Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the Customs and Border Protection Hiring and Retention Act, or CBP HiRe Act. In recent years, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, has had a lot of trouble recruiting, hiring, and retaining personnel to adequately staff the border and our ports of entry. Today, CBP is nearly 1,000 officers below the mandated staffing levels. The Border Patrol, whose duty it is to secure 6,000 miles of borderlands, suffers from a shortage of more than 1,800 agents. These shortages persist, despite ample backing and funding from Congress and the threat they pose to both national security and trade-reliant communities and economies, particularly in my State of Arizona. This has been frustrating for border communities across the country, but it is especially problematic for Arizona, a State that depends on both border security and a lot of cross-border trade. For example, the Nogales port of entry in Southern Arizona is one of the busiest ports in the United States. It processes approximately $2.5 billion worth of produce each year. Arizona alone does about $15 billion in trade with Mexico alone, every year. Mexican shoppers spend about $8 million in stores in Arizona every day. However, the port currently is suffering from a 23-percent shortage of CBP officers. Our ports cannot effectively and efficiently facilitate the flow of commerce across the border without adequate staffing.…”