Congressman Will Hurd (R-TX) argued that while “you need a wall in some places,” “You can’t build a wall from sea to shining sea. It just doesn’t work. It’s the most expensive way to do border security, and it’s the least effective” on Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“You can’t build a wall from sea to shining sea. It just doesn’t work. It’s the most expensive way to do border security, and it’s the least effective. There’s parts of the wall, right now, where the narcotraficantes, the drug traffickers, have built ramps…and driven a ton — a one-ton truck over.” And “What we need to do is, we need to allow the men and women in Border — in Border Patrol to adjust their tactics, techniques, and procedures as they see fit. You can’t have a one-size-fits-all-solution in San Diego. It’s not going to necessarily work in Tucson.”
Hurd added, “Well, you need a wall in some places, alright? In heavily-populated places, a wall absolutely makes sense. A wall is just one more tool in your tool kit, in order to solve the problem. We need to be doing stuff like using more intelligence-led activity against the bad guys.” Hurd said that this “intelligence-led activity” isn’t drones, but rather “working closer with some of our Mexican partners on the other side.” And making “countering the drug cartels, countering human traffickers a national intelligence priority, which it’s not right now. And that means you bring a lot of new tools to the table that we’re currently now using.”
Hurd later stated that other problems with immigration are “a symptom of a much larger problem, alright? Secure the border. We can do a better job of securing the border. … Enforce our laws. What happened in San Francisco was just unacceptable, and then….we’ve got to fix our broken visa system. I’m the only member of Congress that’s ever stamped visas. And I was an undercover officer for nine years in the CIA. And one of my cover jobs was stamping visas by day, and then I did my real job of collecting intelligence at night. And so I can talk until you all are blue in the face about our broken visa system. We fix that, and then we create a incentives to come here legally, and there’s punishment, or consequences of coming here illegally, you do those three things, you’re going to solve 89, 92% of the problem. And folks where I represent, this is a swing district. This is one of those seats that’s gone back and forth for a number of years. And a lot of folks are asking me, how’d the black dude get elected in a Hispanic district? And it’s because I’m right on these issues.”
The discussion then turned to the 2016 presidential field. Hurd said that he thinks there are “eight or nine” good candidates on the GOP side, but that he was more focused on his re-election.
Hurd was then asked what wants to do with the 11 million people in the US illegally. He responded that border security, enforcement, and visa reform have to come first, but that once those are resolved, “it depends. Some of the folks, that if you want to serve in the military, we can figure out a way to that. I’m against amnesty, but having a — having folks be here illegally, legal status, adjust status so that they can work and be in the country legally. I think you can find different categories of people that’s acceptable to most folks.” He added that deporting 11 million people was a “logistical challenge,” but “If people are violating our laws, are repeat offenders, we should be getting those bad apples out of the country, absolutely.”
Hurd concluded by criticizing sanctuary cities, saying, “There has to be consequences to people’s negative behavior. And if you don’t have consequences, you’re going to see — you’re going to continue to see the bad behavior continue.”
(h/t The Hill)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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