On the recordJuly 23, 2015
I would like to bring the perspective of my community, the community I have the honor of representing in Congress, El Paso, Texas, to bear in this discussion. El Paso is the safest community with an over 500,000 population in the United States today, and it has been for the last 4 years in a row. That is, some people think, despite the fact that it is connected to Ciudad Juarez at the U.S.-Mexico border and despite the fact that it has a large number of immigrants in the community. I say, and the people who live in that community agree with me, that it is, in large part, because of immigrants who come to participate and contribute to the American Dream. {time} 1500 On issues and matters of law enforcement, I tend to defer to the experts. Big city police chiefs and county sheriffs, like the sheriff in El Paso, Texas, say for them to prevent crime and solve crimes, it is necessary to be able to work with everyone in the community without fear that they are going to be enforcing Federal law enforcement mandates to the exclusion of the public safety of the people that I have the honor of representing. For that reason, I urge my colleagues to join me in voting against this proposal, a solution in search of a problem.
