Bill Clinton: “Well, let me say this, the Vice President, in his reinventing Government report, had recommended that we look at whether…”

“Well, let me say this, the Vice President, in his reinventing Government report, had recommended that we look at whether the border functions of Customs and the border functions of Immigration should be integrated. That was the issue. And that is something, I think, that is worth debating. We've had some instances in which--we got reports when we began to look in how the Federal Government operated, that the Immigration people and the Customs people were actually not only not cooperating but almost getting in each other's way at some border crossings in the United States. So that's all we looked at. We would not diminish the other part of Immigration's control--function, excuse me--or defund it or underfund it or any of the things that you might be concerned about. And in fact, no decision has been made yet about the organizational issues. It's just that we have been concerned, given the kind of immigration problems we have when we want to reduce the chance that, for example, terrorists could get into this country, we want to deal with some of the problems we had where people were almost sold into bondage to come to this country. And we don't want any kind of unnecessary overlap or conflict between Customs and Immigration. So that's what we're trying to work out, not to diminish the other functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which are very important. Mr. Atkinson. Mr. President, I hope I'm not breaking the rules here, but a quick followup to that. You know that the Border Patrol says they don't have enough people.”