On the recordJune 26, 2013
I thank my colleague from Arizona for talking about the moral dimension of this issue and for putting a human face on a problem and also on the opportunity, the other side of that problem, that being the opportunity we see along the U.S.-Mexico border. To add a little bit to what he said, if you just look at the numbers in terms of northbound apprehensions along our southern border, 7 years ago the average agent apprehended 106 migrants for every agent patrolling the line. Last year, it was 17. In the El Paso sector, it was 3.5. The Corker-Hoeven proposal to add more than 800 miles of additional border fencing to the tune of billions of dollars in order to double the size of the Border Patrol to the tune of more than $40 billion is a solution in search of a problem. Not only that--not only is it a waste of taxpayer money--it is also going to cause harm and death along the border. Last year, 477 people, human beings, died in trying to cross the southern border. It's the second highest number on record despite historically low migration. So, as we build these walls and fortify our border, we push people who are coming here for economic reasons further out into more treacherous, harmful and deadly terrain--and they are dying. More than 5,000 people have died in this manner over the last 15 years. Today, someone is eight times more likely to die crossing than one was 10 years ago.…
