[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 18, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H235-H236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DEFENDING OUR BORDER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, in October, five Members of 
Congress wrote to the President--myself, Ted Poe of Texas, Ralph Hall 
of Texas, Pete Olson of Texas, and Ed Royce of California--and we asked 
the President to take more steps to deal with the problems on the Texas 
border because people have been killed and beaten up down there. Shots 
have been fired across the border. And 80 miles into the country, the 
United States of America, we have signs telling people, warning people 
not to go south of there because they might be in danger from Mexican 
drug cartels or people across the border who are spying for the drug 
cartels. So there is a real problem.
  Well, we didn't get an answer back from the President. And so we 
wrote again in November, and again we didn't get a reply. And then 
around the end of December, we got a reply from Homeland Security, from 
a fellow in Legislative Affairs, and he went through the same song and 
dance that they have gone through for a long time, talking about how 
they are solving the problem on the border.
  Just recently in the last few weeks, four road workers were out there 
in Texas and they were working on the roads trying to fill potholes 
with gravel and do some other things. It was a shovel-ready project, 
incidentally. And they were fired at from across the border, which was 
about half a mile away. The bullets didn't hit any of them, but it sure 
scared the dickens out of them. And Mike Doyle, the chief deputy of the 
Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office, said that a rancher spotted a white 
pickup truck fleeing the area on the Mexican side after the shots were 
fired, and they think that the drug cartel may have been firing those 
shots to divert attention away from what was going on there in order to 
get drugs smuggled across the border.
  The reason I bring all of this up once again is because we sent 
17,000 National Guard troops down to deal with the oil spill in the 
gulf, and it was something that we should have done. We should have 
dealt with that problem as quickly as possible to make sure that we 
stopped any environmental damage that might accrue from that, and to 
help the people from Louisiana who were suffering, and the other border 
States down there. But we haven't done anything but send about 1,400 
National Guard troops down to the border, or close to the border, and 
many of them have been withdrawn.
  We have to do something to protect that 1,980-mile border between us 
and Mexico. Americans can't go within 80 miles of the border of Arizona 
and Mexico because there is a threat for their safety and security. 
That is something we cannot tolerate as a Nation. We have a war going 
on on the Mexican-American border, and we have to do whatever is 
necessary to protect Americans and to stop the drug trafficking coming 
across that border.
  We did it in Colombia with Plan Colombia, and that is not on our 
border. That is down south of the Panama Canal. So we really need to 
address this problem.
  So if I were talking to the President tonight, Mr. Speaker, I would 
say:
  Mr. President, come on, let's do what has to be done to protect our 
southern border. We are doing the job over in the Far East; we are 
doing the job over in the Middle East, and that's okay.

                              {time}  1930

  Yet our border, our front yard, is threatened every single day by 
these drug cartels and by these terrorists coming across the border, 
and American ranchers and businesspeople cannot conduct their daily 
lives down there because there is no real security.
  So, if I were talking to the President, I would say:
  Mr. President, please review this issue. Don't ignore Members of 
Congress, five Members who wrote you, who are concerned about this 
issue. Don't ignore us. Do something about it, and please don't send us 
any more of these inane letters that really don't say anything about 
solving the problem. It's a real problem about the security of this 
country and about the people who live down there and traverse that 
area.
  Mr. President, let's get on with it.

                                                 October 26, 2010.
     Hon. Barack Obama,
     President of the United States of America, the White House, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: We are writing to you today to express 
     our extreme concern regarding the deteriorating security 
     situation along our Nation's southern border. It seems that 
     every day brings a new report of some atrocity; the most 
     recent being the apparent murder of a U.S. citizen at Falcon 
     Lake, Texas; yet little if anything appears to be being done 
     by our government or the Mexican government to stop the 
     bloodshed and bring the perpetrators to justice.
       Protecting our borders and our citizens is a paramount 
     responsibility of the Federal government; enshrined in the 
     preamble of the Constitution. It would be an unforgivable 
     breach of our constitutional responsibilities if we do not 
     take stronger measures not only to prevent the upward spiral 
     of violence from further spilling over into the United States 
     and threaten the safety of U.S. citizens on American soil but 
     to reclaim those areas of our border already overrun by 
     smugglers and criminals. We can no longer pretend that this 
     is simply Mexico's problem. The time has come to recognize 
     that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to 
     the United States and act accordingly.
       First, it has become apparent that the Mexican government 
     and law enforcement authorities are either unwilling or 
     unable to address this problem unilaterally. Therefore, we 
     believe it is imperative that you immediately begin serious 
     dialogue with President Calderon on building a comprehensive 
     framework, in the spirit of Plan Colombia, that will better 
     coordinate a more aggressive and proactive strategy to turn 
     the tide of this conflict.
       Second, we must complete construction of the border fence. 
     Any responsibility we have to minimize the impact of the 
     fence on the physical landscape or native species in the 
     region pales in comparison when measured against the value of 
     human lives that will be lost if we do not seal the border.
       Finally, we believe it is critical that we deploy 
     additional National Guard troops to the

[[Page H236]]

     border. Media reports indicate that 17,000 National Guard 
     troops were deployed to the Gulf region to respond to the 
     recent oil spill. Yet, you have only pledged 1,200 National 
     Guard troops to protect the border--and according to media 
     reports only a small fraction of those troops have arrived to 
     date. It is unrealistic, if not pure insanity, to believe 
     that a mere 1,200 National Guard troops, even with the 
     support of the Border Patrol, can effectively cover the 
     nearly 2,000 mile long Southwestern border of the United 
     States. We must put additional bodies on the ground and we 
     must give them the weapons and specify rules of engagement 
     that give them the authority to do whatever is necessary to 
     secure the border. A National Guard trooper armed with only a 
     pistol and given no authority to engage the enemy is useless 
     against a criminal armed with military grade weapons and 
     ammunition.
       Mr. President, we implore you to view this situation for 
     what it is, a war and to act accordingly.
           Sincerely,
     Dan Burton,
     Ted Poe,
     Ralph Hall,
     Pete Olson,
     Ed Royce,
       Members of Congress.
                                  ____

                                                 November 4, 2010.
     Hon. Barack Obama,
     President of the United States of America, the White House, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: On October 26th I and four of my 
     colleagues, sent you a letter expressing our extreme concerns 
     regarding the deteriorating security situation along our 
     Nation's southern border. Since that time five more Americans 
     have been killed along the border region. Protecting our 
     borders and our citizens is a paramount responsibility of the 
     Federal government; enshrined in the preamble of the 
     Constitution. I strongly urge you to consider the proposals 
     laid out in my letter from October 26th. Americans are dying; 
     it is time to recognize that the drug violence along the 
     border is a direct threat to the United States and act 
     accordingly.
       Thank you for giving your personal time and attention to 
     this critically important issue.
                                  ____


                           [January 16, 2011]

                       Dodging Bullets in El Paso

                         (By Jeannie DeAngelis)

       In the ghost town of Fort Quitman, 80 miles southeast of El 
     Paso, four U.S. road workers were up at dawn attending to 
     ``shovel ready'' jobs by filling potholes with gravel. 
     Unfortunately, ``at least one Mexican gunman,'' who probably 
     just wanted a chance to do jobs Americans won't do, ``fired a 
     high-powered rifle across the border,'' barely missing the 
     workers.
       ``The bullets struck private land . . . about half a mile 
     from the border fence.'' Thankfully, the quartet escaped 
     unharmed. ``Mike Doyle, Chief Deputy of the Hudspseth County 
     Sheriff's Office, said after the fact, a rancher spotted a 
     white pickup fleeing the area on the Mexican side at 10:30 
     a.m.--the time the shots were fired.''
       According to Doyle, ``Drug cartels use this busy smuggling 
     corridor in between the Quitman Mountains and mountains in 
     the northwestern part of Chihuahua State to traffic marijuana 
     and sometimes cocaine.'' The chief deputy explained the 
     incident by saying: ``The gunman might have shot at the road 
     workers to distract them or get them to flee.''
       So in other words, criminal interlopers tried to get 
     American workers to disperse from territory where they had 
     every right to work and exist in order to ``get them outside 
     [the] area?''
       Francisco ``Quico'' Canseco, R-Texas said: ``It is 
     completely unacceptable that Americans at work, doing their 
     job in America, come under gunfire from across the border in 
     Mexico. Our border is not secure from violence that threatens 
     American lives. Securing our border against the cartels and 
     their violent threat must be a top priority.''
       After the shooting, two Texas Rangers and Hudspeth County 
     Sheriff Arvin West and Chief Deputy Doyle were at the scene 
     looking for the bullets with a metal detector, which when 
     weighed against the alternatives is preferable to a medical 
     examiner digging bullets out of heads.
       ``The U.S. government built narrowly spaced steel poles 
     north of the Rio Grande to fence the border in that West 
     Texas area. The slots are not wide enough for people to 
     cross, but small objects can fit between the 15-foot-tall 
     poles.'' Thus, the lone gunman must have been dedicated to 
     scattering the workers because nothing deterred his squeezing 
     the gun barrel through or shooting off the bullets.
       This particular shot across the border initiated Hudspeth 
     County into an elite group. ``In El Paso, stray bullets from 
     a drug-related gunfight hit City Hall in June. Another stray 
     bullet struck a University of Texas at El Paso building in 
     August.'' And to date, newlywed David Hartley's body has yet 
     to be recovered after being shot by Mexican gunmen on Falcon 
     Lake, a border area near Laredo, Texas.
       After the bullets missed the U.S. four workers, the men 
     were escorted away from the scene, which successfully 
     accomplished the original intent of the shooter: Disperse the 
     crowd and clear the area so as to drive unhindered right on 
     through to Texas. Moreover, and much to the relief of the 
     high-powered rifleman, Border Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks 
     assured drug- and gun-runners, as well as marauding banditos 
     with high-powered rifles, that Border Patrol does not plan to 
     deploy additional agents to the area. Brooks vowed: ``There 
     is no beefing up in any way.''
       Governor Rick Perry's spokeswoman, Katherine Cesinger, said 
     that ``If these reports are true, it is yet another incident 
     of border violence and spillover. It goes back to the need 
     for the federal government to provide more resources to the 
     border, which is certainly feeling the effects of the 
     escalating violence in Mexico.''
       Nevertheless, not all is lost. Texas could follow Arizona, 
     a state that recently chose to address violent behavior by 
     distributing ``Together we Thrive'' tee shirts.

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