Con

Beto O’Rourke, US Representative (D-TX), in a May 14, 2015 House session considering amendments to HR 1735, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 available at c-span.org, stated:

“[Military equipment] is not needed on the border right now. I will give you some examples. The city that I have the honor of representing, El Paso, Texas, the largest city on the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, is the safest city today in the United States, and it was also the safest city in the United States at the time when Ciudad Juarez across the river was the most dangerous city in the world.

Today, we have record low apprehensions on our southern border. We are spending record amounts–$18 billion a year–to secure it. We have doubled the size of the Border Patrol from 10,000 to 20,000 in the last 10 years, and we have hundreds of miles of walls.

We have also heard from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Director of the FBI that there is not now, nor has there ever been, a credible terrorist threat on our southern border. So we do not need mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. We do not need grenade launchers. We do not need armed drones.

Mr. Chairman, we do not need to militarize the border.”

May 14, 2015