Border Security--A Step in the Right Direction

Today, President Bush signed the Homeland Security Appropriations act. At last, with some pressure from the public, and the work of the House of Representatives, our President has taken a step in the right direction. This positive action by our Government on one of the nation's largest problems is long overdue.

The act authorizes several actions to improve security on our southern border (summarized from the Presidents speech at the signing):

• $30.8 billion in discretionary funding for Homeland Security in fiscal year 2006, an increase of $1.8 billion over the 2005 levels. This bill will help us identify terrorists seeking to enter our country, safeguard our cities against weapons of mass destruction, and better prepare the federal government to respond to catastrophic attack.
• $2.3 billion for the Border Patrol so we can expand the number of agents.
• $139 million to improve our technology and intelligence capabilities, including portable imaging machines, and cameras and sensors and automated targeting systems that focus on high-risk travelers and goods.
• $70 million to install and improve fencing, lighting, vehicle barriers and roads.
• $3.7 billion for immigration and customs enforcement, so we can find and return the illegal immigrants who are here. This bill will fund the hiring of 100 new immigration enforcement agents and 250 criminal investigators.
• 2,000 new beds for our detention facilities. That will bring the number of beds up to nearly 20,000. Our goal is to return every single illegal entrant, with no exceptions.
• For Mexicans who cross into America illegally, we have a program called "interior repatriation," where we fly or bus Mexican illegal immigrants all the way back to their hometowns. The farther away from the border we send them, the more difficult it will be for them to turn around and cross right back into America.

President Bush also said: "To deal with employers who violate our immigration law, this bill strengthens our enforcement capabilities by adding new agents and doubling their resources. We've got to crack down on employers who flout our laws. And we will give honest employers the tools they need to spot fake documents and ensure that their workers are respecting our laws. America is a country of laws, and we're going to uphold our laws for the good of the citizens of this country"

I have also been told that this measure makes the construction of a tunnel under the border a felony.

These are all things that need to be done. The Homeland Security Appropriations act is one of the most important accomplishments of the year. But the 4 or 5 news sources I checked on the internet all printed the same, much briefer, release about the act. Only by leaving the news area and searching all of google did I find the above information--at the White House web page. So the news media do not share the same sense of importance about this legislation that I and a majority of our population have. We must stop the invasion, and this is an essential step in doing so.

Of course, the President still wants a guest worker program to be put into place, and some kind of path to citizenship for temporary workers. We probably need those things, too, but only after the provisions of the present act are carried out.

It remains to be seen if the administration will implement quickly.