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Immigration Bill Amended to Include Increased Border Militarization

This week, the Senate made major progress toward passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill. However, Senators Corker and Hoeven proposed an amendment that would significantly militarize the border. Here is what the amendment includes: an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents to be deployed, maintained, and stationed along the southern border; a Southern Border Fencing Strategy which would require at least 700 miles of fencing to be completed; an entry/exit system to track visa overstays to be fully implemented at all airports and seaports; and the full implementation of E-verify by all employers.

MoveOn.org Executive Director Anna Galland had the following response to the Senate’s action:

MoveOn’s 8 million members support a clear road map toward citizenship for 11 million aspiring Americans–without further militarizing our already secure borders.

The Corker/Hoeven amendment would waste billions of taxpayer dollars, double the number of border agents, increase the length of the border, and ultimately increase the time it will take for aspiring Americans to become citizens. This recent compromise is disappointing, especially since the bill proposed by the Gang of 8 was already a bipartisan compromise.

After the bill moves through the Senate this week, we demand that Speaker Boehner remember the November elections and support the Senate version of the bill, without further increasing the militarization of our border.