Bush to Request US$41.3 billion for Homeland Security

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 31, 2003

Bush to Request US$41.3 billion for Homeland Security

US President George W. Bush will request 41.3 billion US dollars for homeland security in the 2004 federal budget, Tom Ridge, Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said Thursday.

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US President George W. Bush will request 41.3 billion US dollars for homeland security in the 2004 federal budget, Tom Ridge, Secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said Thursday.

This figure represents an increase over the 37.7 billion dollars spent last year on homeland security across the government,including the military.

Under the president's proposal, the Homeland Security Department alone would have a budget of 36.2 billion dollars in the fiscal year that begins in October.

Ridge, speaking at a meeting of new department workers at the Port of Miami, Florida, said the United States will "use every tool at our disposal" to stop terrorists whether "threats come viaa suitcase or on a suicide bomber, pathogens in the air or armed passengers on an airplane."

As new homeland security chief, he said one of his first goals was to restructure border agencies into two units with one responsible for people crossing the border and the other for enforcement of rules inside the frontiers.

Under the reorganization plan, the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection will merge Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Agriculture Inspection Service. The other unit, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will enforce the laws once borders are crossed.

Ridge said people entering the United States would meet with a single Homeland Security officer who would oversee all matters of customs, immigration and law enforcement.

"Instead of four faces at the border, we'll have one," Ridge said. "The focus here is to help legitimate goods and people enterour country swiftly, and keep dangerous people and their weapons out."

The Department of Homeland Security, the largest government reorganization since the creation of the Defense Department five decades ago, will merge 22 existing federal agencies and include 170,000 employers.

The department, due to become operational by Sept. 30, will combine customs, immigration, the Border Patrol and animal and plant health inspectors.

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