On the recordFebruary 28, 2012
I thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am here tonight to talk about one of the issues that is of extreme significance. In fact, in every town hall meeting I've ever held, one of the first questions that's asked, if not the first question, is about illegal entry into this country and is about, specifically, border security. So in talking about what the issue is before us, this is a map of the United States that is divided into the Border Patrol sectors, the areas that the Border Patrol has. As you will see, if you can, from the numbers, there is a vast difference in the numbers of people coming illegally into this country based on the sectors. If you go to the sector of the State of Maine, the last time we had verifiable figures, the last time we had complete figures from the Border Patrol and from the Department of Homeland Security, only 56 illegals were apprehended trying to get into Maine, which has to tell you that there are not a whole lot of people from Nova Scotia who are trying to come over here and take hockey jobs. In fact, I have to think they probably looked at them as tourists. But if you look down here in the area in blue, the Tucson, Arizona, sector, which is only part of Arizona--it's not the entire State of Arizona--in the last 2 years for which we have complete data, 51 percent, or a quarter of a million people, came through Arizona.…





