In the course of 25 years, we have developed a constructive relationship with Mexico that was nonexistent before.
ALAN BERSINToday, the number of migrants crossing is at a 30-year low. That’s because of years of bipartisan work on this issue.
More Alan Bersin Quotes
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In the last generation we’ve moved past a U.S.-Mexico relationship that while friendly on the surface, and demilitarized for the most part, really was not a genuinely cooperative relationship.
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And they seek out Border Patrol agents or Customs and Border Protection officials to surrender to them and request political asylum.
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Trust and confidence that have been built is not something that should be abandoned without great consideration for the potentially grave consequences to the United States.
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The results became more and more apparent. Crime rates went down in the border region.
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Mexico now has the 13th largest economy in the world.
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I think there’s no question that the barriers, the fences and in certain urban areas, the walls, have had an important effect in terms of increasing the manageability and the security of the border.
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This joint security program has been in place for at least six years and is a huge asset.
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Most people who live at the border or are familiar with the border know that a Berlin-like wall stretching from San Diego to Brownsville is not necessary. And the costs would be prohibitive.
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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.
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Today, the number of migrants crossing is at a 30-year low. That’s because of years of bipartisan work on this issue.
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Migrants come up and no longer seek to evade the Border Patrol, but are actually left at the border by their smugglers.
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Walls and barriers alone are insufficient to insure security.
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And the smuggling of cash and the money laundering that transnational criminal organizations have instituted in North America, including in the United States.
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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.
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People in our so-called Rust Belt have lost out, and politics and society have not been responsive either in providing the kind of additional support they need or to retrain them for jobs that are being created in the new economy.
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There have been enormous advances since 9/11 to build a very robust set of targeting procedures and watch lists to screen travelers coming to the United States.
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Homeland security is inherently transnational today. There’s hardly anything adverse that happens in our homeland that doesn’t have a cause or effect that’s generated abroad. Increasingly.
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Twenty-nine US states depend on Mexico as their primary export market.
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We have to secure the flow of goods and people by engaging with foreign entities.
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To the extent that President Trump means strengthened border security, I am fully in favor of the idea that the rule of the law, secure borders and public safety should prevail. Drugs should not enter illegally.
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The idea was to restore the rule of law, to bring order to a chaotic situation.
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And there are places on the border, such as the Arizona desert or the open terrain around the Big Bend in South Texas, where Mother Nature has created her own barrier that is not easily passable. Or if you do pass through it, you are easily detected.
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The Mexican people are increasingly middle class, and Mexico has substantially become a middle-class society.
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The National Targeting Center in Virginia run by Customs and Border Protection checks the background of every traveler who seeks to enter the country.
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The law change during the Bush administration gave the Department of Health and Human Services a central role in relocating Central American minors in the United States.
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For the first time since the second World War, we are not the sole dominant economy in the world.
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