Mr. Gregg: Mr. President, we're about to begin this week a very significant discussion, debate and hopefully passage of legislation to address what is one of the crucial public policy issues we have here as a country, which is the question of how we handle immigration.

            We're a nation which has been built on immigrants. Every one of us in this country, except for Native Americans, comes from a family that came from somewhere else and immigrated to this country. Part of our heritage which we're most proud of is the fact that we've been able to assimilate cultures from around the world and bring them to the United States and create America. It's something we should take pride in, something which sets an example for the rest of the world to show that people can gather and can live together and can be productive and can produce a nation founded on democracy, freedom, and liberty, individual rights, and heritage, heritage which has built a matrix of strength for us.

            As a nation, as we bring together people from different cultures and we form an America. E Pluribus Unum, the language above the President of the Senate, says it so well. From many one. We are, therefore, a nation which needs to have an immigration policy which understands that, which first and foremost appreciates and continues to reward the idea that there are peoples from around this world who wish to come to America to participate in this country and to make us a more productive place in which to raise their children and to assist us as a nation in being stronger economically, socially.  From a standpoint of just inner strength, we attain so much from having different people participate in our country. We always want to be that beacon, that light up on the hill that draws the world to us because as long as people want to come to America, we know we're doing something right. We should take great pride in that.

            And we continue to be a place where people want to come. As a result, we do have the issue of how we deal with immigration. But most importantly, as we move down this road, we have to recognize that it is critical that we not do anything which tarnishes or chills or in any way undermines that great tradition of America, which is that we reach out our arms to people who wish to come here and be productive and participate in our way of life.

            However, unfortunately over the last few decades, and especially in an accelerated way as we moved through the 1990's and into this decade of the first part of the 2010 period, as we move into this first decade of 2000, we've seen that a large number of people are coming into our nation illegally. They're not following the course which is available to become an American citizen legally, to emigrate here, to take advantage of our system and to build on the opportunities that are here and do it legally. That has become a problem for us. It is a problem from the standpoint that it violates our laws. It is also a problem for us in the post-9/11 world where we really need to know who is coming into this nation because of the threat of terrorist acts against us.

            For the most part, these people who come to our country have come here for purposes which are good and decent. They want to have a better life. They want to be able to earn a better living. They want to be able to give their families more than what they had in the nation that they left. And that is a well-intentioned purpose. But they still come here illegally, and we need to address the issue of how we deal with that.
            Now this question has been divided into basically two functions. First is how you physically control the borders of our nation and make sure that those borders are reasonably secure so that we have a decent idea of who is coming across those borders and why they're coming into our nation. And the second is the question of how you deal with people who have come here to work, to perform tasks which are available to them, people who may already be here illegally but people who still want to come here and do it in a way that is within the law. And that, of course, involves the debate over our guest worker program.

            On the first issue, I've had a fair amount of interest and involvement because I chair the committee that has jurisdiction over this question- the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. And the question of whether or not our borders are secure is something which, since I have taken over as Chairman of this Subcommittee, has been all-consuming over the last two years that I've had the good fortune to chair this subcommittee of the appropriations committee.
            It's pretty obvious to any American that our borders are not secure, that we do not know who's coming in. We certainly don't know who's leaving. We don't know what's coming in, and we don't know, to a large degree, what's going out.  On the issue of movement of people, we are attempting to address that question. We have over the last two years significantly increased the resources going into border security. We've increased the number of border patrol agents by almost 2,000. We've increased the number of beds which are available, what are known as detention beds, also by a significant number. We have increased resources flowing into the border security area, especially in the area of technology capability, trying to set up a system called U.S. VISIT, which will allow us to effectively track who's coming into our country on a realtime basis through using fingerprints and our databases on fingerprints.

            We have made progress. But we are nowhere near solving the problem. And I want to talk briefly about that specific issue and then a little bit about the bigger issue of guest worker and how you become an American citizen. Because as the Judiciary Committee wrestles with this problem of border security, I think it's important that we do it the right way, that we think about it in what's going to get the best results versus what's going to get the best press release.

            To begin with, we do not need a wall across our southern border. We don't need it from a standpoint of being able to know who's coming across the border. We don't need it from the standpoint of being good neighbors. We do not need it from a standpoint of presenting the national culture. It would be the exact opposite thing that we should do as a nation. There may be sections, clearly, where some sort of fencing or wall will be necessary, sections where the commingling of the border is so close, it is very difficult to control that section without some sort of a definable event which forces people who wish to come across the border through a controlled point. But to run up a wall the length of the border, as has been suggested by some of our colleagues, especially in the other body, is just an anathema to the concept of what America stands for.

            We want to continue to a society which says we are open, that we are a place where people are encouraged to come to and that we are a place that will reach out to people who wish to be productive and come here to be productive citizens. And futhermore, it would cost a huge amount of money and would accomplish very little.

            So much more could be accomplished through other means. With the addition of a fairly significant but not dramatic increase in the number of border agents, if we went up to say 20,000 -- we're now about 13,000.  And with the addition of fairly significant but not a dramatic amount of new detention beds and some creative approaches to detection capability such as using former military bases and the facilities that might be available through transient housing. Maybe we could use some of those trailers that we've got sitting down there in Arkansas that aren't being used. But through creative detention capability we could add the additional beds -- and there are not that many needed compared to the overall numbers.

            With creative approaches using technology, of which we have an unlimited source of ingenuity in this nation. It seems like every day somebody comes to my office every day with some idea of how to create a monitoring system or some use of a monitoring system. Through the use of unmanned vehicles, satellite technology, through the use of sensors, which would not cost that much. With the creative use of just adding physical capital assistance, such as new cars, new helicopters, new planes for Customs, such as new capacity for the Coast Guard, we could, without a great deal of incremental increase compared to the spending which we do in other parts of this government, effectively monitor and manage certainly the southern border. And as a result, we would know who was coming into this country across that southern border which is where most of issue of illegal immigration occurs.

            Would we solve the northern border issues, probably not. That's a little different puzzle. The northern border doesn't have the huge illegal immigration issue but it does have an equally severe, maybe even more severe opportunity for terrorists, people who wish to do us harm, to cross. And there are other approaches which need to be taken there.

            But as to the southern border, it is totally possible, reasonable and should be done, to manage that border effectively with the addition of some significant resources but not dramatic increases.

            I suggested a year and a half ago that if we increased the capital resources available to the Border Patrol and the Customs agencies by about $1.2 billion we could essentially buy out almost all the major capital needs they need in order to manage the border, all the housing, all the airplanes, all the cars, all the unmanned vehicle monitors, all the technology for detection capability that we would need. That's a lot of money by New Hampshire standards, but in the context of a $1.8 trillion budget, it's certainly a manageable sum.

            So far that suggestion has been stiff-armed by the Administration and basically limited as a result of politics here on the floor of the Senate. In addition to that capital need, which as I mentioned is about $1.2 billion, there is the need to add new agents and there is the need  to increase our capability on the operational side. But, again, the dollars necessary to do that are not dramatic, not dramatic at all, probably in the range of $2 billion of additional funding per year. A lot of money, again, by New Hampshire standards but in the context of overall national defense where we're spending $440 billion plus the money for the war on terrorism, an additional $2 billion to secure our southern borders in the context of personnel increases is not dramatic. It's doable. The point is it would accomplish our goal which is to secure the southern borders. And I've asked for that to be done. Unfortunately that has not been proposed. Well, that is incorrect. It was proposed to increase the commitment of number of border patrol by the Administration. They gave that commitment in their budget submission, but they took it away because they tied it to creating a fee which would increase the airline user fee and the practical result of that would be that the money which was supposed to be used to add these additional agents would never be realized. But it should be done. And it can be done.

            If a fee is necessary to do it, it should be done on a fee basis but not on a fee that has no relationship to the actual usage. An airline fee does not impact southern border protection. The airline fee impacts the TSA, and it needs support. And it has gone through two years of freeze and should be increased in our commitment there, and this fee maybe should be used to do that. But if we're going to have a fee, it should be border related if that's the way it's going to be done. But in any event, it should be done. We should spend these dollars to accomplish this.

            The bill that is working its way through the Judiciary Committee has a commitment to these types of efforts. It's an authorizing bill. I have to find the money as an appropriator and right now the money to accomplish those good intentions isn't there.

            Also, the bill coming through the authorizing committee creates a number of mandates. It says, this shall be done by Border Patrol, this shall be done by Customs, this shall be done by Coast Guard -- I'm not sure it addresses Coast Guard, but it has a number of mandates for border control and immigration. The practical effect of that is artificially directing and redirecting flows of revenues and resources, and it may actually as a result of those mandates end up undermining our ability to address the border. If the bill comes to the floor, which I hope it will, I hope we can straighten those issues out.

            The bottom line is simply this: we can accomplish security on the southern border. We can know to a large extent who is coming in and out of this country. We can limit dramatically -- I mean dramatically -- down to a trickle for all intents and purposes, the number of people who get into this country illegally cross the southern border by giving resources that in the relative context of the national budget are extraordinarily small. And if we have to pay for them, we should pay for them through some sort of a border security fee. It can be done.

            Why hasn't it been done? Well, because border security has been a stepchild around here to national defense for a long time. I find that unacceptable. If we're going to have a core defense budget which spends $440 billion up from $289 billion just five years ago, on top of which we're spending billions to fight a war, one has to ask what is the core defense budget for? It's not to fight the war because we're spending on top of it to fight the war. So it's obviously for strategic defense and it's needed, I guess, for the most part. But if that is a need of critical priority, clearly protecting our southern border is an equal need of national defense. Maybe we should roll the border security effort into the defense department and then we would get the resources for it. Although I think it would be a bad policy decision, at least we would get resources.

            But in any event, in the context of what is important from the standpoint of national security, I can't think of anything - there are a lot of things- I think it has to rank right up there at the top: knowing who is coming in and out of this country while our country at risk. We know that these people want to attack us on our soil, it is absolutely critical that we have the necessary resources to protect who is coming in and out of our country so that we can protect ourselves from people who might cause us harm.

            It is critical that as a culture we control this. We cannot survive as a culture if we have a massive amount of people coming into this country illegally. It doesn't work. People who want to come to this country, and we want to maintain an open approach to people coming into this country, have to know if they follow the rules and come here legally they are able to get in line under the rules and have a shot at American citizenship and participating in the American dream So it is critical we get our borders under control. And we should do it. We should have done it long ago, and we can do it now. We should make that commitment to those types of resources.

            As this bill moves forward, I intend to make those points and try to get people to look at this in the context of a doable event rather than in the context of simply a press release event.
            Secondly, on the issue of immigration itself, it is also obvious that we have to have a workable guest worker program. We have to have something that says to people, if you want to come here and work and better your family, there's a way we can work that out. We can make that happen. That takes the pressure off illegal immigration. After we secure the border, it is clear that some sort of effective guest working program is necessary to be in place.

            As part of that overall immigration effort, there's one little slice I think we need to address. It's a small slice. There is today a lottery program where you can essentially send in your name and you put it into a lottery. And you have to be from a country which is deemed underprivileged, I believe. There's some sort of categorization. But if your name is pulled out of a hat you get on the path to American citizenship. 50,000 names are pulled out of the hat every year just as a lottery.  Well, at one time this may have made sense, but it doesn't make sense today. It's obvious today that pulling people's names out of a hat to put them on path to citizenship in America is not fair to those people who are waiting in line and who have a reason and who follow the process and have a purpose. And it's not fair to our nation. I mean, how do we know that we want somebody whose name is drawn out of a hat to be an American citizen. What benefit is that to us other than that the person happened to be lucky? Thus, if we're going to keep this lottery program, I believe we need to change it to a lottery program which essentially says: if you want to participate in this lottery, you have to have some unique talents or skills which America needs. You have a masters degree or doctorate in some science or math capability, or a foreign language capability, something America has a use for. So I think we should convert this lottery to that approach.

            I note that my time is about to expire here and that we have both assistant leaders on the floor so something big must be happening. Therefore, I will continue this discuss as we move forward on the debate of immigration.

            But I do think it is critical to understand that resolving the border issue is a doable event. And we can accomplish it with the right amount of resources placed in the right place. We don't need new laws to do it. I yield the floor.

# # #