WASHINGTON, May 19 (UPI) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has sent Congress details of his $1.95 billion border security request.
The president is pushing lawmakers to include it in the fiscal 2006 supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricane relief, CongressDaily reported Thursday.
Appropriations aides told CongressDaily they were doubtful that Congress could vote on a final package before the Memorial Day recess. And despite dire warnings from the Pentagon, agency officials have told lawmakers they can make it through June by tapping fourth quarter fiscal 2006 resources.
The border request, offset mostly through reductions in Pentagon procurement accounts, largely eschews the capital investments in the U.S. Senate's rival $1.9 billion border security package. Instead, the request focuses on personnel costs, including $756 million to deploy 6,000 National Guard troops to the southern border, the report said.
The troops would stay through next year in largely administrative duties, such as operating surveillance systems and installing fences and vehicle barriers. In addition, the request contains $410 million to hire and train 1,000 Border Patrol agents, part of an effort to continue in fiscal 2007 and the following year to double the number of border agents to 6,000 during Bush's tenure, CongressDaily said.
In a letter to congressional leaders accompanying the proposal, Bush wrote that the additional resources "will end the practice of catch and release along our southern border once and for all by increasing detention, transportation and removal capabilities."
Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., sponsor of the Senate's rival package, protested the absence of equipment expenditures such as Customs vehicles, helicopter and aircraft replacement and Coast Guard patrol boats.
