Making emergency supplemental appropriations for border security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 6080, received from the House and at the desk.

Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to seek Unanimous Consent to pass a smart, tough, and effective $600 million bill that will significantly enhance the security and integrity of our Nation's southern border--which currently lacks the resources needed to fully combat the drug smugglers, gunrunners, human-traffickers, money launderers and other organized criminals that seek to do harm to innocent Americans along our border.

The Senate first passed this bill last week by unanimous consent. Last week's vote ended an impasse over how to pay for this package that all of us agree needed to be passed as soon as possible.

At first, the House proposed a border security bill that was not fully paid for and, thus, was unacceptable to many in the Senate.

And, here in the Senate, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted to pay for this bill by diverting critical funds from the stimulus bill, The Recovery Act. This too was unacceptable because border security does not need to come at the expense of programs that create jobs for millions of Americans. As important as border security is, we should not be taking away jobs from firemen in Buffalo and teachers in Syracuse in order to hire more agents in El Paso. That is the worst kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul that was simply an unacceptable way to pay for increased border security.

Instead of raising the deficit--which we do not do in this bill--or diverting vital stimulus funds, the Senate ultimately agreed to pay for the border package by increasing visa fees on companies who hire foreign workers in a manner contrary to the original intent of the H-1B visa program.

After the Senate reached this compromise and unanimously approved this border package last week, the House approved the same substantive border package by voice vote on Tuesday.

But, regrettably, the House was unable to simply pass the Senate bill. According to House rules--because the Senate's offset did not originate in the House--it had to be approved by the House first, before the Senate's passage. So today, I again seek the unanimous consent of my colleagues to approve this border security bill and to finally provide President Obama and Secretary Napolitano with the boots on the ground and the resources necessary to combat the crime and violence that currently exists on our southern border.

I would like to thank the original cosponsors of this legislation: Senators McCaskill, Reid, Inouye, Murray, Feinstein, Bingaman, Udall of New Mexico, Casey, Merkley, Lincoln, Udall of Colorado, Begich, and Burris.

I would also particularly like to thank Senators McCain and Kyl for joining on as cosponsors prior to the Senate's original approval and for recognizing this bill as being significant border security legislation.

In addition to providing many vital resources for securing our southern border--all of which I will detail in a moment--this bill is also enormously important because it will clear the path for restarting the bipartisan discussions we absolutely need to have on how best to restore the rule of law to our entire immigration system.

Although we all agree that we must secure our borders, we will never fully resolve the problem of illegal immigration until we fix the entirety of what is wrong with our immigration system.

But those of us who currently support comprehensive immigration reform also believe in providing all of the resources our experts on the ground are telling us they need to secure the border right now. That is why this bill has received the support of the entire Senate.

We know that keeping our borders safe from dangerous gang members, drug dealers, and human traffickers is critical to restoring the public's confidence that the entirety of our focus with regard to immigration policy is geared toward restoring the rule of law to what has been a lawless system in the past.

That is why I commend the President and Secretary Napolitano for their tireless work in advocating for the passage of this package to give our people on the ground the tools they need to secure the border.

Here are all of the vital resources our border security package will provide:

First, we provide over $250 million to hire 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and 500 CBP officers to permanently patrol our southern border. These new agents will form a ``strike force'' that will be deployed in different areas of the southwest border depending on where the need is greatest at any particular moment. We will finally have the capability to deploy our manpower in a way where we can continuously and immediately change our tactics to respond to changes in the tactics of smugglers and traffickers.

Second, we will provide funding to deploy more unmanned drones to fly along our southern border to provide our agents on the ground with real-time information on unlawful border crossings.

We are currently deploying seven of these unmanned drones on our border. They have been proven to be very effective because they provide our border patrol agents with vast force multiplication through their ability to identify the exact locations of larger groups that disperse into smaller groups upon encountering border patrol agents on the ground.

These additional drones will help us gain operational control over a much larger segment of our southern border than we otherwise would have controlled because they provide miles of surveillance capability that is technologically impossible to achieve through other means.

Third, we will provide funds to improve communications capabilities between Federal border enforcement agents and state and local officers along the border. The issue here is crime. Officers with different areas of expertise and jurisdiction need to be able to communicate in order to have the best information possible to break up smuggling and trafficking rings that are embedded in local communities. These improved communication capabilities will lead to countless more apprehensions and prosecutions of big-time smugglers and traffickers.

As an example, if our border patrol suddenly begins encountering a surge of illegal border crossers from El Salvador with identical tattoos on their arms, it is important that they provide this information to State and local law enforcement on the ground so that we can immediately begin sharing intelligence to determine whether individuals with this description have recently been arrested. This coordination will help us determine the exact criminal intent of this group and their methods of operation so that they can be effectively combated.

Fourth, we will provide funds to construct forward operating bases for the border patrol to use that are actually located on the border itself rather than hundreds of miles away.

It is extremely inefficient for border patrol to apprehend individuals along the border and then have to drive hours to place that person in detention in a far-away base. These forward operating bases provide locations much closer to the border where detainees can be brought for processing so that patrol agents on the ground can spend much more time combating illegal activity on the border.

Fifth, we will provide funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct investigations of drug-runners, money-launderers, and human traffickers along our border. It is almost impossible to find out the sources and uses of smuggling and trafficking funds without strong intelligence and investigation capabilities. This bill will provide ICE with the resources it needs to hunt down the major players in these cartels who are responsible for the majority of the illegality on the southern border.

Finally, we will provide over $200 million to increase the number of ATF, DEA, and FBI agents on our border and to bolster the number of prosecutors and court resources along our border so that wrongdoers can be immediately brought to justice.

We will dramatically reduce the incidences of illegal smuggling of guns, drugs, and currency along our borders so that the American people can feel far safer living in many of our border communities than they do today.

The best part of this border package is that it is fully paid for and does not increase the deficit by a single penny. In actuality, the Congressional Budget Office--the CBO--has determined that the bill will yield a direct savings to taxpayers of $50 million.

The emergency border funds we are passing today are fully paid for by assessing fees on certain types of companies who hire foreign workers using certain types of visas in a way that Congress did not intend.

I want to take a moment to explain exactly what we are doing in the bill a little further because I want everyone to clearly understand how these offsets

have been designed. There has been some discussion about this proposal, and I think we ought to lay it on the table and explain it clearly.

In 1990, the Congress realized the world was changing rapidly and that technological innovations, such as the Internet, were creating a high demand in the United States for high-tech workers to create new technologies and products. Consequently, Congress created the H-1B visa program to allow U.S. employers to hire foreign tech workers in special circumstances when they could not find an American citizen who was qualified.

Many of the companies that use this program today are using the program in exactly the way Congress intended; that is, these companies, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Intel, are hiring bright foreign students educated in our American universities to work in the United States for 6 or 7 years to invent new product lines and technologies so that Microsoft, IBM, and Intel can sell more products to the American public and hire more American workers. Then at the expiration of the H-1B visa period, these companies apply for these talented workers to earn green cards and stay with the company.

When the H-1B visa program is used in this manner, it is a good program for everyone involved. It is good for the company, it is good for the worker, and it is good for the American people who benefit from the products and jobs created by the innovation of the H-1B visa holder.

Every day companies such as Oracle, Cisco, Apple, and others use the H-1B visa program in the exact way I have described, and their use of the program has greatly benefited the country.

But recently some companies have decided to exploit an unintended loophole in the H-1B visa program to use the program in a manner that many in Congress, including myself, do not believe is consistent with the program's intent.

Rather than being a company that makes something or provides a service and simply needs to bring in a talented foreign worker to help innovate and create new technologies, these other companies are essentially creating multinational temp agencies that were never contemplated when the H-1B program was created.

The business model of these newer companies is not to make any new products or technologies such as Microsoft or Apple does. Instead, their business model is to, first, bring foreign tech workers into the United States who are willing to accept less pay than their American counterparts; two, place these workers into other companies in exchange for a consulting fee; and, three, transfer these workers from company to company in order to maximize profits from placement fees.

In other words, these companies are petitioning for foreign workers simply to then turn around and provide these same workers to other companies who need cheap labor for various short-term projects.

Don't take my word for it. If you look at the marketing materials of some of these companies that fall within the scope covered by today's legislation, their materials boast about their ``outsourcing expertise'' and say their advantage is their ability to conduct what they call ``labor arbitrage''--labor arbitrage; they say it--which is, in their own words, ``transferring work functions to a lower cost environment for increased savings.''

The business model used by these companies within the United States is creating three major negative side effects. First, it is ruining the reputation of the H-1B program, which is overwhelmingly used by good actors for beneficial purposes. Some of our colleagues have legislation to curtail H-1B because of these types of abuses.

Second, according to the Economic Policy Institute, it is lowering the wages for American tech workers already in the marketplace. And, third, it is also discouraging many of our smartest students from entering the technology industry in the first place. Students can see that paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for advanced schooling is not worth the cost when the market is being flooded with foreign temporary workers willing to do tech work for far less pay because their foreign education was cheaper and they intend to move back home when their visa expires to a country where the cost of living is far less expensive.

This type of use of the H-1B visa program will be addressed as part of comprehensive reform, and it is likely going to be dramatically restricted--certainly, if I have something to do about it. We will be reforming the legal immigration system to encourage the world's best and brightest to come to the United States to create new technologies and businesses that will employ countless American workers but will discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to obtain temporary and less expensive foreign labor to replace capable American workers.

Let me say, in our proposal, the extra duty only goes on companies that are more than 50 percent foreign workers and 50 percent H-1B workers. The only companies that are 50 percent H-1B workers are those that are just doing the policy that I proposed--far, far from what we envisioned when H-1B was passed.

I say to those companies: If you do not change your ways--you should not be doing what you are doing, and this duty is appropriate for that purpose.

I do want to clarify a previous remark which mischaracterized these firms where I labeled them as ``chop shops.'' That statement was incorrect, and I wish to acknowledge that. In the tech industry, these firms are known as ``body shops.'' That is what I should have said, and that is what they are.

While I wholly oppose the manner in which these firms are using H-1B to accomplish objectives that Congress never intended, it would be unfortunate if anyone concluded from my remarks that these firms are engaging in illegal behavior.

But I also want to make clear that the purpose of this fee is not to target businesses from any particular country. Many news articles have reported that the only companies affected by this fee are companies based in India and that ipso facto the purpose of this legislation is to target Indian IT companies. It is simply untrue that the purpose of this legislation is to target Indian companies. We are simply raising fees for businesses that use the H-1B visa to do things that are contrary to the program's original intent, and that will be on any company from any country that does it.

Visa fees will only increase for companies with more than 50 workers who continue to employ more than 50 percent of their employees through the H-1B program. That was never even close to anyone's thought when H- 1B was passed. Congress does not want the H-1B program to be a vehicle for creating multinational temp agencies where workers do not know what projects they will be working on or what cities they will be working in when they enter the country. The fee is solely based upon the business model of the company, not the location of the company.

If they are using the H-1B visa to innovate new products and technologies, that is a good thing, regardless of whether the company was originally founded in India, Ireland, or Indiana. But if they are using the H-1B visa to run a glorified international temp agency for tech workers in contravention of the spirit of this program, I and my colleagues believe they should have to pay a higher fee to ensure that American workers are not losing their jobs because of the unintended uses of the visa program that were never contemplated when the program was created. This belief is consistent regardless of whether the company using these staffing practices was founded in Bangalore, Beijing, or Boston.

Raising the fees for companies hiring more than 50 percent of their workforce through foreign visas accomplishes two important goals: First, it will provide the necessary funds to secure our borders without raising taxes or adding to the deficit. Second, it will level the playing field for American workers so they do not lose out on good jobs in America because it is cheaper to bring in a foreign worker than hire an American worker.

Let me tell my colleagues what objective folks around the world are saying about the impact of this fee increase.

In an August 6, 2010, Wall Street Journal article, Avinash Vashistha, the CEO of a Bangalore-based offshoring advisory consulting firm, told the Journal the new fee in the bill ``would accelerate Indian firms'' plans to hire

more American-born workers in the U.S.'' What is wrong with that?

In an August 7, 2010, Economic Times article, Jeya Kumar, a CEO of a top IT company, said this bill would ``erode cost arbitrage and cause a change in the operational model of Indian offshore providers.'' Exactly. That is what we want.

The leaders of this business model are agreeing that our bill will make it more expensive to bring in foreign tech workers to compete with American tech workers for jobs in America. That means these companies are going to have to start to hire U.S. tech workers again.

This bill is not only a responsible border security bill, it has the dual advantage of creating more high-paying American jobs.

Finally, I want to be clear about one other thing. Even though passing this bill will secure our borders, I again say the only way to fully restore the rule of law to our entire immigration system is by passing comprehensive immigration reform.

In my many meetings with folks on the other side of the aisle to try to gain their support for comprehensive reform, I repeatedly heard them say that once we show we are serious about passing border security legislation, they would be able to begin working with us to fix all of the other aspects of our broken immigration system.

Make no mistake about it, our entire immigration system is broken. It is a patient that needs quadruple bypass surgery. A single bypass surgery of border security alone is important but not enough to cure the patient of its ailment. We also need to enact tough and smart immigration reform that will, A, end the jobs magnet to the United States by requiring that all legal workers show a secure Social Security card prior to obtaining a job; B, end visa overstays through robust interior enforcement; and, C, require that all persons here unlawfully make their presence known to us by registering with the Federal Government and then either getting right with the law or leaving the country.

It is my hope that the bill we are passing today will break the deadlock that has existed in Congress and will clear the path for us to finally resume bipartisan negotiations in good faith on reforming our broken immigration system. I intend to do everything I can to make that happen.

But negotiations cannot happen out of thin air. It will take serious Republicans working with serious Democrats to get this done. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in this very important task.

With this bill's passage today, we will clearly show we are serious about securing our Nation's borders. It is time for our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in fixing our entire broken immigration system.

The urgency for immigration reform cannot be overstated because it is so overdue. The time for excuses is now over. The time to get to work is now.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, it's been now 47 days, almost 6 weeks, since our subcommittee marked up the fiscal 2011 appropriations bill that would fund the Department of Homeland Security. Forty-seven days. Normally, after you mark up a bill in subcommittee, it immediately goes to the full committee, and then immediately to the floor of the House for us to act on the entire appropriations for the entire Department of Homeland Security.

For some reason, the Democrat leadership in the House chose to delay the markup of the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security now 6 weeks. And instead, they're bringing up this piecemeal supplemental bill that would make a nice amendment to the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security if we could get that bill to us. And this supplemental, if passed, has to go back to the Senate, who is gone for the summer, before it can become law, even if we pass it here. And number two, it won't take effect until next year.

So, Madam Speaker, I'm asking, why are we here? Why did we come back for this? Because it can't take effect until next year and it can't take effect until the Senate comes back to pass on it. And they're gone until September. So why are we here? I don't know. I don't know. Forty- seven days that we have been waiting to bring up funding for the whole Department of Homeland Security. Homeland security, flippantly dealt with by the Democrat majority.

Now, here's what this bill before us today won't do. This bill won't address the massive and inexplicable cuts the President proposed to cut the Coast Guard and to the Customs and Border Protection's aerial resources. The President submitted a budget to the subcommittee cutting Coast Guard, slashing the Border assets. The subcommittee in our markup corrected that, but we can't get that bill to come onto the floor.

This bill won't do enough to improve our interdiction capabilities and stop the flow of drugs into northern Mexico and through the source and transit zones. This bill won't address any of the post-Christmas Day attack needs for aviation security or watchlisting. All of these were dealt with in the regular bill, if we could get it before the House. But this piecemeal approach doesn't work. And this bill surely won't address the numerous other homeland security challenges facing the country that range from emergency preparedness, to immigration enforcement, to cybersecurity. Simply put, this bill does nothing to make up for the fact that the fiscal 2011 Homeland Security bill is nowhere in sight.

Why are we taking up this piecemeal approach? So it's all about, I guess, politics. It's all about politics. I ask the majority, where's the bill? Bring us the bill. We can amend it with this supplemental, make a modest change in the bill. Just bring us the bill.

Madam Speaker, our country's facing many grave threats to our security. In the wake of the Christmas Day, Times Square, and Fort Hood attacks, and with a drug war waging along our border, it's a complete dereliction of duty by the Democrat majority to avoid moving the fiscal 2011 Homeland Security appropriations bill.

So let's be absolutely clear about what we are doing here today. Yes, we are improving, we would improve the House Democrats' incomplete and deficit-increasing border security supplemental, but this bill won't take effect until next year. Why are we here? According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, not a single dime of this bill will be spent until fiscal 2011.

If they had brought forth the Homeland Security appropriations bill for the whole Department, we could have avoided a supplemental altogether. We could have made the changes in that bill that this bill suggests, perhaps, and all would have been fine. Homeland security would have again reached the importance that it has in the past. Instead, now homeland security is sort of a secondary thought, apparently, by the majority, because they won't bring us the bill.

So what that tells me is that we should be addressing all of our homeland security issues here today, not just putting a Band-Aid on some of our urgent border security needs with this supplemental. In fact, this supplemental, as I have said, might have made a very worthwhile amendment to the full security appropriations bill if the majority would bring it out and let it be discussed. But they control the rules, and they've said, no, we don't want to discuss the whole matter of homeland security. We want to address just these small pieces of it.

So again we ask, where's the bill and why are we here? The fact of the matter is that the Democrat majority should be governing and Congress should be addressing our urgent security needs in the most responsible and disciplined way possible. Sadly, as

demonstrated by the Democrat majority's repeated attempts to bend the rules and their lethargic pace and inaction on critical security issues like funding for our brave troops, that is certainly not the case this year. The bottom line is we desperately need to get our homeland security right. We need to address our security needs with real solutions, not partial fixes that circumvent regular order and that employ questionable offsets, as this bill does.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking Republican on the full committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis).

Will the gentlelady yield?

I yield the gentlelady 2 additional minutes.

Is the gentlelady aware that the President proposed to cut the Border Patrol in his budget submission to the Congress?

Reclaiming my time.

Wouldn't the gentlelady prefer that the Congress pass the whole bill for the Department of Homeland Security rather than this piecemeal approach?

The point is that we are not getting the job done because we will not pass the regular bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I understand the gentlelady from Arizona's frustrations. In fact, I sympathize with her. I made the same arguments she has just made in trying to bring up to the floor of this House the funding bill for the entire Department of Homeland Security, for the Coast Guard and for the Secret Service and for the Border Patrol and for all of the other agencies, the 22 that make up the Department. I made those arguments: Why are we wasting time? Let's get on with it. And yet the majority will not bring up the bill that funds the whole Department.

We could have cured this months ago. It's been 6 weeks, Madam Speaker, since we passed the bill in the subcommittee that would have taken care of all these problems.

And, yes, I want to see politics out of it, too, but you're in control, and you won't let us bring that bill to the floor. Instead, we are faced with this little piecemeal bill here, trying to correct the President's slash of the Border Patrol when he submitted his budget to the Congress.

So, yes, I sympathize with the gentlelady. I wish we could get that bill up here, too, and stop playing politics with national security.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Smith of Texas.

Madam Speaker, I will yield myself such time as I may consume in closing.

Again, I wish we had, Madam Speaker, the bill that funds the entire Department of Homeland Security before us instead of this piecemeal approach. I don't fathom why the majority will not bring forth that bill that's been marked up since 47 days ago--6 weeks--and yet they refuse to bring it out. Instead, they bring this piecemeal bill out there that only deals with a particular aspect of the entire Homeland Security bill.

And, number two, as I've said before, even if we pass this bill here, it still has to go back to the Senate before it can become law, and they're gone until the middle of September. And this bill won't spend any money until next year anyway.

So that's why I say why are we doing it this way? Why can't we just bring out the bill and deal with it? It includes all of this as well.

And yet the majority refuses to do that. It's all about politics, Madam Speaker. We are all concerned about that border, about the crime that is taking place, about the illicit drugs coming across, illegal people coming across. And we have devoted so much of the Nation's energy and monies to try to seal that border to little effect, it seems.

And yet if we had the whole Department of Homeland Security budget here on the floor so that we could at once deal with Coast Guard, with Secret Service, with Border Patrol, with enforcement of the laws against illegal immigration, if we had all of those matters before us, we could deal with it holistically. But they won't do it. Instead, we have this bill which won't become law until next year anyway. So I ask the Speaker, why did you call us back in session on this bill knowing that it could not become law until next year anyway? Puzzlement.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6080) making emergency supplemental appropriations for border security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 6080.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise to urge adoption of H.R. 6080, a bill to address the urgent need for enhanced security on our Southwest border. Violence on the Mexican side of the border has intensified because of turf battles among murderous transnational criminal organizations competing for drug, alien, and weapon trafficking business. The bill would provide $600 million to enable the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Judiciary, in cooperation with the National Guard, to counter this threat, building on the current border enforcement surge.

This funding is urgently needed to counter the pressures our law enforcement agencies and our border communities currently face.

Madam Speaker, the bill is fully offset. It includes a $100 million reduction

in the Department of Homeland Security's border security infrastructure and technology account due to an ongoing reassessment of the SBInet program. The bill also increases, for 5 years, the cost for two visas which permit foreign workers to come and work in the United States. These fee increases would apply only to companies with more than 50 employees and for whom the majority of their workforce is visa-holding foreign workers.

The House passed a very similar version of this border security supplemental bill 2 weeks ago, partially offset and partially on a well-justified emergency basis. Because the Senate amended the House- passed bill, we are voting on the package again today.

The most significant change the Senate made was to fully offset the bill, adding the visa fee increases. Because of the Constitutional requirement that revenue-generating bills initiate in the House, the bill before us today has been introduced as a new bill but with provisions identical to the Senate-passed bill. Therefore, should the House approve this bill today, it will need to be taken up again by the Senate, hopefully at the earliest possible date.

For the Department of Homeland Security, the bill provides a total of $394 million, including: $176 million to hire a thousand new Border Patrol agents. That funding will bring us to a total of 21,370 Border Patrol agents, a 70 percent increase since 2006. $68 million to retain 270 Customs and Border Protection officers and hire 250 additional officers. With this bill, there will be over 20,700 CBP officers working to enhance port of entry operations.

There is $32 million to procure two additional unmanned aircraft systems; $80 million to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, which includes $30 million to pay for four new Border Enforcement Security Task Forces, training and support for Mexican law enforcement partners, and a staffing surge for ICE's criminal alien removal efforts. The remaining $50 million will be used to hire additional ICE investigators, intelligence analysts, and support personnel for a permanent expansion of ICE's presence along the border. These new personnel will focus on disrupting the criminal enterprises that fuel violence in Mexico.

There is $6 million to construct two new forward operating bases for the Border Patrol.

For the Department of Justice, the bill provides $196 million in support of investigations and crime control along the Southwest border, including $38 million for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; $34 million for the Drug Enforcement Administration; $30 million for the U.S. Marshals Service; and $24 million for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Finally, for the judiciary, the bill provides $10 million to meet increased workload requirements resulting from immigration and other law enforcement initiatives.

I want to recognize especially, Madam Speaker, the hard work of our border State Representatives who were instrumental in getting the supplemental border security bill initially passed. They have signaled their full support for the House to take up this latest version from the Senate, and we will hear from a number of them during the debate this morning.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to adopt this bill to address these critical border security challenges which, while they are most acute on the southwest border, constitute a serious national threat which we ignore at our peril.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, our distinguished ranking minority member has asked a legitimate question, and that is, where is the 2011 regular Homeland Security bill? He says it's nowhere in sight. He knows very well it's clearly in sight. The 2011 Homeland Security appropriations bill has been marked up in subcommittee. It's been put together with full bipartisan participation. It directly addresses the Coast Guard and border security matters that he has stressed. And this emergency measure here today in no way detracts from that.

But this is an emergency. This is something that needs to be urgently addressed. Unfortunately, the Senate earlier stripped out these border provisions from the supplemental appropriations bill, and so we are here today passing this and getting this done at the earliest possible moment.

I would now like to yield 2 minutes to a subcommittee member who has been an important participant in putting this effort together, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cuellar), another of our border members, and the chairman of our authorizing Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism.

Madam Speaker, I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords), another border member who from her first day here has worked tirelessly on this border security issue.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a distinguished member of our authorizing committee, Representative Jackson Lee.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it seems that a good part of the debate this morning has been about what this bill is not. Both sides have mentioned the need for comprehensive immigration reform, and I couldn't agree more. We cannot enforce our way out of this immigration challenge. I have never met a border security officer who claims otherwise.

This is a much broader challenge than simply enforcement or securing the border. I would hope most Members understand that and understand the urgency of moving ahead on comprehensive immigration reform.

What is before us this morning is an emergency measure dealing with some border security challenges arising from the cartel violence and gang activity in Mexico which requires an emergency response, an immediate response, and a targeted response. That is what this bill provides.

We have also heard a great deal about the 2011 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Indeed, this emergency supplemental is not the regular bill. Nor is it a substitute for the regular bill. In fact, it is just what it says, it is a supplement to ongoing appropriations, a supplement designed to address this critical situation out on the southwest border which our colleagues on the border have testified to very convincingly here this morning.

The 2011 Homeland Security bill is alive and well. It has been assembled on a bipartisan basis after months of hearings and discussions. It has been approved at the subcommittee level, and Members will be seeing that bill very shortly. And believe me, on many of these items in the supplemental, you will be hearing from us again: the BEST teams, the border enforcement security task forces, a proven device; the forward-operating bases; and, of course, the beefing up of the Border Patrol and the cadre of CBP officers. All of these things are ongoing challenges, but they are also immediate challenges.

This is an important supplemental to the regular bill. This was true when we first passed it in early July, and it is still true today. Today we are compensating for the fact that border security was dropped from the supplemental appropriations bill by the Senate. But the Senate, fortunately, in recent days passed the bill before us. We are now passing the bill that they passed so as to expedite the targeting of these funds for this immediate problem in the Southwest. This is a much-needed bill. We have had ample testimony to that effect. I urge my colleagues to support it here this morning.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am very glad that Democrats are doing the responsible thing, and we know we need to be doing more. This is an important step because it substitutes for some of the misguided legislative initiatives that States are promoting, such as Arizona and Texas.

I know there is a sense of desperation, but we on this side of the border have to ensure and have to be able to move forward on border security, and as well for those of us who are arguing vigorously for the comprehensive approach, addressing the needs of so many who are here simply wanting to work. We have to look to both directions.

So I am rising to support this bill and this legislation, recognizing that there are people who are crying their heart out, saying when is this Congress going to do comprehensive immigration reform? But just as we have to clean this up, we've got a problem in those on the other side of the aisle not recognizing that we have to do this as a total package. But the Border Patrol agents funding, the CBP funding, $68 million to hire 250 new Customs and Border Protection personnel is important. The tactical communications is important.

For those of us who live on the border, who have been to the border, who know border areas, we understand that the value of this is also to save lives, save the many people who are coming here for work but are dying in the desert, children, women who are coming here--yes, out of desperation, but still they are coming and dying in these deserts. This has to be stopped.

We do need more monies for ATF and DEA. In my own city of Houston, it is a center point, unfortunately, for a lot of drug cartels and gunrunning. So I know that there is an emergency. It is relevant to do this today.

But I wish my friends as well would stop blocking us from looking holistically at real, comprehensive immigration reform, so that people who want to come here to work can, so that young people who want to go to school can, so that families who are innocent and want to be here without being jeopardized by phony laws and can stay here and pay and invest into this Nation.

I support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to come before you today in support of H.R. 6080, the ``Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010,''--a bill that appropriates $600 million for border security activities along the Southwest Border, including $254 million for Customs and Border Protection, of which $176 million would be used to hire additional border patrol agents, as well as $196 million for the Justice Department, and $80 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Transportation Security & Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee, I want to thank Chairman Obey and Ranking Member Lewis for your leadership on this timely legislation. This is an important bill that provides the necessary funding that is essential to the assistance our Border States so greatly needs.

Our Border States are frustrated and in need of targeted assistance. In recent months, I have attended a number of different hearings, meetings with local and state officials, and press conferences on immigration, combating the drug trade, and improving the border, and in almost all instances, I have heard the same comment: Border States are frustrated. The deeply misguided Arizona Law, (SB1070) for example, is an expression of that frustration. Unless we want to see more of a backlash, we in the Federal Government must do more to help our Border States, which is vital to securing our nation and upholding our immigration laws, and helping local and state officials secure our Border States.

The United States continues to fight the battle against the powerful drug trafficking organizations that have plagued our sister cities just across the border with violence. We have been fortunate thus far that for the most part the violence has not spilled over into the United States, but we cannot depend on being insulated forever. Instability abroad is a danger to stability at home, and we have a vested interest in helping our neighbors to the southwest power away from the criminal organizations that have threatened the safety of their citizens and brought drugs into our country.

First of all, we need to do more than just provide ``boots on the ground'' to help secure our borders. While deterrence through additional personnel is essential to improving security, several members of the law enforcement community have stressed the importance of providing more resources for investigators and detectives, who can help to ferret out and dismantle the criminal activities taking place on our borders.

Moreover, while federal agencies have improved their coordination with the Border States, communication within local and State authorities continues to be problematic. Communication in disperse rural areas presents a particular challenge. At a hearing on the Merida Initiative, I heard the moving testimony of a rancher from rural Arizona, Mr. Bill McDonald. He pointed out how a lack of resources and a rapid turnover rate make communication extremely important, but extremely lacking. These rural areas, and the people who live there, are in many cases the most vulnerable to human traffickers and drug traffickers.

There is a desperate need for Border States to receive the necessary support to effectively secure our borders from threats and ensure a safe and stable environment for our border residents. More robust, well funded, and well resourced law enforcement systems are exactly what our Border States and residents demand.

These appropriations to improve law enforcement efforts at our Border States are only a small part of more comprehensive reforms to our immigration system. Reforms that the American people are crying out for and that I sincerely hope my fellow Members will stand behind. This legislation honors our first responsibility to protect the American people by giving law enforcement the tools they need to address the threat of violence near the U.S.-Mexico border. With investments in expanding the number of Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers, improving our border surveillance efforts, and increasing resources for anti-smuggling investigations, we are tackling our border security challenges head on. This is one of the central pillars of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.

Thank you, Chairman Price, I appreciate your leadership on this issue, and the other border members who appreciate this difficult situation that we have.

Repeatedly we heard from our colleagues across the aisle, why are we here? Why are we here? Well, we are here because we are sent here by our constituents to be their voices in Washington. And my constituents are the most heavily impacted in terms of illegal immigration. My sector had over 242,000 apprehensions, over 1.2 million pounds of marijuana seized last year. Mr. Chairman, that is why we are here.

We are here because residents in my district are sick and tired of all of the partisan bickering and the political games around securing the U.S.-Mexico border. That is why we are here.

We heard from across the aisle it is all about politics. Well, let me tell you about politics. This is the third time that we are here. The first time we were here on July 1st, the second time on July 28th, and now here on August 10th. The House is saying yes to more Border Patrol agents on the ground. We are saying yes to agents at the ports of entry. We are saying yes to more forward operating bases.

Why are we here? We are here because the Congress cannot turn its back on the American people, and those people who are most heavily impacted by illegal immigration. We are here because the Senate has refused to do the responsible thing and yet again for the third time has sent this back to us.

Politics? Well, the Senate needs to come back and deal with this issue. For all of the talk about securing the border and protecting American citizens, here we have an opportunity to actually do that, and we are not.

We are here because my constituents are sick and tired of all the political rhetoric. They want to see us get the job done.

This should be a bipartisan issue. I urge the Senate to return immediately to pass this bill.

I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

To me, it doesn't matter what the President of the United States proposes along the U.S.-Mexico border. I am a Member of the United States Congress. I am sent here by my constituents to fight for their needs. That is why I repeatedly asked for the National Guard to be deployed to the border.

That is why it was so important to have the National Guard deployed on the border. We are here because today the National Guard is deploying to Arizona and the Southwest border. They were designed to be deployed not in a vacuum but with increased members of the Border Patrol that will be trained, that will have equipment, that will have----

Madam Speaker, for my constituents, the people that reside in my district, what matters is that we get the job done. They don't care about all of the partisan back and forth and this and that, what happens here.

This is my time, sir.

When the National Guard was blindly deployed early this month--which took a lot of work from many of us to have the National Guard back on the border--they were designed to be deployed not in a vacuum. They were designed to have members of our Border Patrol trained up so that the Guard wouldn't have to be there forever and that we would have increased forward operating bases, that we would have an increased aerial surveillance system, that we would have a beefing up at the ports of entry.

This was all designed with this emergency supplemental funding in mind, and the Senate blew it again. This is not a partisan issue. This is something that Democrats and Republicans can do to fight for what's right for the people of America.

Madam Speaker, I serve on the House Armed Services Committee. We pass very large budgets securing America's interests, and it is critical that we get this job done.