Silvestre Reyes

the Budget Control Act of 2011 will likely result in a substantial cut to the DOD base budget in FY 2012, perhaps as much as $26 billion.

I am asking you to support and fully fund the efforts started under the Merida Initiative.

By increasing the number of frontline inspectors, Customs and Border Protection can devote the manpower necessary to interdict those individuals who would seek to do us harm.

I do hope we are careful with those reductions, because in the final analysis, the ones that pay the price are the service men and women and their families.

I think we ought to take the stand that if you are not going to help us in these areas of the world that are critical, not just to us but to the whole world, then we stick with the original strategy and bring them home.

I think this morning I am frustrated beyond words with the latest edict that has come down that we are going to restudy this whole issue.

We must work cooperatively if we are to realistically address the problems that impact the people on both sides of the border.

We need more money for border infrastructure, not less. The $140 million that Congress authorized is insufficient to meet the needs along our borders, much less to meet the needs of corridors throughout this Nation.

Today I am asking this committee to appropriate $10 million for preliminary engineering and environmental studies for an elevated, automated people mover system, connecting these two downtowns; downtown in El Paso and the downtown in…