Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we had a number of votes this week, including one last night in the Armed Services Committee concerning whether to utilize the National Guard to confront the raging illegality that is occurring particularly in the Tucson sector of Arizona. It is a national crisis. The American people fully understand that. President Obama announced, with some fanfare, that he would send 1,200 National Guard troops to the border. To some, that may have sounded like a good thing. It is certainly not a bad thing. But the truth is, President Bush, under Operation Jumpstart, had 6,000 National Guard at the border at one point, and they made a positive difference. The immigration and Border Patrol people were very complimentary of the National Guard. They repeatedly stated how much it helped them do their job. Since that period, a lot of developments have occurred on the border that have put us in a much better position to be effective in ending this massive illegality than had been the case previously. For example, we have completed close to 350 miles of pedestrian fencing and almost 300 miles of vehicle fencing along the Southern border. Though this only half of the 700 miles of reinforced pedestrian fencing mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006, it is a good start. President Bush reluctantly signed that bill into law, and started the process of building fencing and vehicle barriers. Much of it is has been completed now, but we still need to finish what Congress mandated.…”