Border Security

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina, Representative Walker, for his service and his leadership, not just to this body, but myself personally.

He is a spiritual leader and mentor for so many. We have a lot of ways to measure success in life and in this job, but I can tell you, one of them is to maintain a healthy relationship with our Lord and savior, and I want to thank him publicly.

This is a serious issue, and it is one that we in Texas have a lot of knowledge about and experience with, unfortunately, and that is border security. It is also a humanitarian crisis.

Mr. Speaker, we are on the front lines, and we see the drugs, gangs, and criminal activity pouring into the great State of Texas, not just along the impact zone immediately across from the southern border, but in communities in west Texas, in the 19th Congressional District, and not just my population center, but in rural communities as well.

Here is a statistic that is pretty startling. Since 2011, 180,000 illegal immigrants were charged in the great State of Texas with 290,000 crimes.

I talked to local law enforcement officers, sheriffs, police chiefs, and others in my communities over the last few weeks. They are telling me that the volume of drugs coming into our communities is off the charts and that the crime has increased exponentially--not just property crime, but violent crime.

They are telling me that gangs, not just the shoestring gangs, as they call them, but the very violent gangs and cartels, the Sinaloa cartel and the Los Zetas cartel, are in my district in west Texas. They are showing up in our backyards and our neighborhoods, and it is scary.

Here is the sad fact: This country has the resources and tools to do something about it. Our President has asked for those resources and tools. He has a comprehensive border security plan, and we have to have political will. We have to be able to put our country first, especially when it comes to the safety and security of our people.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard people say that drugs are coming through only ports of entry. You can tell from this map, they are coming across the border at various places.

Just a month ago, there was 700 pounds of cocaine caught at the border, and we had our largest drug bust up in my district in a little town called Denver City, about 22 kilos of cocaine. So we have to do something about it.

Mr. Speaker, I beg of my colleagues to do the right thing and put their country before politics. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source