Graves: Step one to dealing with emergency on southern borner- Build the wall

(From Sixth District Congressman Sam Graves)

There is a national security crisis at our southern border. Illegal immigrants, human traffickers, drug smugglers, and gangs are abusing our open border and American citizens are paying the price. It’s time we put an end to this crisis—and step one is building a wall.

This didn’t used to be a partisan issue. This used to be something both Republicans and Democrats could agree on—that we need a real, physical barrier on the southern border to keep America safe and secure. It's something I've supported all along.

Yet today we hear a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle say that building the wall will be too expensive, inhumane, and immoral. Yet, it hasn't stopped us from spending billions of dollars building thousands of miles of wall all over this country. We call them noise abatement walls and they’re designed to cut down on road noise along our highways. There are more than 3,000 miles of these walls all across America—20, even 30 feet high in places.

In comparison, our southern border only runs about 2,000 miles and we’ve already got real physical barriers that run along about half of that. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but I guess I don’t understand why building a wall to keep our country safe and secure is immoral and inhumane, while it’s fine and dandy to spend billions on walls that line our highways to cut down on noise. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless, this has more to do with the person proposing it now.

The obstructionists have been at this for months. When President Trump declared a national emergency in February to secure our border, they tried everything they could to stop him. I was proud to lead the charge in the House to support President Trump’s effort to build the wall. Fortunately, Americans got another victory last week in our efforts to get this done. The Supreme Court finally gave the green-light to build the wall and secure our border after months of legal wrangling.

This pivotal decision affirms what we knew all along—that this crisis is a national emergency and we must deal with it now. Step one—build the wall.