Beto O'Rourke: “I want to thank my colleague from the Rio Grande Valley. Here he is meeting the anxiety, the paranoia, and the…”

“I want to thank my colleague from the Rio Grande Valley. Here he is meeting the anxiety, the paranoia, and the legislation based on emotion instead of facts with the cold, hard truth of our economic interdependence with Mexico. We ignore this at our peril and to the peril of millions of jobs in this country, hundreds of billions of dollars of economic opportunity and growth. We welcome the focus and the attention at the U.S.-Mexico border, but we want those who are watching to see the truth. The truth is we are a positive, dynamic source of jobs and economic opportunity for this hemisphere for both Mexico and, most importantly for us in this body, here in the United States. It is my feeling that the wall that exists today--the 600 miles of the 2,000 miles that join the United States and Mexico--the 600 miles of fencing today will soon be looked at by a majority of Americans in this country as something to be ashamed of, as folly that followed the paranoia and the anxiety that we have towards Mexico and the U.S.- Mexico border today. When you think about the cost of this wall, the current wall cost us more than $2.4 billion to build and will cost us another $6.5 billion to maintain for just the next 20 years.…”