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.
ALAN BERSINMost 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.
More Alan Bersin Quotes
-
-
The Mexican people are increasingly middle class, and Mexico has substantially become a middle-class society.
ALAN BERSIN -
The work the Mexicans are doing in terms of migration control on Mexico’s southern border is crucial to our own border security.
ALAN BERSIN -
Twenty-nine US states depend on Mexico as their primary export market.
ALAN BERSIN -
The potential of Mexico, Canada and the United States is enormous.
ALAN BERSIN -
The cry of “Make America Great Again” reflects accurately that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the sole superpower status of the United States is coming to an end.
ALAN BERSIN -
There are plainclothes US officers stationed at airports in Mexico working with Mexican immigration officials to protect the United States.
ALAN BERSIN -
Migrants come up and no longer seek to evade the Border Patrol, but are actually left at the border by their smugglers.
ALAN BERSIN -
This joint security program has been in place for at least six years and is a huge asset.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
The idea was to restore the rule of law, to bring order to a chaotic situation.
ALAN BERSIN -
As a result of the U.S.-Mexico War in the 19th century, and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, half of what was Mexico was severed and became much of the western part of the United States.
ALAN BERSIN -
We assure our security by securing the flows as early as we can before they arrive and as far away from our borders as we can.
ALAN BERSIN -
In the course of 25 years, we have developed a constructive relationship with Mexico that was nonexistent before.
ALAN BERSIN -
And the smuggling of cash and the money laundering that transnational criminal organizations have instituted in North America, including in the United States.
ALAN BERSIN -
We must rely on our allies and foreign governments to share information and data to secure our country.
ALAN BERSIN -
Mexico has become a robust democracy with a robust press and an active legislature.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
And we have to work together to secure the continent in order to keep dangerous people and dangerous things out and strengthen perimeter security on a continental basis.
ALAN BERSIN -
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.
ALAN BERSIN -
In today’s digital online world, those who don’t share information will be isolated and left behind.
ALAN BERSIN -
We have to secure the flow of goods and people by engaging with foreign entities.
ALAN BERSIN -
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts it will have a larger economy than Germany by 2042.
ALAN BERSIN -
The image and the costs of a Berlin-like wall or a Great Wall of China is something that the American people have not accepted to date.
ALAN BERSIN