The Texas congressmen's bill would provide security they say is imperative to keep out terrorists.

SERGIO BUSTOS
Citizen Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Two Texas lawmakers will ask Congress today for at least $1 billion to monitor every mile of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border around the clock. They plan to introduce a bill that would double immigration inspectors, add 3,000 agents to the U.S. Border Patrol and make major improvements at all border checkpoint stations.

Rep. Jim Turner, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, and Democrat Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a former Border Patrol chief from El Paso, said the legislation would plug "major security gaps" along the border that could be exploited by terrorists.

An estimated 150,000 to 600,000 people illegally enter the country each year, the two said.

A growing volume of legal crossings by trucks, rail cars, automobiles and pedestrians is straining federal inspection facilities, they added.

"This country is fighting a war against terror, but nowhere is the gap between rhetoric and reality greater than on our border," Turner said.

Reyes said, "It's been three years since the (Sept. 11) terrorist attacks. The American people expect their government to do a better job of securing the border."

The Secure Borders Act would require the Homeland Security Department to deploy high-tech equipment along the entire border to detect humans.

It would toughen penalties for immigrant smugglers and increase detention space to house those arrested for illegally entering the country.

Despite an emphasis on law enforcement to keep out illegal immigrants, the lawmakers said, the bill would also speed up the processing of foreign visitors and commercial trade across the border because it would boost staffing levels at the border's 43 land-based entry points.

The lawmakers based the bill on a 141-page report issued earlier this month by Turner and the Democratic staff of the House homeland security body.

The report was based on hundreds of interviews of state and local officials in border communities in California, Arizona and Texas.

Dozens of top Homeland Security officials stationed along the border were interviewed as well.

"We have places on our border where there is nothing - no fencing, no electronic monitoring and no effective law enforcement presence - to stop people from coming across the border," the report stated. "Our ports of entry are so congested that at times, cars are just waved through the border with hardly any inspection."