Strengthening Border Security Between The Ports of Entry: The Use of Technology to Protect the Borders

U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship
U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), Chairman

"Strengthening Border Security Between The Ports of Entry:
The Use of Technology to Protect the Borders"

Thursday, April 28, 2005, 3 p.m., Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 138

This joint hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, and the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, shall come to order.

I want to thank Chairman Specter for scheduling today's hearing.

This hearing is the third in a series of joint hearings to examine our immigration system from top to bottom. I want to thank Senator Kyl for his hard work and for his leadership.

As we announced a few weeks ago, Senator Kyl and I are working closely together, and with other senators, to identify and develop solutions to the critical problems in our immigration system. I also want to thank the ranking member of this subcommittee, Senator Kennedy, as well as Senator Feinstein, the ranking member of the Terrorism subcommittee, and their respective staffs for working with my office to make this hearing possible. Any effort to reform and to strengthen enforcement of our immigration system, to be successful in the Senate, must be bipartisan, and I look forward to working with them both.

A few weeks ago, the Senate approved, by a broad bipartisan majority, a resolution introduced by Senator Feinstein and myself. That resolution demonstrated that there is a growing consensus, across the ideological spectrum, that our immigration system is badly broken, fails to serve the interests of our national security and our national economy, and undermines respect for the rule of law, and that in a post-9/11 world, national security demands comprehensive reform of our immigration system.

President Bush has articulated to the nation a vision for the comprehensive reform of our nation's immigration laws. I am sympathetic to the President's vision, and I look forward to the critical role that this subcommittee will play in the coming Congressional debate.

No serious discussion of comprehensive immigration reform is possible, however, without an overall review of our nation's ability and will to secure its borders and to enforce its immigration laws.
We must provide sufficient tools and resources to keep out of our country those who should be kept out, to identify those in our country who should be apprehended, and to remove from this country those who should be deported.

Accordingly, today's hearing is the third in a series of hearings focusing on identifying holes in our immigration system - places where enforcement has been badly deficient. Unfortunately, there are many such holes. Our immigration system has been poorly enforced for far too long. We have not done nearly enough to enforce our laws. That must end, and that will end.

For example, at our last hearing, we examined challenges to enforcement within the interior of our country.

We respect the hard work and efforts of immigration investigators, detention officers, and other professionals responsible for locating, detaining, and removing those who remain in this country in violation of our laws.

Yet, as that hearing made clear, our deportation system is over-litigated and under-resourced - over-lawyered and under-equipped. That hearing identified a number of specific problems, including the extra layer of appeals granted specifically to aliens who are deportable due to criminal activity and the judicially-mandated release onto our streets of potentially dangerous individuals. Over one million aliens face deportation proceedings this year, yet we have only approximately 19,000 beds in our detention facilities to hold them. As a result, as many as 80% of those ordered to leave the country never show up to be removed.

At our first hearing, we examined the challenges to enforcement along the border at the ports of entry. As that hearing made clear, we need better training and information for our front line personnel, and we need to improve the reliability of documents used for entry into our country. National security demands that we strengthen border inspection, ensure document integrity, and combat document fraud.

Today's hearing will focus on securing our borders in between the authorized ports of entry. We will examine what tools and resources are needed to protect our borders along the perimeter of the country. To put it simply, we must shut down all of the routes used to enter our country outside the authorized ports of entry.

Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. The U.S. border with Mexico runs almost 2,000 miles, while our border with Canada runs roughly 4,000 miles.
My home state of Texas alone accounts for the majority of the southern border, sharing about 1,285 miles, or 65%, of the southern border. In fiscal year 2004, we apprehended approximately 631,000 aliens illegally entering our country along the southern border. And the numbers are only increasing - indeed, we have already surpassed last year's number in the current fiscal year. These numbers demonstrate the hard work and dedication of our border patrol, under the most difficult of circumstances.

Yet, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, the U.S. averages 700 to 800 thousand new undocumented aliens every year. We can and must do better. And to do better, we must explore the better use of technology. The effective use of technology in between the ports of entry can serve as a force multiplier for our border patrol agents and officers charged with securing the border.
Technology allows these agents to conserve manpower and efficiently respond when we identify breaches in our border.

Technology is no panacea, however. There will inevitably be glitches in the deployment and use of technology. And clearly, technology is only as good as the men and women we have on the ground, who we must teach to utilize and take advantage of it.

Accordingly, today we will examine the existing technology used to secure the border and learn how it is actually utilized on the ground.

We will hear what problems we have experienced and what Congress can do to provide more support in this area. I hope that today's witnesses will give our subcommittees a better idea of what else can be done to fully secure our borders, in between the ports of entry, through the more effective use of technology.

http://judiciary.senate.gov/member_statement.cfm?id=1485&wit_id=3740