Bill Maher: 'US Senate Immigration Bill Going to Make Border Patrol Bigger than FBI' PolitiFact.com
go to original July 2, 2013

Comedian Bill Maher expressed incredulity about the scope of a Border Patrol expansion during his June 21, 2013, show. PolitiFact checked his claim. (YouTube)

On a recent episode of his HBO talk show, comedian Bill Maher said it was outrageous how much the Border Patrol is poised to expand due to an amendment to the Senate immigration bill.

Maher was referring to an amendment sponsored by GOP Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee that would add "19,200 additional trained, full-time, active duty U.S. Border Patrol agents along the southern border." The amendment was widely seen as as a way of garnering votes from undecided Republicans. (The amendment, and eventually the bill itself, passed the Senate easily with bipartisan support, though the measure now faces an uncertain fate in the House.)

If the bill is enacted as is, Maher said during a roundtable segment of his June 21, 2013, show, it is "going to make the Border Patrol bigger than the FBI - you could put one agent every 250 feet. There'll be over 40,000 agents. It's four times more than any of the Republicans were asking for in their wildest dreams. It's like, to get Republican senators to vote for something now, you have to get to crazy."

A reader suggested we check out this claim, so we did.

Read the rest at PolitiFact.com

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