Got this from Senator Hutchinson today:

Dear XXXXXX:

Thank you for contacting me regarding comprehensive immigration reform. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.

Texas is a state that benefits from the contributions of legal immigrants, but it is also uniquely vulnerable to the dangers of illegal immigration. Since I was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1993, my principles have been clear and consistent: we must secure our borders while discouraging illegal behavior. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I have worked to appropriate funds for border security, which includes new Border Patrol agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators, detention officers, and detention beds. We have ended catch and release and accelerated the deportation process.

I strongly supported provisions for an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents in fiscal year (FY) 2008, bringing the total number of Border Patrol agents funded by Congress for FY08 to 17,819. FY08 funding also provides a $13 million increase above FY07 for Border Patrol vehicles and an additional $75 million above FY07 to expand detention transportation contracting. Yet more needs to be done to secure our borders, and I continue to seek additional emergency spending to immediately address this national security issue.

On May 9, 2007, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada introduced S. 1348, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. Initially, the bill consisted of the same language from S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, which the Senate considered in 2006. On May 19, 2007, Senators Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a substitute amendment, S. AMDT. 1150, to the bill. The amendment replaced the original text of the bill with new language to be considered. The new language was negotiated over several months between the Bush Administration and a small group of senators.

The legislation addressed several key issues of comprehensive immigration reform. First, the bill concentrated on border enforcement by mandating the hiring, training, and deployment of 20,000 border patrol and immigration enforcement agents; the construction of 370 miles of border fencing; the completion of 300 miles of vehicle barriers; and, the deployment of 4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The bill also would have provided for 105 operational ground-based radar and camera towers on the southern border and authorized that 31,500 detention beds must be available so that apprehended aliens can be detained. All other provisions of the bill were contingent upon these security provisions first being met.

Second, the bill sought to strengthen workforce enforcement through the use of an electronic employment verification system (EEVS). When the EEVS was in place, the Administration predicted that within 18 months, illegal aliens would find it extremely difficult to gain any legitimate employment. Under the bill, illegal workers would not only have been subject to removal from the country but would have been permanently barred from any U.S. immigration program, and employers who knowingly hired illegal workers would have faced stiff penalties.

The bill aimed to overhaul the current U.S. immigration system by enacting a merit-based immigration system or “point system.â€