Speech #1090129438

I did not actually see activity which would indicate to a reasonable person that there was not activity to be seen. In spite all of those hours in the air and the hours on the ground and the night vision equipment. I did not again see any illegal activities. although I got many reports of the success of the interdiction of our border patrol and our other agencies. Well. as I listen to the debate here in the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker. and the testimony that comes before the immigration subcommittee which I sit upon. and I sit in those hearings two. three. even four times a week and we will have four. sometimes eight witnesses giving us credible data and good wellinformed information on this issue from both sides of the issue. Mr. Speaker. and always the years. the cumulative information has built in me after those years of sitting on the immigration subcommittee. I began to think that I have a pretty decent broad background on the subject. And yet there was a gap. Mr. Speaker. there was a gap in that subject because I had not gone down and spent time on the border more or less unguided. more or less outside the scope of the Border Patrol. but gone ahead and gone down to the border and looked under all the stones and met with the people that were actually more likely to be more frank with me. So that was my mission this past weekend where I spent perhaps as much as 4 days on the ground in Arizona. And the goal was to meet with the people that are enforcing our laws down there. the ones that are out in the night and those people who have seen this bleeding. this hemorrhaging at our border firsthand. that can describe to me the scope of the bleeding in our southern border.