Ted Poe: “as a former prosecutor and long-time judge in Texas, I'm concerned about, of course, drugs and corruption, especially on…”

“as a former prosecutor and long-time judge in Texas, I'm concerned about, of course, drugs and corruption, especially on the international border between the United States and Mexico. I have great sympathy and compassion for the Mexicans living just south of the border, especially those that have had the problem of dealing with the drug cartels. It's an epidemic that occurs on our southern border with Mexico. According to the DEA, 500 people were murdered in Nuevo Laredo recently. Most of those cases were never solved, and many of those individuals were peace officers. There have been 400 kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo; 41 of them were Americans, and none of them, not one of those cases, have ever been solved. And we understand now that behind most of those crimes of violence of murder and kidnappings are the drug cartels. What you might be surprised, Mr. Speaker, to find out is that many of those people involved in the drug cartels are former individuals in the Mexican military that were trained in the United States. The Department of Homeland Security has reported that in the last 10 years also, there have been 250 documented cases of incursions by suspected Mexican military units into the United States. Most of them in Texas, California, and Arizona. Recently, I have been in a place called Neely Pass in Hudspeth County where the Mexican military was photographed coming into the United States.”