http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

(from April 11, 2006 show)

DOBBS: When Washington talks about amnesty for illegal aliens, millions of people are listening, and the evidence shows that millions on the other side of our broken southern border act on what they hear.
Bill Tucker reports.

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Every time this country discusses amnesty for illegal aliens, the number of people entering the country illegally soars. This latest wave started two years ago.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I propose a new temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing employers when no Americans can be found to fill the job.

TUCKER: With those words in January of 2004, the president might have just as well fired a starter's pistol. The number of arrests at the southwestern border soared. Arrest rates, which had been occurring at an average monthly rate of 75,400 in 2003, jumped to almost 95,000 a month in 2004, to nearly 98,000 last year.

That monthly arrest average is now 106,000, a 40 percent increase since 2003. In testimony before Congress last month, the Texas border sheriffs warned of the message that Washington is broadcasting.

SHERIFF LEO SAMANIEGO, EL PASO, TEXAS: Anytime you give a group of illegal, undocumented, aliens that are already here amnesty or even anything that sounds close to amnesty, you're sending the message to the next 12 million that are going to come in after them.

TUCKER: The last time amnesty was debated was in 1986, and arrest of illegal aliens attempting to cross rose 23 percent from the previous year, which means, from a border agent's perspective, it's clear what should be happening now.

T.J. BONNER, NATL. BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: I think before you start discussing how do we deal with the complexity of all of the millions of people who are here, you have to set in motion a mechanism to stop other people from coming in.

TUCKER: The official apprehension rate is on pace to top 1.2 million this year.

TUCKER: But border agents say that number understates the size of the problem, pointing out that for every one they catch, another two or three get away, Lou. DOBBS: And that's how the people come up with the number about three million illegal aliens a year crossing our borders and nearly all of those, the southern border with Mexico. Bill Tucker, thank you.