In today’s digital online world, those who don’t share information will be isolated and left behind. We need the data of other countries to connect the dots.
We must recognize that this massive economic bloc that’s emerging in North America cannot be accomplished unilaterally. It must be accomplished in partnership with Mexico and Canada.
Four out of five border-crossers detained in South Texas are Guatemalan, Honduran or Salvadoran. They are driven by violence and poverty in their home countries and the desire for family reunification.
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.
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.
We should be wary, particularly with our closest friends and allies, of breaking down the trust and confidence that lie at the foundation of relationships.
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.
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.
The nationalism and the protectionism that was built into the Mexican Revolution in 1910 and that characterized the Mexican attitude to the United States for much of the 20th century were difficult to overcome. But that actually has occurred. And the cooperation.
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.
And the smuggling of cash and the money laundering that transnational criminal organizations have instituted in North America, including in the United States.
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.
