Political Quotes

“The possibility of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction being transported through border tunnels is frightening. The possibility of narcotics or trafficking victims being transported through tunnels is disturbing. And I have real concerns about tunnels being used for run-of-the-mill illegal immigration and to smuggle goods or merchandise. But these things are already illegal. And the penalty for doing any of these things through a tunnel is already double what it would be if the unlawful activity had not made use of a tunnel. When this bill, H.R. 4119, was in the Judiciary Committee, I commented on what I saw as the redundancies in the bill. We already have laws against constructing or financing a tunnel between the United States and another country. The penalty for violating the law is a fine and up to 20 years in prison. And we have laws against knowing, or recklessly disregarding, that land you own or lease is being used by someone else who is building a tunnel, The penalty for that is a fine and up to 10 years in prison. H.R. adds attempts to the crimes already available to address border tunnels. Yet, I wonder how many cases there have been where a prosecutor was unable to prosecute someone for attempting to construct a tunnel under the current border tunnel law but would be able to under H.R. 4119? For U.S. prosecutorial jurisdiction, the tunnel would have to be started on the U.S.…”