consequences. We now have over 12 million illegal aliens living in the country.
