Parameter name: request
Translate Request has too much data
Parameter name: request
Wednesday, 08/18/2010 Print Version |
Good morning. Governor, Secretary Bettenhausen, Chief Barlow, it's good to be here this morning. On behalf of the more than 20,000 soldiers and airmen in the California National Guard, to include our civilian employees that support the military department, I bring you greetings.Members of the California National Guard train for the federal mission and we use that training to respond to the call for any emergency that comes from our state. A mission such as this is one that we are prepared for. Members of the California National Guard respond. We also deploy. We return from deployment and we are ready to support the efforts here at the border.So as I move to introduce our governor, my commander in chief, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, I will take this opportunity to say, even though he's standing behind me, Governor, when we received the call -- when we received the call we were ready and we are here and we responded quickly.So ladies and gentlemen, service members, I present to you our governor, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Applause)Well, thank you very much, General Kight, for your nice introduction and also for your great leadership and jumping into action right after I asked you to put the troops together so that we can bring the 260 and help the federal government with the Border Patrol. I also want to say thank you to Chief Barlow from the U.S. Border Patrol for his great team effort and teamwork; you have been doing this for many, many years. I want to thank him for his great, great work and working with us. And Secretary Bettenhausen who is from Cal EMA, who is always there whenever we have this kind of deployment or any emergencies or anything else, so we want to thank you also for your great, great leadership.Now, one of the things that I'm most proud of, one of the responsibilities as governor, is to be the commander in chief of the California National Guard. And I think that public safety and protecting and making sure that this country is secure is always very, very important to me. Our soldiers and airmen are true action heroes, whether it is responding to disasters at home or if it is fighting wars overseas or if it is putting out fires or if it is securing the borders. They are multi-talented and I'm extremely proud of them.We also remember the great work that they have done. I just got a tour at the border and one of the things that one of the Border Patrol has said to me was that, "In the beginning," he said, "a few years ago, I was suspicious about the National Guard joining us. But then when we have seen their work and what a great team effort that was, now when I heard that they're coming back we were very happy about that." And so we just wanted to say that our Guard men and women served here on the borders a few years ago and they did such great jobs that actually the illegal crossings have slowed down by 26 percent, so that was really great, great work.Today our National Guard has been called once again to come here; President Obama announced his plan to send 1,200 National Guard troops to our southwestern border. And we wanted to participate in that, because I always feel strongly about the fact that we don't have enough manpower at our borders. And so we have 260 California National Guards here, Arizona will have 560, Texas 286, New Mexico 82.And we are very happy to say and we are proud that we are the first state to have our troops trained and operational for this mission. They have been here for several days to be trained and we are very proud of them. And, like I said, many of them are here the second time.Their responsibility will simply be to support and assist the federal Border Patrol in anything and everything. Whatever they need, they're there. The last time they also even helped build infrastructure and roads and so on, so it was really terrific work.I have faith in General Kight, of course; she has been a terrific leader. And our commanders on the ground and all of the men and women in uniform, I'm very proud of them. We have the best of the best and I know that they will answer this call to duty with courage, with determination and with great success, as they always do.But our country cannot afford only temporary stopgap solutions to border security. I think that we have to really solve this problem once and for all. As you remember, in 1986 when we did comprehensive immigration reform, one of the promises that the federal government has made is to secure our border. And they have fallen short on that promise. The federal government has failed to keep its promise and to fulfill that simple responsibility. I think it's the least thing that we can ask the federal government to do, is to secure our border and to protect the American people. And that's why the American people are fed up with government. They don't believe in what they say and what they promise because they don't keep their promises.Securing the border has to be the number one priority, there are no two ways about that. We have seen more and more infrastructure being built lately, so we are very happy about that, that the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration have made improvements by building infrastructure, having more helicopters, more Border Patrol agents and so on.But this progress is not enough. We need the federal government to step up with even more manpower and more funding. It is absolutely imperative, because it doesn't make any sense that when you go through the airport you have to take off your belt, you have to take off your shoes, you get patted down and, of course, you're not allowed to bring weapons to the airport, that's against the law.But here we see crossings where people cross the border with machine guns, with automatic weapons and all kinds of weapons. They're coming in with drugs, human trafficking, drug smuggling and illegal crossings. That has to stop.So we have to do everything -- and I have heard the new challenge, of course, is maritime, that people are coming in from the ocean. Coming up, this is the new challenge. But there always will be a new challenge because there's a lot of money involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking and I think that there always will be a way that they will find a way to come across. So we have to face up to those challenges.So I still believe today that we need more manpower. But I want to congratulate the Obama Administration for having made a good move forward, to ask the National Guard to help and to improve on the infrastructure and on the technology and all of those things. So we here in California are ready to help in any way possible because, like I said, to me protecting this country and homeland security, all of those things are extremely important and also to stop the flow of drugs to the United States and also to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico. All of this has to stop.So with that, I want to say thank you very much and I want to bring Chief Barlow up here to say also a few words about this. Please. (Applause)Thank you, Governor. Here in San Diego the Border Patrol has the responsibility to protect 60 miles of border along the land border and 114 miles of coastal border. Over the past few years we've been able to incrementally gain effective levels of control by using the right combination of personnel, technology and improvements in our tactical infrastructure. I also attribute a large amount of our success to the strong relationships with our partners at the local, state and federal levels, along with those partnerships with the government of Mexico.The Border Patrol has an outstanding relationship with the California National Guard. I know many of the senior leaders personally. I've worked side-by-side with these leaders on many engineering projects and through Operation Jump Start. That relationship, as good as it is, will get a lot better in the next few weeks and months to come.As we move forward our ability to gain and maintain effective levels of control on our border is contingent upon our ability to detect, identify, classify, respond to and ultimately resolve all threats within our theater of operations. The first critical piece of that process is the ability to detect. We've identified multiple strategic locations where our National Guard partners will be deployed to increase that detection capability and further strengthen our borders as we continue with our mission to protect this country.Thank you for your service, thank you for your support.At this time I'd like to introduce Secretary Matt Bettenhausen from the California Bureau -- excuse me. Cal EMA, I'll leave it at that.Thank you, Rick. Good to see you. No problem. (Applause) Thank you, Chief. General Kight, the men and women of the National Guard, thank you so much for your service here at home at the border and overseas. For our California Emergency Management Agency, we couldn't do our job in protecting, preserving and responding to disasters without your great assistance that we have known, that's always been there.And it's a spectacular force multiplier to help our first responders. We have the best first responders, firemen, policemen and National Guard in the nation, protecting and serving us all not only here in California but throughout the nation and throughout the world and I thank you for their work and what they're doing here on the border.Governor, I also want to thank you for your leadership and your support in making sure that we continue to focus on securing the border. This has been a priority of yours since you first walked in and our first conversation when I came out here to California. It requires partnerships such as we're seeing here today.As the Governor said, we understand that immigration and enforcement is a federal responsibility. But given that, the California Emergency Management Agency and as the Governor's Homeland Security advisor, we are constantly making sure that we are working with our federal, state and local partners to better secure the border and combat illegal immigration.Through the Governor's efforts we've created eight Human Trafficking Taskforces throughout the state. We have established a Firearm Trafficking Taskforce here in San Diego.Through the Governor's leadership efforts with the Border Governors Conference, working with all 10 states -- the four U.S. state governors and the six Mexican governors -- we have worked hand-in-glove with our federal partners, including ATF and Project Gunrunner to make sure that we're combating the flow of illegal weapons across the borders.Through the Governor's leadership and the Border Governors Conference we've also established a unique partnership between Baja California and California, to share criminal information on kidnappings, car thefts, gun trafficking, where 24/7 our law enforcement officers and their law enforcement officers can communicate with each other.The Governor's vision five years ago when we opened up down here in San Diego the Joint Harbor Operations Center to start specifically addressing the issues of the threats in the maritime environment, not only from terrorism, potentially but for immigration, has put us on a good footing to make sure that we're addressing both the land, air and maritime threats that we have here in California.There is much more that we need to do with the federal government. I thank Secretary Napolitano, Customs & Border Commissioner Alan Bersin -- a former cabinet secretary of ours and the Governor's -- and John Morton from ICE for the close partnership that we work in.We continue to invest our Homeland Security grant dollars in improving the capabilities of the National Guard as well as our local law enforcement. And we look forward to continuing working very closely with you, Chief and all of our ICE, Immigration, Customs Enforcement partners and Customs & Border, because it is about the partnerships and working on this together.So thank you and thank you, Governor. (Applause) We'll open it up for any questions.GOVERNOR: Any questions? We have everyone here, from the General to the Chief, Bettenhausen and the Guv.QUESTION: The commissioner of Customs & Border Protection, Alan Bersin, recently said that the borders are safer than they've ever been in California. He'd like to replicate the stability here along this stretch of the border in other areas like Arizona. So I'm wondering, Governor, what is the definition of a secure California border for you and how do you measure that?GOVERNOR: I think that it is probably true, what Secretary Napolitano says, that it is as secure as it ever has been. But it has never been secure, so therefore it becomes irrelevant.What is relevant is that the Obama Administration and Secretary Napolitano are making a real effort to step it up and to improve the situation through technology, manpower, infrastructure and so on.And they are aware of the new challenges, like I said, at sea. This is all new. Like I said, if you stop the crossings on land they will find another way, if it is through air or sea or whatever, so one has to always adjust. You know, the old saying from Nietzsche, for every attack there is a defense. And that's exactly what the federal government here has to do.And so we're all working together, the National Guard, the Border Patrol is doing a great job. I just got an inspection tour here, to drive up and down. It's very challenging and very, very complicated. And those are people across on the other side that come from a country that is a friendly country; we are friends. But within these friends there are some evil people, as much as we have it on our side that are transporting guns down there. So, you know, it's very challenging but we have to do it. So we've got to get it more secure, the borders and we've got to go and have more manpower. Right now we have 17,000, approximately, Border Patrol here on the southwestern side. Altogether it's probably around 20,000 -- and correct me if I'm wrong with the numbers.And you know, I always said from the beginning, when I got into office, we need 50,000. So people say, "Whoa, whoa, this guy's crazy." But I believe that's what you need when you look at the challenge and the amount of boats and surveillance that they now need out there at sea to really capture all of those people that are doing the human trafficking and the drug smuggling and all of those kind of things.So that's what I call a secure border. Will you ever be at the point that you can totally tighten the whole thing? I doubt it. But I think any kind of improvement is good. And we see improvements all the time and so we want to continue with those improvements.QUESTION: Governor, you're painting a picture of continued adjustments that will never end. So the answer, which we have been talking about for decades, is immigration reform.GOVERNOR: You're absolutely correct.QUESTION: We still do not have it and it doesn't appear that it's going to happen this year either.GOVERNOR: You're absolutely correct. There are two ways of -- many ways but the two main ways of approaching this is to secure the border and to create a good immigration reform that really kind of deals with the challenges on both sides.And we have, sadly to say, lawmakers in Washington who are being paid to solve those kind of problems and, as you can see, they're not capable of solving those kind of problems, which is a shame. And that's why the people in America are disgusted with those people.And I think that they really ought to look at the people that they are sending to Washington, if they in fact should be re-elected, since they really cannot solve this problem, nor the environmental issue problem, or energy policy, or a great infrastructure policy or any of those things that are extremely important for the country.QUESTION: You indicated, though, that the people are fed up because the people they send -- I mean, it's not quite as simple as the people they're sending, if I may. I mean, it's --GOVERNOR: It's not simple. You're absolutely right, it's not simple. But that's why I said, one should look at it, are they really fighting for those things? Are they really -- or are they just saying, "Look, it's election year, we cannot touch this subject." Because last year they said, "It is the year before election year, we cannot touch it." And before that, they said, "It is the main election year where we are electing a president, let's not touch it." So when can we touch this subject if it is always a pre-election year or election year? So I mean, it's crazy.So if they are afraid of making any decisions then they shouldn't go and take on that job in the first place. Being a leader and representing the people, you have to be courageous because you have to make decisions many times that are not popular and I can tell you this firsthand. But you're not going in there to win a popularity contest, you're going in there because you promised the people that you're going to fight for them, no matter what it takes and you're going to go and solve the problems.QUESTION: Is there anything else that California and Mexico are doing together to stop the illegal immigration and also the flow of weapons across?GOVERNOR: Yes. I think that one of the things that I'm most proud of is, when it comes to our federal government and to the Mexican government, is that they're really making an effort to work together. So there is a great friendship there, there is a great working relationship and I'm very happy about that, on every level.We, for instance, with our Border Governors Conference, we discuss those issues all the time. And on the Mexican side there is always a great will to work with us and to also slow down or to stop this problem. So they are frustrated about it as much as we are frustrated about it. So that's why I think it's important that we work together on those things and have this kind of a good relationship.But within this good relationship there are some evil people out there, on our side and on their side and we've just got to go and deal with that.Thank you very much. Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment