Congressman Pushes for Pumping Up Border Patrol With Military Troops
by Chad Groening
November 13, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Republican member of the U.S. Congress says he will continue to urge the Bush Administration to put troops on America's southern border, especially in remote areas where law enforcement is sparse and illegal aliens can easily sneak across.Rep. John Hostettler is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration. The Republican congressman from Indiana does not agree with the Administration's reluctance to station military troops along the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico in order to intercept illegal aliens and those who smuggle them across the border.
Hostettler says he and Congress have repeatedly supported the use of troops to patrol the borders, particularly in Arizona, where he says enforcement officials are seeing illegal immigration move from the cities, where border security has been tightened, into the more rural and sparsely populated areas.
"Congress has on several occasions asked the Administration to use troops on the border," Hostettler says, "and we're going to continue to do that. But we're also going to try to get resources through to allow immigration and customs enforcement to have more agents in order to enforce the laws."
The congressman says the need for these measures is especially keen in the vast expanses of some of the Southwestern states, where law enforcement resources are very thinly spread.
