Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), whose congressional district includes more than 800 miles of the border separating the United States and Mexico, said in an interview published Friday that President Donald Trump’s claim of a “border crisis” is a “myth”
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Hurd asserted: “I think $67 billion of drugs coming into our country is a crisis. Now, I also think when you think of a crisis, that means people are afraid to leave their homes, right?”
But El Paso and other border towns are some of the “safest cities in the United States of America,” Hurd said.
The congressman noted that the Trump administration would have to cut off large areas of United States land along the Rio Grand in order to build a wall. “In my district alone there’s the potential of ceding 1.1 million acres of land to Mexico,” Hurd said. “There’s a thing in Texas we care about called private property rights.”
There’s also an unmet demand for labor in Texas and other states, Hurd said.
“Why aren’t we also talking about streamlining this immigration process so that we get people here legally who are going to contribute to our economy?” he asked. “It’s a problem that needs to be solved”
“In some places, a physical barrier is a helpful tool,” the congressman acknowledged. “But you can’t use the same tool over every single mile. Let’s be efficient. What I always say is building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security.”
Read the full interview here.
