Washington, D.C. -  Today, the House of Representatives passed a compromise version of House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Price’s Border Security Funding Supplemental bill, investing $600 million in border security improvements administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).  The Senate must pass the compromise legislation before it can be signed into law by President Obama.  Rep. Price included a similar package of investments in the Afghanistan/Iraq war funding supplemental bill. He reintroduced that funding as a separate bill on July 27th after the Senate stripped border security funding out of its version of the war supplemental.

The legislation (H.R. 6080) will provide $176 million for an additional 1,000 Border Patrol officers and provide $14 million for new equipment to the Border Patrol as it confronts increased cartel violence along the Mexican side of the border.  It will bring the number of Border Patrol agents to 21,370, a 70 percent increase since 2006.  

“This bill addresses the urgent need for enhanced security on our Southwest border,” Rep. Price said.  “Violence on the Mexican side of the border has intensified because of turf battles murderous transnational criminal organizations competing for drug, alien, and weapon trafficking business.  We need these new officers trained and ready to ensure there is not an enforcement gap as the National Guard troops recently deployed to the border leave.”

The bill also includes $32 million in funding for two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and $6 million for two forward operating bases.  Both investments will expand the Border Patrol’s range in drug and human smuggling interdiction efforts.  The UAVs, communications equipment, and forward operating bases will allow the border patrol additional flexibility, narrowing enforcement gaps along remote portions of the border.   Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) programs will receive $80 million to expand the presence of drug, human and gun trafficking investigators on the border. 

Rep. Price partnered with a number of border-state colleagues in bringing the bill to floor.  Original co-sponsors of the legislation included: Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Bob Filner (D-CA), Chet Edwards (D-TX), Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Ruben Hinjosa (D-TX), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) Harry Teague (D-NM), and Dina Titus (D-NV).

“Our border members have been making the case directly to their colleagues on both sides of the aisle that each of these investments will expand the range and effectiveness of our enforcement efforts,” Rep. Price said.  “Those members deserve a lot of credit for the fact that this bill has moved very quickly through the legislative process.”

A comprehensive list of investments funded by the legislation is included below.  All of the funding in the bill is offset by spending cuts and fee increases for certain foreign visa applicants:

Department of Homeland Security:  $394 million for department efforts to strengthen enforcement on the southern border, including:

• Border Patrol Agents: $176 million for 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents deployed between the ports of entry along the Southwest Border.

• CBP Officers: $68 million to hire 250 new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at ports of entry along the Southwest Border and maintain 270 CBP officers funded through declining user fees and.

• CBP Tactical Communications: $14 million for designing, building, and deploying an improved tactical communications system for support of enforcement activities on the Southwest Border.

• Border Patrol Forward Operating Bases: $6 million for the construction of two forward operating bases along the Southwest Border for improved border enforcement activities.

• Airborne Interdiction: $32 million to procure two additional CBP unmanned aircraft systems.

• Immigration Enforcement Activities: $80 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hire more than 250 special agents, investigators, intelligence analysts, and mission support staff and for targeted activities directed at reducing the threat of narcotics smuggling and associated violence.

• Workforce Integrity: $10 million for a surge of workforce integrity investigations designed to prevent corruption among CBP officers and agents.

Department of Justice: $196 million for Justice Department programs, including:

• ATF: $37.5 million for the continued expansion of ATF’s Project Gunrunner, which targets firearms trafficking across the Southwest border, and to increase ATF’s capacity to complete firearms trace requests related to border cases.

• DEA: $33.7 million for investigations, intelligence, surveillance and other operational needs of the DEA to target and pursue major drug trafficking organizations along the border.

• FBI: $24 million for FBI investigative, intelligence, tactical and forensic responses to gangs, violent crime and public corruption in the border region.

• Interagency Enforcement: $21 million for the operation of prosecutor-led task forces involving Federal, state and local law enforcement officials to target the biggest, most significant drug trafficking organizations with ties to the Southwest border.

• U.S. Marshals: $37.7 million for the U.S. Marshals Service to provide prisoner production and security support for defendants referred by CBP and ICE, as well as for an expansion of the Marshals presence in Mexico.

• Federal Prosecutions: $13.1 million for prosecutorial support to address increased cases referred by CBP, ICE and DOJ investigative agencies.

• Executive Office for Immigration Review: $2.1 million to process and adjudicate removal proceedings involving criminal aliens.

• Detention & Federal Prisons: $27 million for detention and incarceration space to address the increase in the prisoner population resulting from new DHS and DOJ investigative activity.

The Judiciary: $10 million for the Courts of Appeals, District Courts, and other judicial services to meet increased workload requirements resulting from immigration and other law enforcement initiatives.

Offsets
The bill is fully offset.  It increases, for five years, the cost of two visas which permit foreign workers to come and work in the United States.  These fee increases, which would raise $550 million, would apply only to companies with more than 50 employees AND for whom the majority of their workforce is visa-holding foreign workers.  The bill also includes a $100 million rescission from unobligated balances within the Department of Homeland Security’s border security fencing, infrastructure, and technology appropriation due to an ongoing assessment of the SBInet program.

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