On the recordFebruary 1, 2017
I thank the gentleman from California for sharing his community's perspective and for reminding us that, when it comes to Mexico and our shared connection with Mexico--the U.S.-Mexico border-- we have much more to look forward to than we do to fear. In fact, in the State of California, there are hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on U.S.-Mexico trade. In the State of Texas, it is just under a half a million. In fact, every single State in the Union, including Alaska, has tens--if not hundreds--of thousands of jobs that depend on the flow of U.S.-Mexico trade, which happens at our ports of entry and comes through at our border. There are 6 million jobs in this country, which represent hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries and economic growth and add-on effects, that are dependent on U.S.- Mexico trade. When we begin to prioritize our separation, in sealing Mexico off from the United States literally physically, we deprioritize those connections that make us stronger, that grow our economy, and that create more jobs in the United States. One thing that we should know, as long as we are talking about sharing facts and confronting some of these unfortunate, untrue myths about the border, is that, when we export to Mexico, of course, we win--we are building things in our factories; we are sending them to Mexico; the Mexican consumer buys them; those dollars are flowing back to the U.S. worker.…
