Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008

Floor Speech

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 -- (House of Representatives - May 09, 2007)

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 1684, the Fiscal Year 2008 Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act, a good bill which could be much better. I say that because the manager's amendment, if adopted, would strip out many bipartisan provisions that would have helped prevent terrorism and strengthen immigration enforcement, including one that I authored.

H.R. 1684 currently includes an amendment I sponsored that was adopted during the committee's consideration of this bill which would improve maritime immigration enforcement. As a representative from Florida, I know how critically important it is to secure our maritime borders, as do many of our coastal colleagues.

Coast Guard RADM David Pekoske testified before our Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism Subcommittee in February about the challenges of coastal security. During his testimony, he highlighted an ongoing partnership with US-VISIT to deploy mobile biometrics collection equipment on Coast Guard cutters operating in the Mona Pass between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where almost half of our maritime migrant apprehensions take place. I was intrigued by the possibility of this effort and the promise it may hold for strengthening our maritime defenses.

My amendment, which the manager's amendment removes from this bill, would expand this effort into a formal pilot program and require DHS to evaluate the results to determine the feasibility and appropriateness of expanding such capability to all DHS maritime vessels. This capability is critically important since we currently do not have the ability to verify the identity of apprehended migrants, previous immigration violators, criminals, and possible terrorists in the maritime environment. This deficiency allows those who seek to break our Nation's immigration laws and those who may wish to commit terrorist acts to remain undetected and be repatriated without consequence so that they are free to continue their illegal and dangerous behavior.

The biometric identification of interdicted aliens in the maritime environment has the potential to greatly improve the security of America's coastal borders. Unfortunately, since the majority has decided to remove this provision from this bill, we will not realize that promise.

I am extremely disappointed and frustrated at this process. Many of the provisions that the manager's amendment strips from this bill were supported by every member of the Homeland Security Committee, including our chairman, whom I greatly admire and respect. However, I cannot understand why we would allow those who do not serve on our committee to dictate to us how we should or should not do our jobs. We simply should not put political expediency above homeland security.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that this bill represents a missed opportunity to enhance our country's immigration enforcement, help stop terrorism, and improve our ability to respond should the unthinkable happen again.

Though I plan to support its final passage here, I implore my friends on the other side of the aisle to work with us to move forward on the many bipartisan provisions which would have made this bill much better.

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