NAN A. S. HAYWORTH: “I yield myself 3\1/4\ minutes. I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague from Texas. As you…”

“I yield myself 3\1/4\ minutes. I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by my colleague from Texas. As you heard in her opening remarks, sadly, this amendment is an attempt to discredit worthy, nonviolent volunteers who dedicated their time and their energy to protect our Nation's borders last month. The Minuteman Project, Madam Chairman, is simply an outgrowth of the public's frustration with the Federal Government's failure to secure our borders. Indeed, what the Minutemen did was follow a time-honored tradition of petitioning our government for legitimate redress of grievance. It is true that in terms of the political landscape, the ACLU and the Government of Mexico protested the group even before the patrol began; but the Minutemen effectively shut down a 20-mile stretch of border without a single credible report of violence committed by those citizen volunteers. With reference to the notion of a study, Madam Chairman, I would simply say this: the records are intact. I will make them a part of the record right now. Attacks on border patrol agents by alien and drug smugglers are on the rise. In the Tucson sector alone during the first 6 months of this fiscal year, there were reported 132 assaults on agents, 14 more than all of last year. That is in the first 6 months of the fiscal year. Border patrol agents in Arizona are attacked once every 2 days, 64 times in a recent 3-month period.…”