Charles E. Schumer: Article distorts facts, seeks to frighten Americans

Another Voice / Immigration
Charles E. Schumer: Article distorts facts, seeks to frighten Americans
By Charles E. SchumerUpdated: July 17, 2009, 11:14 AM / 4 comments

In his July 14 Another Voice, “Schumer rates amnesty for illegals over security,” Daniel Stein, head of an extremist group called FAIR, distorts my position on immigration in order to scare the American people using false and distorting arguments.

My view on immigration is direct and simple. I believe that the vast majority of the American people are both anti-illegal immigration and pro-legal immigration.

That’s why I intend to introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation by Labor Day that secures our border, stops the flow of illegal aliens to the United States and requires all illegal aliens present in the United States to quickly register their presence with the U. S. government and start paying taxes or face imminent deportation.

Any claim that I am not serious about securing the border is simply untrue. Last week, I voted to require the Department of Homeland Security to construct significant fortifications to the border fence.

And I have previously voted to double the size of the border patrol from 10,000 agents to 20,000 field agents, and to give the border patrol significant funds for new technologies such as sensors, light towers, mobile night vision scopes, remote video surveillance systems, directional listening devices, database systems and unmanned aerial vehicles along the border.

These new technologies serve as “force multipliers” and allow the border patrol to maintain control of larger segments of the border with fewer agents on our northern and southern borders.

This has led to real progress, but I want the remainder of the border to be under our operational control immediately, and will require the Department of Homeland Security to complete this task within one year of enactment of the bill I intend to introduce.

This is no easy task, but it can and will occur if the American people are committed to giving the Department of Homeland Security all of the funding and resources it needs to complete this task.

It is time for those who seek to distort the debate on a sensible and tough immigration policy in order to promote a purely anti-immigrant agenda to be honest about the facts, and to recognize that we are a country that is enriched and made more economically competitive by the contributions of legal immigrants. We must be both anti-illegal immigrant and pro-legal immigrant.

Americans will no longer be fooled by cheap buzzwords thrown around by people who are unwilling to engage in the hard work and honest discussion necessary to ensure that we create an immigration system that ends the current flow of primarily low-skilled illegal immigrants into the United States and creates a more manageable and controlled flow of legal immigrants who can be absorbed by, and assist, our economy.

Charles E. Schumer is the senior U. S. senator from New York.