Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations, Fiscal Year 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, today, the House is considering H.R. 6080, legislation to provide $600 million for increased security activities at our Nation's southwest border. As Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, I have visited the U.S.-Mexico border and heard the concerns of local residents firsthand. I understand the imperative for more resources to combat the drug cartels and the threat of potential violence in the region. Therefore, I support the bill before the House today.
H.R. 6080 is an integral part of providing the Department of Homeland Security and its federal partners with additional personnel and equipment necessary to combat violence and better secure America's borders. Specifically, H.R. 6080 provides funding to put more boots on the ground for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), including additional Border Patrol agents and CBP officers who secure the areas at and between our ports of entry. Increased interdictions along the border translate into increased additional referrals for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I am pleased that H.R. 6080 also provides funding for additional ICE agents, analysts, and support personnel. These resources will aid ICE in identifying and dismantling cross-border criminal networks.
H.R. 6080 also provides for additional equipment, such as two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and forward operating bases for CBP. Communications in remote areas along the border is a persistent problem, and the bill helps address this problem by including funding for enhanced tactical communications in the area.
Providing additional resources is not a panacea for our border security problems, however. In the absence of a comprehensive border security strategy, this kind of supplemental funding will only do so much. Rather than a piecemeal approach, the Department of Homeland Security must develop and implement a border security strategy that contemplates all border security threats facing our Nation and allocates our border security resources accordingly.
Again, Madam Speaker, I support H.R. 6080 and urge my colleagues to do so as well.
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