[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 11, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3319]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BORDER WAR CONTINUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I bring you news from the second 
front; that is, the border between the United States and Mexico.
  This past weekend, I was the guest of two of our border sheriffs in 
Texas, Sheriff Oscar Carrillo from Culberson County, Texas, and Sheriff 
Arvin West from Hudspeth County, Texas. These two massive counties are 
the size of the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together. 
They are the two counties just east of El Paso County.
  I was there to see the situation on the Texas-Mexico border firsthand 
by the people who help protect the border, and that is the border 
sheriffs, along with the Border Patrol. Smugglers that are coming 
across from Mexico, bringing in drugs, are relentless in their endeavor 
to bring narcotics into the United States.
  The cross-border travelers that are captured in these two counties, 
most of the people in the county jails, are these foreign nationals 
bringing drugs or committing other crimes. Let me make this clear: Most 
of the people in these two county jails are foreigners that have 
committed felonies or misdemeanors in the United States. In fact, Arvin 
West told me that if he didn't have cross-border travelers in his 
county jail, he wouldn't need a jail, except one cell for one person. 
There are over 500 people in the county jails that are foreign 
nationals. So that's how bad the problem is continuing to be.
  The drug cartel are smugglers, Mr. Speaker. They smuggle into the 
United States not only drugs, but people. It is all intertwined. And 
all because of money, they are bringing those individuals and those 
drugs into the country. But also, they smuggle back to Mexico two 
commodities, and the two commodities they smuggle are guns and money. 
They are in the smuggling business. They are very well organized.
  Sara Carter, from the Washington Times, reports that the drug cartels 
have in their employment over 100,000 foot soldiers; that's just a 
little bit less than the entire Mexican Army. They have better 
vehicles, they have better weaponry, and they have a whole lot more 
money than our border protectors do on this side. They have gotten so 
sophisticated now that they don't let any drugs come into the United 
States unless they're tracked by GPS devices.
  The drug runners are committed--it's almost a religion to them--to 
bring drugs into the United States. Let me give you an example of that.
  I understand now, after being down on the border, the sheriffs were 
telling me that the drug runners pray to a narco saint--that's right--
Jesus Malverde. He was an individual that died in 1909. He was supposed 
to be a Mexican national that helped the poor, et cetera. But now there 
are shrines in different parts of Mexico where these drug runners in 
the drug cartels pray to this individual for safety in crossing the 
border into the United States so they can bring drugs. He's supposed to 
be the patron saint of travelers--I thought it was St. Christopher. But 
be that as it may, it shows how relentless these people are. Now, just 
to clarify, the Catholic Church says Jesus Malverde is not a saint, has 
never been, and never will be. But it shows you that it is a religion 
to these people to bring drugs and other people into the country.
  But there is also good news from the border. The border county 
sheriffs, the 20 county sheriffs in Texas, have put up cameras along 
the border, and those cameras are tied to the Internet. And so a person 
can log on to a Web site called blueservo.net, and they can actually 
see these cameras and they can track people coming into the United 
States. They have had over 43,000 people log in just since this thing 
started a few weeks ago, and they are as far away as Australia. An 
Australian was watching it, and he sent an e-mail to the head of this 
association and said, hey mate, we've been watching your border from 
Australia and trying to help out you guys.
  So, what is occurring is, if somebody sees traffic--drug smugglers, 
illegals, whatever--coming into the United States, they have a Web 
site, an e-mail, and they can e-mail the border sheriff in that county, 
and either the sheriffs or the Border Patrol goes out and arrests the 
bad guys coming into the country. Just as this has started, four major 
drug busts have occurred, and 30 incidents where illegal crossers were 
coming in were repelled and they went back across the border. Of course 
the cynics in the open-border crowd are against this; they're against 
anything that seems to work.
  I want to commend the Border Sheriffs Coalition, the 20 of them, 
especially Oscar Carrillo, Arvin West and Sigi Gonzalez, because they 
are doing a job that is a thankless job, but it is important to protect 
the integrity of the United States.
  And what we need to do is to help them by putting more people, more 
boots on the ground, more Border Patrol, more sheriff's deputies, and 
even the National Guard, if necessary, to help them.
  I would like to insert into the Record the 20 border sheriffs in 
Texas that are protecting the border.
  And that's just the way it is.

                    Texas Border Sheriffs Coalition

       Brewster County--Ronny Dodson
       Cameron County--Omar Lucio
       Culberson County--Oscar Carrillo
       Dimmit County--Joel Gonzales
       El Paso County--Richard Wiles
       Hidalgo County--Guadalupe Trevino
       Hudspeth County--Arvin West
       Jeff Davis County--Thomas Roberts
       Kinney County--Leland Burgess
       Maverick County--Thomas Herrera
       Pecos County--Cliff Harris
       Presidio County--Danny Dominguez
       Starr County--Rene Fuentes
       Terrell County--Clint McDonald
       Val Verde County--Joe Martinez
       Webb County--Martin Cuellar
       Zapata County--Sigifredo Gonzalez
       Zavala County--Eusevio Salinas
       Willacy County--Larry Spence
       Jim Hogg County--Erasmo Alarcon

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