The House GOP leadership sidelined earlier this week after some conservative members worried the bill would somehow lead to comprehensive immigration reform. It doesn't make any sense to me that we would ever have built a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border given the relationship that we have with that country.īURNETT: Passage of the divisive new border security bill is uncertain. It is the largest trading partners with the state of Texas. He's also the ranking Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.ĬONGRESSMAN FILEMON VELA: Mexico is one of our largest trading partners. Filemon Vela represents a portion of the Rio Grande Valley in Congress. The border wall, as it's called by locals, is already controversial in communities on both sides of the divide. McCaul spoke to Fox News.ĬONGRESSMAN MICHAEL MCCAUL: We're going to take the discretion away from the Department, and we're going to mandate how they get this thing done through the deployment of assets from Afghanistan and other places to the southwest border.īURNETT: One of the recommendations in the 72-page bill would be to increase barrier fencing in high-traffic areas along the border. He has been a leading critic of the Department of Homeland Security's border control under President Obama. He formerly led a joint antiterrorism task force in the state, and he remains focused on what he believes is the southwest border's vulnerability to terrorists. The bill's author is Texas Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. You know, every day there are over 800,000 people that get up in the morning, go to work, come home at night, have dinner, go to a ballgame, and nothing happens.īURNETT: Keith Patridge says FBI statistics consistently show that Texas border cities have among the lowest crime rates in the country. When people call, they say - they maybe have an interest in locating here - they'll say, is it safe for us to come to McAllen? Well, that's absolutely ridiculous. Former Governor Rick Perry's deployment of Guard troops, helicopters and gunboats to the Rio Grande on top of continuing news reports of drug trafficking and illegal immigration - all that has led to a national panic about the borderlands. KEITH PATRIDGE: And what they're proposing with more walls and more military equipment is not what we would prefer to see.īURNETT: As president of the McAllen Economic Development Corporation, Patridge already has to convince prospective employers that South Texas is not a warzone. Once again, Washington doesn't get the border. When Keith Patridge heard about it, he blanched. And if the Homeland Security secretary can't stop illegal crossers in five years, he cannot fly on government aircraft or get a raise. JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: If it passes, the Secure Our Border First Act of 2015 would effectively put the Department of Homeland Security on a wartime footing in regard to the southern border, deploy more spy blimps, drones and ground sensors, build more fences, roads, boat ramps and forward operating bases, call in more National Guard, borrow air assets from the Department of Defense, divert military equipment headed home from Afghanistan. As NPR's John Burnett reports, the strong reaction represents a growing rift between Washington and the Rio Grande Valley. They worry the bill's warlike border security measures send the wrong message to their valuable trading partners to the south. Boca Chica beat out sites in Florida, Georgia and Puerto Rico to host SpaceX’s launch site, and state and local officials provided about $20 million of financial incentives, wrote laws to close a public beach during launches and has provided legal protection from noise complaints.A tough border security bill introduced in Congress has produced a fierce backlash among business leaders and politicians in south Texas. SpaceX’s first big test - the maiden flight of its Crew Dragon vehicle, without any astronauts on board - is slated for March 2. SpaceX, along with Boeing Co, both have contracts with NASA to ferry American astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX recently announced that they will test the Starship test vehicle at their site in South Texas. But Musk is working on a new, more powerful vehicle known as Starship to eventually ferry humans to Mars. The company has three launch pads: two in Florida and one at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX currently flies the Falcon 9 rocket and completed a record 21 missions in 2018. The language was drafted by Vela in conjunction with Roybal-Allard. “None of it makes any sense.”ĭemocrats have drafted an offer to Republicans that would exempt the launch facility and several other areas from the fence construction.
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