Texas GOPer: Trump’s wall least effective way to protect borders
US President Donald Trump’s long promised border wall is actually “the least effective way” to protect the country’s southern border, says a Republican lawmaker from Texas.
GOP Representative Will Hurd told the Hill on Saturday that he expects the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to pass a bill on immigration that does not include any wall while it is “narrow and bipartisan.”
He further asserted that the best way to tackle the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico is to use new technology rather than building a physical wall, for which Trump has demanded more than $25 billion and will take more than 10 years.
Hurd, however, acknowledged that the president has “has evolved since the campaign.”
"I think most Americans think that we are utilizing the latest and greatest technology along the border. We are not,” said the San Antonio-based lawmaker. “A lot of the technology we are using is 20 years old.”
The lawmaker’s district has 820 miles of rugged terrain along the border with Mexico, which Trump has said must pay for the wall.
Along with California Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar, the Texas lawmaker is behind the USA Act, which promotes “smart” technology on the border.
“This is the only legislation that has real bipartisan support in the House and the Senate,” he asserted in the interview.
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The lawmaker also supports permanent legal status for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump said in September 2017 that he would rescind.
"I try to talk about solving real challenges, and not having hard edges," Hurd said. "I believe ... that if the Republican Party in Texas doesn’t start looking like Texas, then we’re going to have problems in the future."
Trump has vowed to crack down on immigration in part by building a wall on the Mexican border and rescinding DACA, but he has failed to get his complete agenda through so far.
Since campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, the New York billionaire has been accused of stoking racial, ethnic and religious tensions lurking within America.
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