Thomas Foley: “I want to address the House on a problem we are having in Florida and we are having all across the Nation. Last evening…”

“I want to address the House on a problem we are having in Florida and we are having all across the Nation. Last evening we had a chance to hear the President deliver his speech on the future of America. One of the things he emphasized was on changing and enforcing immigration procedures in our country. It is ironic that this past week the Immigration and Naturalization Service announced that is was taking eight Border Patrol agents from Florida and moving them to the southwest border of the United States. Clearly I know that we are having extraordinary problems on the borders of Mexico, but Florida also is being inundated by illegal immigrants. What has happened with our Border Patrol has been a diminishing from 85 agents in 1988 to half that strength of 42 agents today, after these agents are detailed to the southwest border. In my home district, the Palm Beach Border Patrol Office will shrink to just three agents and one supervisor who are responsible for covering eight counties and 120 miles of coastline.”