Political Quotes

“Thank you. Madam President, I wish to talk about the problem that led to this bill. We have made significant investments along the border in terms of port facilities. More needs to be done, obviously, but we made significant investments to accommodate cross-border traffic. There is a lot of good that goes on at the border. We often just focus on the bad--the illegal crossings, the drug trade, and whatnot-- but there is a tremendous amount of good that happens on the border, particularly the border of Arizona and Mexico. There is a lot of commerce that goes in. Arizona's ports of entry processed $30.5 billion worth of goods in 2014. This is an increase up from $18.5 billion in 2009. So there is a lot of good that goes on. We have needed more adequate staffing at these ports. The Border Patrol officers with whom we often associate the border are in green uniforms. What we need more of are blue uniforms--people to actually facilitate this cross-border traffic and the flow of goods that benefits us, benefits Mexico and other countries to the south as well. Secretary Johnson, when we asked why we were having difficulty filling these slots for staffing of these ports, said that--well, let me just say we authorized--the Senate and the House authorized--2,000 new CPB officers. We authorized these positions, but as of earlier this year, only 800 of the 2,000 had been filled.…”