Lessons from the Border
Guest Editorial
by Congressman John Barrow

More than half a million illegal aliens get into this country each year. This isn't just a problem of economic security, it's an issue of national security. But if we're going to secure the border, we need to know what's working and what isn't.

That's why I led a group of seven other members of Congress to the U.S./Mexican border this week. I wanted to see the border patrol operations firsthand and talk to the folks who are on the ground, to see what they need in order to do their jobs better.

The men and women I talked with down there are among America's finest, and we should be just as proud of them as we are of the brave men and women on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. They put their lives on the line every single day to keep our country safe and secure. And I mean every single day. In just the short time I was there I saw the arrest of a smuggler with $30,000 around his waist in 20 dollar bills, the arrest of a man attempting to cross the border illegally, the capture of a truck carrying thousands of pounds of drugs, a whole group of illegals who were turned back literally in the middle of the Rio Grande, and the identification of a man wanted for murder. That goes on all the time.

We took the time to listen to what our border patrol officers had to say. They told us about their needs for more funding for more fencing, more technology, and more agents. I agree with them. Despite all the gridlock on this and so many other issues, this is what we've done in Congress just this year to help:

• We appropriated over $1 billion in funding for more border security fences and 3,000 more border patrol agents (H.R. 2368).

• We funded a National Guard mission to assist in border-security operations and train border patrol personnel along the southwest border, a mission that the President had left out of his budget request (H.R. 3222).

• We increased funding to help reimburse states for the cost of handling illegal aliens (H.R.3093).

• We passed the Alien Smuggling and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which gives local, state, and federal law enforcement officials the tools they need to detain and fully prosecute those found guilty of smuggling individuals across the border into the United States (H.R. 2399).

These are all steps in the right direction, but they're not enough.

If we're going to stop illegal immigration, we need to do three things: We need to secure our border, which will stop the flow of new arrivals. We need to secure our jobs, by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants. And we need to secure government benefits, so that the only folks who get government benefits are those who are entitled to receive them. If we turn off the flood, and withhold the economic support - both public and private - that illegal aliens aren't entitled to, then the economic forces that are working against us will begin to work for us. The reasons illegal immigrants come here will become the reasons they go back home.

We depend on the men and women defending our border a whole lot more than we realize, but they also depend on us. We cannot let them down. For our sake, as well as theirs, we need to give them the tools they need to do their job.

John Barrow is the United States Congressman for Georgia's 12th Congressional District.