Ted Poe: “last week I got to go down to the west Texas town of El Paso, that town that Marty Robbins sang that famous ballad…”

“last week I got to go down to the west Texas town of El Paso, that town that Marty Robbins sang that famous ballad about. It was one of my several trips to the Texas/Mexico border since I've been in Congress, now almost a dozen times down along the Rio Grande River. The Texas border with Mexico, the river border, is 1,248 miles long. That doesn't mean much, but it's the same distance from New York City to Kansas City. And I spent last week in two of those counties, the furthest west county, El Paso County, and the second county to the east, Hudspeth County. I met with the Sheriff's Department in El Paso County, and Sheriff Leo Samaniego and his chief deputy, Jimmy Apodaca and Public Information Officer Rick Clancy, all El Paso natives, took me around the area of El Paso city and the County of El Paso. I'd like to describe the scene that I saw there. In El Paso, El Paso is a community of about 500,000 people. Across the Rio Grande River is Juarez, Mexico, a community of over 2 million individuals. Juarez, unlike some border towns, is a thriving area. The economy is booming. And across the city of El Paso, on the Rio Grande River, there is an 18-mile fence. And let me describe that fence between Mexico and the United States. The Rio Grande River is to the south. The next thing you see is green space, it's primarily dirt, for about 200 yards. And then there is a fence, a fence that protects the canal that runs on the northern side of the Rio Grande River.”