Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Isakson Co-Sponsors Amendment
to Authorize Emergency Spending to Secure U.S. Border
Continues to Urge Border-Security-First Approach to Comprehensive Immigration Reform  

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) today announced that he is co-sponsoring an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations bill that would provide emergency funding to immediately pay for the manpower and technology necessary to secure the U.S. border. Isakson first proposed the idea of emergency supplemental spending for border security last month.                                   

"There's no greater domestic issue in this country than the problems on our southern border with Mexico. There's no greater challenge to American business, industry and agriculture but to have a functioning and a working and a meaningful guest worker program," Isakson said today on the Senate floor. "None of these can be accomplished without first securing the border to require people come to the United States of America the right way and the legal way."

The amendment that Isakson cosponsored would provide $3.96 billion in emergency appropriations for border security and immigration reform, including funds to hire 500 more Border Patrol agents and support staff, 200 investigators and support staff devoted to combat alien smuggling and 600 more investigators for worksite enforcement purposes. It would also provide funds for an electronic employment verification system, 1,300 detention beds to house unauthorized aliens who are apprehended and construction funds for 370 miles of double-layered fencing along the southwest border and 461 miles of vehicle barriers.

Last month, Isakson was the first member of Congress to propose using emergency supplemental funds to secure the border when spoke on the Senate floor to call on the President to send a request for the funding to Congress. Isakson believes it is critical to secure the borders before implementing a new guest worker program because otherwise the United States will face a repeat of 1986, when amnesty was granted to 3 million illegal immigrants without enhancing border security first. The result, Isakson said, was that millions more immigrants have flooded into the United States illegally and now are straining our schools, our hospitals and our local jails.

"An emergency supplemental is critical to ensuring that border security becomes meaningful and becomes real," Isakson said. "It is absolutely true it's a national security issue, it's absolutely true that it's a matter of the defense of our nation and it's fundamentally true that this is the foundation for whatever comprehensive reform this Senate and the House will agree to."  

Isakson also continued to urge his Senate colleagues to recognize the critical importance of a "border-security-first" approach to immigration reform. During debate in the Senate on immigration reform earlier this year, Isakson introduced a trigger amendment that would have prohibited the implementation of any program granting legal status to those who have entered the country illegally until the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified to the President and to the Congress that the border security provisions in the immigration legislation are fully funded and operational. The Senate defeated the amendment on May 16 by a vote of 40 yeas to 55 nays.

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