McCaul: Trump Border Wall Rhetoric ‘Simplistic,’ ‘Knee-Jerk’

Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s plan of building a border wall funded by Mexico to help stop illegal immigration is a “kind of a simplistic” and  “kind of knee-jerk response.”

McCaul said, “Well, we talk a lot about operational control, and that’s having a better understanding of who’s coming in and who’s leaving, what the threat really is. We’re never really going to get that. I know there’s a lot of discussion about building a 2000-mile wall. I think we need to complete the Secure Fencing Act but we need greater technology and aviation aspects down on the Southwest border so we can see the threat from the sky. Until you can see it, you don’t know where it’s coming from and how to correctly stop it. My bill that I  passed out of my committee deals with that issue very directly in terms of allocation and more aviation and technology assets down to the border. The fencing is a barricade, but it’s not a panacea. It won’t solve the problem completely. You need the technology and aviation aspects to counter that.”

When asked about the wall rhetoric of Donald Trump McCaul said, “Well, I think there’s kind of a simplistic, kind of knee-jerk response that all you have to do is build a 2,000-mile wall and problem solved. Anybody who’s been down to the borders — I  know Jeb Bush is going there today — will tell you it’s not that simple. Chapo Guzman dug a mile tunnel. That what the drug cartels can do, and that’s what we are dealing with down there. When I look at the fencing down there, it will stop them temporarily, but they dig under it, go over the fence. I think the fencing is important, but I think you also need to — more important is to have that aviation assets from the sky to see whats happening on the ground and then be able to respond to it. I think that complements the physical barricade. It’s not just problem solved by building a 2,000-mile wall.”

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