John Ensign: “very briefly, to inform my colleagues, this amendment is basically the President's proposal to use the National Guard to…”

“very briefly, to inform my colleagues, this amendment is basically the President's proposal to use the National Guard to secure our borders as an interim step as we are adding to our Border Patrol agents on our southern border. We all know we cannot have a commonsense, comprehensive immigration policy without having secure borders. It is going to take us years to get enough Border Patrol agents down there. In the meantime, we need to have the National Guard to supplement and to multiply the force of the Border Patrol agents down there. That is what this amendment does. I believe it is an important step toward making sure we know who is coming into this country, making sure terrorists are not coming into this country. Mr. President, the Ensign amendment would codify the President's proposal to deploy the National Guard to the border. The President's proposal strikes a careful balance. Over the next year, they would send up to 6,000 guardsmen. The following year, they would decrease this to a maximum of 3,000 guardsmen. As the guardsmen stand down, the Border Patrol would stand up, and in the end, we would have 6,000 more Border Patrolmen securing the border. I remain concerned about the strain on the Guard. It is reassuring that the deployment will be limited in number and duration. I hope the administration will work closely with the Pentagon to ensure that we are not putting greater strain on those specialties that are needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.…”