FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 13, 2006
CONTACT: Jamie Loftus
BORDER TUNNEL PREVENTION ACT PASSES AS AMENDMENT TO SENATE BILL
Senator Hutchison an original cosponsor of border security measure
WASHINGTON, DC -- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today announced the Border Tunnel Prevention Act passed as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2007 Homeland Security Appropriations bill. The measure, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and cosponsored by Sen. Hutchison, aims to prevent the use and construction of underground passageways between the United States and other countries.
“These underground pipelines into our country threaten our sovereign borders and provide additional avenues for terrorists to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into our country,” Sen. Hutchison said. “This bill imposes new punishments for those who build and finance these tunnels. It also holds accountable land owners who knowingly look the other way when their property is being used to thwart our laws and compromise our national security.”
The Border Tunnel Prevention Act amends the U.S. Code to prohibit the unauthorized construction, financing, or, permitting, with reckless disregard, the construction or use on one’s property of a tunnel between the U.S. and Mexico or Canada.
The act increases penalties for those who proactively build or finance the tunnels as well as land owners who know about, yet disregard, use of a tunnel on their property. Specifically, the bill states that a person who knowingly constructs or finances the construction of a tunnel will be punished by imprisonment of up to 20 years. Someone who knows about or recklessly disregards the construction or use of a tunnel on the land that person owns or controls will be imprisoned for up to 10 years.
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