Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I hope we will be able to allocate the $50 million in the Kyl-Hutchison amendment for the hiring of new Customs agents.…”

“I hope we will be able to allocate the $50 million in the Kyl-Hutchison amendment for the hiring of new Customs agents. We have a terrible situation. I understand the position of Senator Campbell and Senator Reid in having to allocate this money. I think they have done a yeoman's job working within the budget constraints. The fact of the matter is, in any budget, any family has to set priorities. This administration has refused to set a priority of protecting our borders from illegal immigration and illegal drugs coming in. The fact is, they asked for no new Border Patrol agents this year, even though Congress has allocated 1,000 new Border Patrol agents every year for 5 years starting 2 years ago. They didn't even hire the allocation in this year's budget. We authorized and paid for 1,000 Border Patrol agents in this year's budget, and this administration has only been able to hire 200 to 400 agents. Since we lose so many, we are worse off than we were when we started this fiscal year. Now we come to Customs agents who are, once again, on the front line, particularly for illegal drugs because they are the ones responsible for searching trucks and cars that come in through the border. Once again, we have a request from the President for zero new Customs agents. The Customs Office itself asked for 617 new Customs agents. Look at what these Customs agents are doing. More than $10 billion in drugs flow across the U.S.-Mexico border each year.”