Mark Souder: “it has been my privilege here in Congress to serve as the Drug Policy chairman, and also as a senior member of the…”

“it has been my privilege here in Congress to serve as the Drug Policy chairman, and also as a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, and thus, during most of my career, I have been on both the north and south border. A number of years ago, prior to the creation of the Homeland Security Committee, we did a major border report, the most comprehensive border report ever done in the history of this Congress. In that process, we had done roughly, I believe, six hearings on the Mexican border and three on the Canadian border, and I have personally visited nearly every border crossing on both the north and south border with very few exceptions. In that course of time, it becomes apparent that some of what Mr. Reyes has been saying is absolutely true. We do not have enough money for the Border Patrol. We do not have a salary scale with which to keep them in the Border Patrol, and I have worked over multiple years to keep increasing that. In fact, we have tried to increase the Border Patrol here in Congress, because it is not easy to just stay standing in the sand, in the heat, day after day. We have tried to vary their positions, but when they get other opportunities to be air marshals, when they get other opportunities to take other posts, they tend to leave. We, in spite of our hiring, have been putting hundreds and thousands through training and can barely gain in the numbers.…”