mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time . 
i want to compliment the gentleman from california ( chairman lewis ) and the other conferees for giving us a whole new effort , a major effort to try to control the borders and to deal with the massive illegal immigration problem that the country is facing . 
we have 11 million estimated illegal aliens in the country , and 800 , 000 or so of them are people who have been ordered deported and yet have absconded . 
eighty thousand of those have criminal records . 
this bill , when combined with the homeland security appropriations bills for 2006 that we marked up yesterday in the subcommittee , those two bills combined will give us a new , massive effort to deal with the problem . 
these two bills will give us 1 , 500 new border patrol agents , 568 new immigration and customs enforcement officers throughout the country , and some 3 , 900 new jail bed space to try to deal with this massive , overwhelming problem . 
i want to commend the chairman for having the foresight , along with the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 and the other members of the conference , for giving us the new capability to tackle a problem that is proving to be very elusive . 
so i compliment the chairman , and i urge everyone to support this bill . 
