Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the three amendments that have been spoken about--the McCain amendment, the Cornyn amendment, and the McCain-Kyl amendment. I will get into some detail in a few minutes about the opposition, but it relates to three points.

First, President Obama has a tough, smart, targeted $500 million package that will greatly increase resources at the border, and we need it. Crime has increased, as my friend from Arizona has said. We need it. So, No. 1, there is a very good plan in place.

No. 2, this is a huge amount of money--$2.5 billion--that my colleagues, who talk about fiscal moderation, are requesting, and much of it will not go to securing the border. It is sort of throwing an enormous amount of money at the problem that is not as carefully thought out, not as targeted, and not as effective, quite frankly, as President Obama's program.

No. 3, it takes the money out of the stimulus bill. Well, there is a border problem in Texas and Arizona that affects all of us, and we want to solve it. The President and we are working to do that. But we have a jobs problem in this country, too, and this is the worst kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The stimulus money will go to creating jobs. If we ask the people in, say, Michigan or Ohio or Rhode Island or New York what is the No. 1 issue? Jobs. This money is being taken away from job creation and used, as I say, in a not effective, overmagnified way. It is too much money to stop what is going on at the border.

So let me elaborate. First, as I mentioned, President Obama is sending a package to the Congress next week. It includes 1,200 National Guard, funding programs for DEA, ATF, FBI, and ICE that are proven to work. The three amendments offered by the Senators from Texas and Arizona are a grab bag of enormous spending. If all of the $2.5 billion they are proposing just to go to the border would double the amount, it wouldn't be well spent. The President's money is thoughtful and targeted and has been in the works for a while. Let me give some examples.

The amendment calls for $300 million for funding for any State or local enforcement agency so long as it is within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. Almost none of this money will be used for border enforcement. Border enforcement is needed at the actual border.

Second, the Cornyn amendment also calls for $100 million for construction of new land ports of entry. But the problem at our ports of entry is not lack of funding from the taxpayers, it is that we need an adequate fee system to make sure the users of those ports of entry pay for things rather than taking the money away from job creation in our States.

Third, the amendment Senator Kyl has offered as a second-degree amendment would spend about $200 million on a program known as Operation Streamline. In reality, this program requires taxpayers to foot the bill at the cost of more than $120 per day, per inmate, to house border crossers and give them three free meals a day, free health care, medicines, and surgeries for all manner of illnesses, et cetera.

Couldn't we better spend this $200 million and pass a comprehensive immigration reform program which is so much needed? By the way, it is my view that while we have to tighten up the border, people are coming for jobs. The only way we will stop the flow of illegal immigration into this country is to tell those who hire them they no longer can. The only way to do that is our Secure Social Security Card that Senator Graham and I have put forward so that papers can't be forged and illegal immigrants can't be hired. Comprehensive reform does that; these measures don't.

We have heard talk about needing to bolster the border for years. It clearly hasn't stopped the problem, as the Senator from Arizona admits. We need a comprehensive approach that will include border security but is not only border security. If my colleagues would join us in that approach, we could have a tough, fair-minded proposal that would do the job.

Let me make some other points against the amendments while I have more time. The McCain amendment seeks $250 million for 6,000 National Guard to be sent to the border. They can't use that number of National Guard so quickly. The 1,200 that President Obama has requested is right.

When President Bush sent 6,000 National Guard to the border in 2006, there were 10,000 Border Patrol agents in the entire force. That means a total of 16,000 after the Guard was deployed. Now, we already have more than 20,000 Border Patrol agents--double the number of Border Patrol agents. Those and the 1,200 National Guard will do the job. We cannot just throw money at this problem and take it away from job creation. We have to be focused and smart. The President does that.

I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment and join us in supporting a smart program that will do the job and, furthermore, join us in supporting comprehensive immigration reform, which is the only real way to stop the flow of illegal immigration across the border.

Madam President, I make a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise against the second-degree amendment by Senator Kyl. It would actually take $200 million that is not going to secure the border any. It will incarcerate illegal immigrants. It will pay for their food, their health care, their recreation time, their reading material, for long periods of time.

If we want to secure the border, which we do, we have to be smart about this. We cannot just keep doing the same thing again and again. Furthermore, it takes the money out of the stimulus, which is jobs. So we are doing something that is ineffective, we are doing something that has not worked in the past, and now we are taking away jobs from the other 48 States.

That does not make any sense. So I would urge that this amendment be defeated. I would urge we start doing what is needed and what is smart to stop the flow of illegal immigration. We all know what we have to do, and that is a comprehensive proposal. This will not work and takes money way from jobs in the other 48 States. I urge its defeat.

I raise a point of order on the pending amendment pursuant to section 403 of S. Con. Res. 13, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2010.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source