On the recordMay 17, 2016
I do support Mr. Poe's amendment. With all due respect to my good friend, we do want to secure the border. We just want to do it in the right way. While some people are talking about securing the border with a wall-- a 14th century solution--I think if we use the aerostats, we can provide coverage and surveillance to make sure that we secure the border. In fact, in south Texas, including in my district, we have five of those aerostats right now. The communities support them. The Border Patrol certainly supports them. In fact, in appropriations, I am asking for five new aerostats so we can go ahead and secure the border. Each aerostat covers about 20 miles. So if you want to cover the border-- 1,954 miles of border--divided by 20, with about 97 or 98 aerostats, minus the 5 that we already have in place, we will secure the border in an electronic way. This also helps us secure the border on the Mexico side. In talking to the Border Patrol, they have used some of that information because they can go 20 miles into Mexico, and already we have coordinated some of those activities with the Mexican law enforcement officials to stop those drug gangs before they come over to the U.S. You turn the camera 20 miles into Mexico, and with about 97 aerostats, we can secure the whole border. Again, I support this amendment, and I thank the gentleman very much for yielding.
