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Posted on Fri, Jul. 21, 2006

House speaker, delegation tour Arizona border over immigratio

ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
Associated Press

NOGALES, Ariz. - House Speaker Dennis Hastert and five other congressmen toured Arizona's border with Mexico on Friday to get a sense of how much help is needed to clamp down on illegal immigration.

After visiting Camp Grip - a remote, permanent Border Patrol desert encampment in the southwestern corner of the state - the group flew to Nogales for a nighttime ride in hilly terrain along dirt roads hugging 10-foot steel fencing aimed at curtailing illegal border crossings.

"I really believe you have to secure the border before a guest worker program works, or before any other program that you want," said Hastert, R-Ill.

"If a patient is wounded and bleeding, the first thing you do is stop the bleeding. And we have a border that is bleeding; we need to heal it."

Hastert said all Americans in all parts of the country are concerned about the issue of illegal immigration.

"Every town's a border town, every state's a border state, and the American people believe that we ought to stop it," he said.