Arrington talks border security with Select Committee on the Economy

MCALLEN, Texas (PRESS RELEASE) – Today, Rep. Jodey C. Arrington (TX-19) joined the Select Committee on the Economy in McAllen, Texas during the first Full Committee hearing at the U.S. Southern Border since President Biden took office. The hearing, hosted by Committee Democrats, was titled “Infrastructure Investment: Building Economic Resilience in South Texas.”

At the hearing, Rep. Arrington called attention to the tone-deaf topic and pled with his Democrat colleagues to recognize the true crisis in Texas – our wide-open Southern border.

Watch Rep. Arrington’s remarks here or by clicking the video below:

Excerpt from Rep. Arrington’s hearing remarks:

“We can talk about infrastructure – twenty-five cents of every dollar of the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill went to real infrastructure: waterways, roads, bridges. I don’t know that 500 electric charging stations helped South Texas.

The infrastructure that matters most right now is the infrastructure that protects the American people. We are at Ground Zero of the worst humanitarian, public safety, and security crisis in the history of our country, and we’re talking about roads and bridges!

This would be like us going to Ukraine and having a hearing about fixing the potholes in the street while the Russians are waging war on their citizens. We have to talk about this border crisis.

One hundred thousand people have died from drug overdoses – that’s more than the Vietnam War, Gulf War, and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Generations of Americans are dying because of a war declared on our country by drug cartels.

The chaos and lawlessness is unacceptable for your children, for the neighborhoods in South Texas, and the neighborhoods in West Texas, and I hope we can spend more time talking about the crisis at our border – not just to save Texas, but to save America.”

Following the hearing, Republican Members on the Committee participated in a tour of the Southern Border in the Rio Grande River hosted by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). To combat the increase in human trafficking and drugs coming across the border, Texas DPS has had to deploy boats and other resources to the border.

During the tour of the Rio Grande, Rep. Arrington remarked, “Ground Zero here at the Biden Border Crisis and the federal government’s abandonment of the American people and their safety and security. That should be the first order of business for our government, but not in this Administration. It is an epic disaster on safety, security, and humanitarian fronts. We’re here with the Texas DPS troopers who are picking up the slack – they’re the best in the land.”

Copyright 2022 KCBD. All rights reserved. The above information was provided by the Congressman Jodey Arrington Press Office.