Roy Blunt: “as our colleague from Iowa just pointed out, these problems not only need to be solved, but they are solvable. At the…”

“as our colleague from Iowa just pointed out, these problems not only need to be solved, but they are solvable. At the core of the debate we are having right now is obviously border security. Everybody says they are for border security, but they have different views of what that means. I want to start by saying that I fully support the President's call for a more secure border, and, frankly, I think physical barriers are part of that. We have thought that for a long time. They work. People who now are opposed to them generally have often been for them. In fact, a generation ago, we began improving and expanding barriers in a few areas along the southern border, and in every instance, they have made a difference. In 1992, the U.S. Government built a wall in the San Diego sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the number of people caught crossing that border decreased by 95 percent when the barrier was erected. The border is not exactly like a bank. You don't have to have a level of security that nobody can ever get through at any time, under any circumstances, but if you have a solution that solves 95 percent of the problem, that may be about all we can afford to do in terms of solving the problem that way. That barrier, that wall, that fence south of San Diego did exactly that. The next year, we built a wall in El Paso, TX, at that part of the border, and there was a decrease of 95 percent there as well.…”