“We can’t defend the country by looking at the borderline as the first line of defense rather than as the last line of defense.”

You need a strategy that involves layered defense: deployed patrols, sophisticated sensor equipment, and surveillance from the air. That is what has had a positive impact over the last generation.

To add insult to injury, most Americans never knew that, and most Mexicans have never forgotten it.

An increasing number of Mexican companies are creating jobs in the United States.

The Mexicans return the detained Central American migrants by bus or by air to the countries they come from.

But in fact as Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly acknowledged at his confirmation hearing, walls and barriers alone are insufficient to insure security.

Cross-border trade is part of a single production process, and while apparently the Trump administration will seek to re-examine elements of that production platform, it is what it is and won’t be easily dismantled.

Until we have a legitimate labor market between Mexico and the United States, people will attempt to come here to work.

In the last two years, the Mexicans have detained nearly 400,000 migrants whose intent was to come to the United States.

In the course of 25 years, we have developed a constructive relationship with Mexico that was nonexistent before.

The prospect of energy independence is within reach and will change the geopolitical situation of United States.

Six million jobs in the US depend on trade with Mexico. Ten border states – six in Mexico and four in the United States – combined have the third or fourth largest economy in the world.

The work the Mexicans are doing in terms of migration control on Mexico’s southern border is crucial to our own border security.

Not only are the numbers of migrants entering the United States at the lowest levels in a generation, but they are now largely Central American.

This joint security program has been in place for at least six years and is a huge asset.

In large part this is because of the success of policies followed by the United States to create an environment, a peaceful period in history in which economies could grow and countries could benefit.

We have to secure the flow of goods and people by engaging with foreign entities.

There are borderlines and there are borderlines. Labels do violence to people. You can’t treat the label; you have to treat the person behind the label. (17)