U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Immigration
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, the amendment is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill dealing with border security. I commend the subcommittee chairman on the tremendous investment this bill makes in homeland security and in border security to the United States of America.

A few months ago when I made one of the first speeches in the Senate with regard to the floor supplemental, I talked a little bit about REAL ID and what is the largest single domestic issue in the United States today, illegal immigration.

In that particular speech I made a note that I love our system of immigration, love the fact you can come to this country and become a citizen--I am a second-generation American myself--but we have been flooded as a nation over the past decade by a tremendous influx of those who have come illegally, many over the border of the south, although obviously to the north as well.

This goes a long way toward providing the funding to Customs and to Immigration to begin enforcing laws on the books, making it tougher to come into the United States the wrong way and hopefully making it easier to come to the United States the right way, the legal way.

We need a partner on our southern border. The sense-of-the-Senate amendment is very simple. It simply asks the Government of Mexico to assist in helping to secure the border between the United States and Mexico to ensure that those who immigrate into this country are coming in consistent with the laws of the United States of America.

We have a great trading partner to the south. We have a great neighbor to the south. We have a country that shares many common interests. We have a country that we enjoy being our neighbor. We also would like for them to be our partner in seeing to it that the border we share is secure so that those who are crossing are crossing legally and consistent with the laws of that nation.

I thank the subcommittee chairman for his cooperation. I thank the Senate for agreeing to this amendment. I am pleased we can express this sense of the Senate that the common interest of both countries is in the best interests of America when it comes to the border security between ourselves and the country of Mexico.

I yield the floor.