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Washington, May 15, 2006 -  U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland issued the following statement about President Bush’s speech on immigration tonight:

"I agree with President Bush that we need to take immediate action to seal the U.S. borders. With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country now, our current border-protection measures are obviously broken. We’re in the midst of an ongoing debate on our immigration policy and the first step will be increasing manpower and use of technology to keep the problem from getting worse. Once we can get a handle on who’s here, both legally and illegally, we can then begin the national dialogue on reforming the immigration system and figuring out how to handle those who are here illegally.

"Calling up the National Guard appears to be a temporary measure to deal with a crisis situation that has gone on too long. Congress should support this effort by the president and then immediately start work on a long-term solution that uses federal agents trained specifically in protecting our national borders.

"In short, this is a good first step and I support it."