Congressman Michael McCaul | Congressman Michael McCaul Official Website
Congressman Michael McCaul | Congressman Michael McCaul Official Website
"I don't know what is partisan about this bill at all. This is a security bill. It gives border patrol exactly what they tell us they need."
WASHINGTON – On April 26, U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas), former chairman and current member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, urged Democrats to put partisanship aside during the committee's markup of the Border Reinforcement Act.
Excerpts from Rep. McCaul's remarks:
On why Democrats should support the bill: “I will just say that I don’t know what is partisan about this bill at all. This is a security bill. It gives border patrol exactly what they tell us they need. … If you’re just talking about physical infrastructure, you’re talking about technology, you’re talking about funding for more border patrol, [and] Stonegarden grants, these are things we’ve been working on for a long time. It’s common sense. … I hope we can go back to what this committee used to be, and that’s being bipartisan, particularly on an issue like this.”
On his provision to conduct a study on reimbursing border states: “I thank the chairman for including one of my provisions. It deals just with [the Government Accountability Office] looking at reimbursement. Just this year, my state has budgeted $4.6 billion to deal with the border — the state of Texas. My state … has borne the brunt of this crisis and the cost for a federal mission. This is not a state job to be securing the border; it’s a federal responsibility, and we dumped it on the states — mostly my state that has spent billions of dollars trying to secure our citizens down there.”
On bringing back Remain in Mexico: “We were on a good trajectory. We were getting [the border] under control for the first time in my career, primarily because of the Migrant Protection Protocols. Remain in Mexico was working. Now that’s not in this committee’s jurisdiction, [but] I will be dealing with that issue as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee so that we can return to what made sense. … Right now if they get in, we don’t have the detention space, and it’s catch and release. My very first bill in Congress 20 years ago was to end catch and release, and here we are 20 years later. Catch and release.”
Original source can be found here.
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