Beto O'Rourke: “I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, our new ranking member on the committee, for yielding and for his work on this…”

“I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, our new ranking member on the committee, for yielding and for his work on this important bill. Mr. Speaker, there are few things as important for us in this Congress to work on as creating more jobs and sustaining those that we have right now. U.S.-Mexico trade today supports more than 6 million jobs in every single State of the Union, 500,000 jobs in the State of Texas alone, and one out of every four jobs in the community that I have the honor to represent, El Paso, Texas. The men and women who serve in Customs and Border Protection, the officers in blue at our ports of entry, are understaffed and overstressed, and they need our help. What we are doing in this bill is allowing local communities and local stakeholders who have an interest in the success of our ports of entry and in U.S.-Mexico trade and in creating more jobs to fund the necessary overtime hours and infrastructure improvements at those ports. I want to thank my colleagues from both sides of the aisle and in both Chambers--Senator Cornyn in the other Chamber, Members Cuellar and Hurd and others in this one--who see the wisdom in allowing local communities to fill the gap where government has been unable to do so. Whether it is the $90 billion in U.S.-Mexico trade that crosses the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez ports of entry every year or the 32 million inspections that are conducted there, this is a way to grow our economy.…”