Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
On H.R. 6061, Secure Fence Act Of 2006
September 20, 2006

Over the last couple of weeks, the President has used his pulpit to inform the Senate that his top priority had to be fixing the problem he created when he unilaterally proclaimed what laws govern military commissions.  That desire to work with Congress stood in stark contrast to his position in 2002, when a number of us reached out to the Administration to work with us on a bipartisan statute to establish the authority for fair and effective military commissions.  Four years later, having rejected any role for Congress, the Administration’s go-it-alone plan has succeeded in having no terrorist military commission trials completed and no convictions. 

Still, Congress set to work and the Armed Services Committee last week reported a bipartisan bill to authorize military commissions.  They worked with, and listened to, the professionals in the military.  But this week, the Senate Republican leadership has threatened to filibuster that bipartisan bill and refused to proceed to its consideration.

To recap, last week the Senate Republican leadership was demanding immediate action on military commissions as the Senate’s priority.  This week, it appears the priority is a 700-mile fence along our Southern border and a study of similar barrier along the Northern border.  It is getting hard to keep track of what the Republican Senate’s priorities really are.  In the spring, the Majority Leader praised and voted for comprehensive immigration reform, and stood with Senators on both sides of the aisle in support of that bill.  Now the Senate Republican leadership seems ready to throw all of our hard work over the side and abandon our principles.  Just last year, the Republican leadership could not have been more critical of what it called leadership-led partisan filibusters, yet today that is exactly what they are threatening. 

If there is an opportunity for Senate floor time, why not use it instead to put an end to the ongoing war profiteering and contracting fraud in Iraq?  Why not help those still suffering from Katrina?  Why not pass a federal budget, or consider the appropriations bills required by law to be completed by October 1?  Why not work on lowering health care costs, health insurance costs, fuel costs or the rising costs of interests rates and mortgage rates?   

This bill, which the House of Representatives rushed through last week, is not ready for consideration on the Senate floor.  It has had no committee consideration whatsoever in the Senate, and differs sharply from the considered Senate action just a few months ago.  Why has the Republican congressional leadership not been willing to proceed to a conference so that we could make real progress on comprehensive immigration reform? This is an issue on which the President could be of help and show some leadership.    

Along with a bipartisan majority of Senators, I voted for a far more measured version of a physical barrier on the Southern border during the Senate’s debate on comprehensive immigration reform.  The Senate has demonstrated its commitment to border security as an integral part of comprehensive reform. The Senate bill’s fencing provision called for 370 miles of fencing in the most vulnerable high-traffic areas.  That is what the Administration requested and recommended.  That is what we were told the Secretary of Homeland Security wanted.  And our measure was not designed to insult or inflame our neighbors.  It had a provision for consultation with the Mexican government.  We had in the Judiciary Committee taken into account the differences along the Northern border and our close working relationship with the Canadian government.  These provisions and actions helped foster respect and effective cooperation between our country and our neighbors and allies. 

The bill we debate today is a hasty, ill-considered, mean-spirited measure that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars.  A wall of this magnitude will be a scar on our landscape, a scar on a fragile desert ecosystem, and a scar on our legacy as a nation of immigrants.  What does a 700-mile barrier wall say about us as a free country? 

Most troubling, this bill would give the Secretary of Homeland Security unfettered power to decide what laws to follow and what laws to ignore.  Read the bill.  It was the Department of Homeland Security that just last year mismanaged the preparations for Hurricane Katrina that contributed to such devastation and suffering.  It is the Department of Homeland Security that has not managed to secure our ports, our chemical plants, our borders.  It is the same Department of Homeland Security that the Republican House would entrust with unlimited power to “take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

I do not think any Executive official, and certainly not those who mismanaged our preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina, should be given such a blank check.

Remember how this Administration has misinterpreted the Authorization for Use of Military Force? That was the measure by which Congress authorized the President to go to Afghanistan and get Osama bin Laden.  Instead of accomplishing that, the Administration argues it means that Congress meant to allow the President to violate the FISA law and secretly wiretap Americans without a warrant.  This is the President who signs a law with his figures crossed behind his back and then issues a signing statement reserving to himself the power to decide what laws to follow and how and when.  This is the Administration to which the Republican House wants to give a blank check, after Justice O’Connor and the Supreme Court have reminded us that our Constitution provides for checks and balances not a “blank check” for the Administration.  Rather than do its job and pass comprehensive immigration reform, as the Senate did, the House and now the Senate Republicans want to punt all power to the Executive.  The only thing the House left out of its bill was calling this a “war” on immigrants in which they view Secretary Chertoff as the commander-in-chief.

Have the lives lost in Iraq and billions of taxpayers’ dollars unaccounted for, 9/11 and Katrina taught us nothing?  How many more disastrous mistakes must this Administration make before the Republican Congress recognizes that abdicating our constitutional role and concentrating power in the Executive branch is the wrong strategy for protecting the security and rights of the American people?  Do we need to create yet another environment for crony contractors of the Bush-Cheney Administration to bilk taxpayers out of billions with no oversight or accountability?  I hope not. 

Five years of Bush Republican incompetence has left America’s borders unsecured and our immigration system broken. We joined to pass a bipartisan Senate bill with tough, practical, comprehensive immigration reform to secure the borders, enforce our laws, and fix our immigration system.  We want to bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.  The President and his Administration say that will make us safer.  President Bush told the American people he supports comprehensive immigration reform. Now he must tell Republicans in Congress to stop obstructing it. They have not even proceeded to a conference on the bill.

Nor do we need a study to determine whether we should build a barrier along the 3,175 miles of Northern border.  As I have said before, and I will say again, I have heard some cockamamie ideas in my time in the Senate, but this one rises to the top.  In length and in almost every other way, the Northern Border is different than the Southern Border.  The Northern Border, which spans the continent, is the world’s longest and safest international boundary, and Canada is our most important trading partner.  It is clear to me that those who want to build an enormously costly barrier across it have no clue about the character, the history and the day-to-day commercial importance of the Northern Border and the needs of the states and communities that would be affected.  It is best to nip this foolishness in the bud before Congress wastes more tax dollars in another boneheaded stunt.

America can do better than this, and the Senate has already pointed the way with our bipartisan, comprehensive approach.  We need comprehensive reform that reflects American values and is effective. The House bill will cost American taxpayer dearly but accomplish little.    

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