John Ensign: “Amendment No. 3295 is to increase by $150 million the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and offset it with a $150…”

“Amendment No. 3295 is to increase by $150 million the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program and offset it with a $150 million decrease in the NASA budget currently in the bill. The NASA budget was increased $150 million over the President's request in the underlying bill and then an emergency spending of an additional billion dollars which was, by the way, already from over a billion dollars more than in the bill last year. We are taking $150 million of that and putting it toward this program that is underfunded every year. It is to assist the States in prosecuting and arresting people who are here illegally who have committed crimes. This is an important piece of legislation. We don't have enough money for correctional officer salary costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens, and this amount of money, especially for the border States of the Southwest, is very important. It might be drug programs people who are here illegally are running. I was watching a program the other day that was talking about cheese heroin, something that can addict our children with one dose. Kids have died. I think there are 30 or 40 of them who have died in Texas literally with one dose. Most of that is coming from our southern border. We need to provide local law enforcement the resources to deal with aliens who are coming to this country who are dealing with the drug program. This is an important problem that we need to add extra funding to.”