Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

McALLEN, September 4 - The Texas Border Coalition has criticized parts of the election platforms of both the Democrats and the Republicans, as they deal with immigration and border security.

TBC Chair and Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster said the group has thoroughly reviewed the Republican and Democratic Party platforms dealing with immigration and border security.

“While we find a lot to admire, we also find both miss the point,” Foster said.

Foster said the Republican platform supports giving border agents the tools and resources they need to protect our sovereignty, to secure the borders and our ports of entry. “We like this approach,” he said. Foster said the Democratic platform supports additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border and at our ports of entry, more Customs and Border Protection agents equipped with better technology and real-time intelligence.

He said the Democratic platform also commits to comprehensive immigration reform in the first year of the new Administration, legalizing the undocumented, a guest worker program, and tough enforcement on the border and in the workplace.

“We like that, too,” Foster said.

However, Foster said some of the immigration planks proposed by Republicans are “unnecessarily hostile in tone and fail to advance a civil dialogue about solving our nation’s immigration crisis.”

The Republican Platform supports giving “agents the tools and resources they need to protect our sovereignty, completing the border fence quickly and securing the borders, and employing complementary strategies to secure our ports of entry.”

It also calls for “smarter enforcement at the workplace against workers and lawbreaking employers alike” and opposing amnesty.  

Also included is support for denial of federal funds to “sanctuary cities” that do not actively enforce immigration laws, calling for denial of Social Security and other public benefits to illegal immigrants, including driver's licenses and in-state tuition.

As for the Democrats, Foster said the TBC was disappointed with the party’s “silence on the border wall. We disagree with the Republican call for completing the wall in haste.”

Foster said illegal border crossing “won’t be controlled until the U.S. has a well-run immigration system that expands avenues for legal workers and cracks down on illegal hiring.”

Foster said when immigration is reformed, “we won’t need a border wall, although we will continue to require beefed up Border Patrol and Customs forces to halt illegal drug smuggling. The border fence will have to be torn down.”

Foster said both Congress and the president – along with the nation’s two political parties – need to acknowledge that the border wall is “a $50 billion waste and join us in implementing alternatives that will achieve real border security.”

Below are the prepared remarks of Foster, Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada and McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez, from a news conference held by the TBC earlier this week.

Foster said:

“The Texas Border Coalition (TBC) is a collective voice of border mayors, county judges, economic development commissions and business leaders focused on issues that affect more than 6 million people who reside along the Texas-Mexico border region and in economically disadvantaged counties from El Paso to Brownsville. TBC works closely with the state and federal government to educate, advocate, and secure funding for transportation, immigration and ports of entry, workforce and education and health care.

“We have reviewed the Republican and Democratic Party platforms dealing with border security and immigration, and while we find a lot to admire in both, we also find both miss the point.

“The Republican Platform supports giving border agents the tools and resources they need to protect our sovereignty, to secure the borders, and our ports of entry. We agree.

“The Democratic Platform is more detailed and we like that. It supports additional personnel, infrastructure, and technology on the border and at our ports of entry, more Customs and Border Protection agents equipped with better technology and real-time intelligence. It also proposes to do more to promote economic development in migrant-sending nations, to reduce incentives to come to the United States illegally. As President Clinton said on Wednesday night, that makes two of us.

“Some of the immigration planks proposed by Republicans are unnecessarily hostile in tone and argue against myths, such public benefits for undocumented aliens where in fact there are none except for emergency medical care. That fails to advance a civil dialogue about solving a substantial problem with immigration. The Democratic plank commits to comprehensive reform in the first year of the new Administration, legalization of the undocumented, and tougher enforcement on the border and in the workplace, and a guest-worker program. We believe that is a more productive approach.

“We are disappointed with the Democrats’ silence on the Border Wall. We disagree with the Republican call for completing the border fence with haste.

Cortez said:

“Haste is getting us deeper into the ditch with the border wall than we need to be, it is excluding the public from important government decisions and as our mothers used to tell us, it makes for waste. About $50 billion in waste.

“Some sections of the border wall will cost American taxpayers over $16 million per mile, $50 billion in total. That is equal to the entire U.N. budget for combating poverty in Africa, the United Kingdom's annual defense budget and the cost of building the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France.

“As we have repeatedly made clear, the DHS plan won’t work, as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff admits: he acknowledges that illegal crossers will go around, over, through and under it. In fact, it is more gap than barrier: the fence covers less than 370 of the 1,969 miles of U.S.-Mexican border, less than one mile in five. Arizona landowner Bill Odle has begun collecting ladders used by crossers near his home. His neighbor Glenn Spencer says people on the Mexican side can get on the roof of a pickup truck, climb a few feet over the fence, drop down onto the fence-posts on the U.S. side and then jump down to the ground. Border crossers in New Mexico are abandoning plasma torches after they cut through the fence. Border Patrol has discovered more than 30 tunnels under the fence. Around, over, through and under: it doesn’t work.

“What is more, here in Texas the fence is being built more than a mile from the border, trapping people – workers, families, farmers, ranchers, retirees – and wildlife on the Mexican side. When fire, flood, medical crisis or crime requires evacuation, emergency or law enforcement, emergency personnel won’t be able to rescue people or property. Wildlife won’t be able to access the life-giving resources of the Rio Grande River. People and wildlife – in many cases, endangered species – will die.”

Ahumada said:

“Illegal border crossing won’t be controlled until the U.S. has a well-run immigration system that expands avenues for legal workers and cracks down on illegal hiring. When immigration is reformed, we won’t need a border fence, although we will continue to require beefed up Border Patrol and Customs forces to halt illegal drug smuggling. The border fence will be torn down.

“U.S. taxpayers are wasting $50 billion on an ineffective, lethal fence that will be torn down. Congress and the President -- and the two party platforms -- need to acknowledge the waste of our money on a worthless border fence and join us to implement the alternatives we have proposed that will work: more Border Patrol, newer and more effective sensors, removing the Carrizo Cane and Salt Cedar that give illegal crosser places to hide, a deeper-faster Rio Grande such as the Brownsville Weir and the Laredo Vega.

“The American people don’t want $50 billion wasted on ineffective strategy to stop illegal crossers. They want effective strategies that will get real results, and that’s what we are working to accomplish.”