The following is from a press release today from NC Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.
Foxx joins legislators to call for passage of border fence bill
Bill would restore funding for 700-mile border fence
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Virginia Foxx joined Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina at a press conference today to call on Congress to pass the Fence by Date Certain Act (H.R. 4987). H.R. 4987 mandates the completion of a double-layer fence along the U.S.-Mexico border by June 30, 2009. Rep. Jones introduced the bill this January in order to restore funding to the border fence project and ensure its timely completion.
Steve Elliott, President of Grassfire.org, presented the signatures of nearly 250,000 citizens who support the Fence By Date Certain Act to the members of Congress present at the press conference. Foxx made the following statement:
“We can not solve our illegal immigration problem if we don’t enforce our laws and police our border.
“Congress took decisive steps in 2006 to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants by passing the necessary legislation to build a border fence. But this past winter this law was hijacked and stripped clean of requirements to build the fence. The Fence By Date Certain Act remedies this national security disaster by requiring the construction of 700 miles of double-layer fence along the border, to be completed by June 30, 2009.
“I commend my friends Mr. Jones and Mr. King for championing this important legislative fix to our border fence problem. I know from hearing from constituents back in North Carolina’s Fifth District that they have had it with illegal immigration and the poor enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.
“This important grassroots petition that we are presenting to Congress today, with its nearly 250,000 signatures, is a clarion call to meaningful action on illegal immigration. As a nation we cannot tolerate the widespread flaunting of America’s immigration laws. Illegal immigration fundamentally undermines our national security, our sovereignty and our centuries-old foundation of the rule of law.
“Today we have more than 12 million illegal immigrants in America. The longer we wait to take decisive action and fix our broken immigration system, the longer the problem of illegal immigration will persist and erode our national security. The Fence by Date Certain Act is an important step in the right direction and we must bring it up for an up or down vote this year.
“Our border lacks adequate security and we simply cannot afford to wait any longer to pass this legislation. So I call on Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrat leadership to schedule a vote now on the Fence by Date Certain Act.”
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2 comments:
Thank God, "COMMON SENSE " being employed again by someone in "OUR" federal government!! Than you Ms Foxx
The politicians who voted for the Secure Fence Act were primarily interested in the symbolism of a wall, not its substance, otherwise they would have checked to see if the original San Diego border wall had worked. In fact, it hadn’t. The Congressional Research Service concluded that the border wall “did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border in San Diego.” Recent Border Patrol statistics bear this conclusion out. Fiscal year 2007 saw a 7% increase in illegal crossings in the San Diego sector. In contrast, during the same year crossings border-wide dropped by 20%. The Del Rio sector, which like the rest of Texas east of El Paso has never had a wall, saw a 46% drop. The unwalled Rio Grande Valley saw a 34% drop, bringing illegal entries in that sector to a 15 year low. Even Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recognized the border wall’s ineffectiveness, saying, “I think the fence has come to assume a certain kind of symbolic significance which should not obscure the fact that it is a much more complicated problem than putting up a fence which someone can climb over with a ladder or tunnel under with a shovel.”
Congressman Jones is best known for his efforts to change the names of French Fries and French Toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast in the congressional cafeteria to punish France for refusing to support the invasion of Iraq. In the real world the border wall is an expensive failure, but it sure looks great behind the candidate in a campaign ad. If demolished homes and bulldozed wildlife refuges clash with the rhetoric of protecting the homeland, they are simply ignored. When the Border Patrol says it only takes 5 minutes to get past the border wall, Representative Jones calls it “a foolproof barrier on the border.”
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