Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry touted his experience protecting the southern border during the undercard debate Thursday, citing his 14 years as chief executive in a border state.
When asked by Fox News’ Bill Hemmer if he would break “apart” families of illegal immigrants, Perry dodged, redirecting the question to Washington’s failure to lead on the issue.
“Here’s the interesting position on this: Americans are tired of hearing this debate want to go to ‘what are you going to do about illegal immigration,'” Perry argued. “For 30 years, this country has been baited on that, all the way back to when Ronald Reagan signed a piece of legislation that basically allowed for amnesty for almost 4 million people and the border is still not secure.”
The 1986 legislation traded amnesty for improved enforcement and border security.
“The American people are never going to trust Washington, D.C. — and for good reason,” Perry argued. “We hear all this discussion about ‘well I would do this,’ or ‘I would do that’ when the fact is the border is still porous. Until we have a president of the United States that gets up every day and goes to the Oval Office with the intent purpose of securing that border, and there’s not anybody on either one of these stages that has the experience of dealing with this as I have for over 14 years with that 1,200-mile border.”
“We have to put the personnel on that border in the right places,” Perry said. “You have to put the strategic fencing in place, and you have to have aviation assets that fly all the way from Tijuana to El Paso to Brownsville, Texas. 1,934 miles, looking down 24/7 with the technology to be able to identify what individuals are doing, an ID when they are in, obviously, illegal activities or suspicious activities and quick response teams — they’ll come.”
“At that particular point and time, then Americans will believe that Washington is up to a conversation to deal with the millions of people that are here illegally, but not until you elect me president of the United States,” Perry said. “I will secure that southern border.”
