WASHINGTON – The United States Senate today approved an amendment offered by U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that would fund 370 miles of triple-layered fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers along the nation’s southwest border.
Sessions successfully amended the Senate immigration bill, passed last May, to authorize construction of the fencing and vehicle barriers, but today’s vote would insure that money is actually appropriated to pay for the border security measures.
Sessions’s amendment to the Fiscal Year 2007 defense appropriations bill, which passed today by a vote of 94 to 3, would increase the National Guard’s budget by $1.8 billion to build the fencing and vehicle barriers. Under President Bush’s Operation Jumpstart, more than 6,000 Guard members are already assisting the Border Patrol. Among their duties is to help the Border Patrol build infrastructure, including fencing, roads and lighting along the border.
The money would come from an $86.3 billion emergency contingency fund that was included in the FY 2007 budget resolution.
“If we don’t use the emergency funds provided in the budget for this purpose, they will get used for something else,” Sessions said in floor remarks. “The Senate has already voted overwhelmingly, 83 to 16, to approve construction of physical barriers along the southwest border. We missed the chance to fund the barrier in the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, so with this vote we can actually say to our constituents that we followed through with the funding, that we walked the walk as well as talked the talk.”
Under Sessions’s amendment to the Senate immigration bill, the Department of Homeland Security would determine the locations of the 370 miles of fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers.
"By passing my amendment today, we are sending a signal that we are serious about stopping the flow of illegal immigrants over the border,” Sessions said. “The construction of more fencing and vehicle barriers will greatly enhance border enforcement and it will pay for itself many, many times over. A border fence, combined with National Guard forces, increased border patrol agents and more bed space for arrested illegal aliens, will help us reach a tipping point where the scales tip from illegality to legality. If we continue to send signals like this, that the open border days are over, people will know that it makes more sense to apply and come into our country legally, according to our laws, rather than trying to come in illegally.”
