Judd Gregg: “I wish to talk about border security. Obviously it is a topic of hot discussion here in the Chamber, and I just wanted…”

“I wish to talk about border security. Obviously it is a topic of hot discussion here in the Chamber, and I just wanted to try to put in perspective what has actually happened and what may happen, especially in light of the President's presentation on Monday night. I have the good fortune, I guess, to chair the appropriations subcommittee which has responsibility for border security. I took this over 2 years ago, a year and a half ago, I guess. When I took the committee over, it became immediately apparent to me that the priorities within the Department of Homeland Security were not necessarily focused on what I consider to be the primary threat. So we reoriented the funding within the Department to look at threat first, the highest level threat being, of course, a weapon of mass destruction which might be used against America. So we started to increase funding immediately in that account. In my opinion, the second highest level of threat was the fact that our borders were simply not secure. They were porous. We didn't know who was coming in. We especially didn't know who was leaving.…”