This info comes from an email that I received from Senator Carper’s office — I imagine lots of you got this too. I’m posting this to encourage you to contact the Senator’s office and make sure he knows your thoughts on this.
As you may know, last week the U.S. Senate began debating the critically important issue of comprehensive immigration reform. On Wednesday, I took to the Senate floor to let my colleagues know what I have been working on and what I believe a successful bill will accomplish. As the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I’ve been deeply invested in ensuring that our nation’s borders are secure. Recently, I have been working with my colleagues and other stakeholders to build on the important advances that we have made to strengthen our border over the past 10 years.
Below, I have included a few clips from my speech that outline my views on the upcoming debate. If you’d like, you can also watch my entire speech or read a complete transcript of it.
(Excerpts of the speech approx. 5 and a half minutes)
To stay up-to-date on the ongoing immigration debate underway in the Senate, I recently launched a new page on my website that will provide much-needed facts and information on provisions in the immigration bill, as well as what I’m doing to help make this critical reform effort happen. You can visit the website at:
carper.senate.gov/immigration
There’s more about sharing good ideas on his Facebook and Twitter page, but you get the gist.
So here’s the thing — we already spend $18B per year on Border Security, which is more than we spend on all other Fed law enforcement combined. Carper is advocating adding another $6.5B (a 30% increase!) and 3500 more agents and other goodies. There is nothing here about how this gets paid for. And yes, this is a retracing of old ground, if Senator Carper wants to cut back on Social Security, he owes the people who will be hit by those cuts an explanation of how he can find the money for this. Border security is important, but there is also a point at which you will get only incremental improvements on a border that is as rugged as the southern one is. Meanwhile, ports of entry are suffering — at popular points, it can take hours to get through US Customs. And really — once you have up about as much physical barrier you can put up, the next big problem is the Visa system. This pouring of money into Border Security is beginning to smell alot like the War on Drugs — we do it not because we stop the drugs, but because there are special interests who need the money we spend on it. And if we can figure out how to spend money on the Border and on the War on Drugs, we can certainly find the money to make sure Social Security is whole.