“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.”

We need to realize that the economic situation between Mexico and the United States is not just one in which we trade with one another.

People should remember that Mexican migration is now at a net negative.

Our security in a global world must be looked at on a continental basis.

Mexico has become a robust democracy with a robust press and an active legislature.

We do a trillion dollars in trade among the three countries; more than 18,000 American companies are involved in foreign direct investment in Mexico and Canada.

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.