From time to time my office distributes press releases and written statements on state and national issues, debate in the Senate, and legislation that I am working on. For your convenience, I post these documents on my site for your review.
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Senate Adopts Sessions’ Amendment to Make Border Security Funding a Priority
The amendment, offered as part of the Senate’s consideration of the Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Resolution, creates a reserve fund for border security, immigration enforcement, and illegal alien removal programs.
The Senate approved the amendment 61-37.
“This Senate has previously voted to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws, but for various reasons those votes haven’t translated into action. The programs don’t always receive the funding they need to be effective,” Sessions said. “I am pleased that the Senate voted in favor of my amendment to build room in the budget to fund these critical immigration enforcement efforts. The vote was a strong sign that my colleagues have heard the voice of the American people calling on Congress to secure our borders and restore lawfulness to our immigration system.”
Sessions’ amendment applies broadly to all border security and enforcement efforts, but specifies six programs that are critical to restoring law and order to America’s immigration system –
• Operation Streamline, the zero tolerance prosecution policy for illegal entry now in place in four of 20 sectors along the border. The program guarantees that illegal entrants be prosecuted, and, if convicted, serve some jail time. The policy has resulted in a 50 percent decrease in attempted entries in Del Rio, Texas and a 68 percent decrease in attempted entries in Yuma, Arizona.
• Operation Jumpstart, the program to place National Guard troops on the border to assist in security efforts. Operation Jumpstart has deployed thousands of men and women in uniform to the border, which has resulted in the apprehension of 88,000 illegal aliens and hundreds of thousands of pounds of narcotics. Despite the success of the program, it will end this summer if Congress does not take action.
• Criminal Alien Removal Program, which identifies deportable illegal aliens in our federal, state, and local prison populations. Expanding the Criminal Alien Removal Program is essential to ensure that criminal aliens are deported from prison rather than released. Twenty-seven percent of our federal prison population is composed of non-citizens – convicted of serious felonies, not immigration offenses – that may be deportable.
• 287(g) program, which trains state and local officers to assist federal officials in immigration law enforcement.
• U.S. VISIT Exit Portion, the critical program that tracks the flow of temporary workers across the border. First required by Congress in 1996, the completion of the exit portion of U.S. VISIT is now three years past the required completion date at all airports, seaports, and land ports of entry. Until it is complete, the U.S. government will have no way of knowing which visitors or guest workers overstay their visas.
• Fence Construction, including completion of the 700 miles of southern border fencing Congress required two years ago in the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
The reserve fund is structured to be deficit-neutral so that it will not increase the national debt.
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