A wall won't solve America's border problems

"Building a 30-foot-high concrete structure from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security," says Congressman Will Hurd, a Republican from Texas whose district encompasses two times zones and shares an 820-mile border with Mexico. Speaking from Washington, DC in a video interview with former state attorney general Anne Milgram, Hurd discusses the US government's border policy and its controversial detention and child separation practices -- and lays out steps toward a better future at the border. (Recorded at the TED World Theater in New York on September 10, 2019)

Anne Milgram: Congressman,
I was about to introduce you

and say a little more --

Will Hurd: Hey, Anne. How are you?

AM: Hi, how are you doing?
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

We're so lucky to have you here with us.

I've already explained
that you're actually in Washington

because you're working.

And I was about to tell folks

that you represent
the 23rd district of Texas.

But maybe you could tell us
a little bit about your district

and describe it for us.

WH: Sure, my district in Southwest Texas
is 29 counties, two time zones,

820 miles of border
from Eagle Pass, Texas

all the way to El Paso.

It takes 10 and a half hours to drive
across my district at 80 miles an hour,

which is the speed limit
in most of the district.

And I found out a couple of weekends ago,

it's not the speed limit
in all the district.

(Laughter)

It's a 71-percent Latino district,

and it's the district that
I've been representing

for now my third term in Congress.

And when you think
about the issue of the border,

I have more border
than any other member of Congress.

I spent nine and a half years
as an undercover officer in the CIA,

chasing bad people all across the country.

So when it comes to securing our border,

it's something I know a little bit about.

AM: One of the things I learned recently
which I hadn't known before

is that your district
is actually the size, I think,

of the state of Georgia?

WH: That's right.

It's larger than 26 states,
roughly the size of the state of Georgia.

So it's pretty big.

AM: So as an expert in national security

and as a member of Congress,

you've been called upon
to think about issues

related to immigration,

and in recent years,
particularly about the border wall.

What is your reaction
to President Trump's statement

that we need a big, beautiful wall
that would stretch across our border,

and at 18 to 30 feet high?

WH: I've been saying this since I first
ran for Congress back in 2009,

this is not a new topic,

that building a 30-foot-high
concrete structure

from sea to shining sea

is the most expensive
and least effective way

to do border security.

There are parts of the border

where Border Patrol's
response time to a threat

is measured in hours to days.

If your response time
is measured in hours to days,

then a wall is not a physical barrier.

We should be having technology
along the border,

we should have operation
control of our border,

which means we know everything
that's going back and forth across it.

We can do a lot of that with technology.

We also need more folks
within our border patrol.

But in addition to doing all this,

one of the things we should be able to do
is streamline legal immigration.

If you're going to be
a productive member of our society,

let's get you here as quickly as possible,

but let's do it legally.

And if we're able to streamline that,
then you're going to see

some of the pressures
relieved along our border

and allow men and women in Border Patrol
to focus on human trafficking

and drug-trafficking
organizations as well.

AM: Congressman,

there's also been a conversation
nationally about using emergency funds

to build the border wall

and taking those funds
from the United States military.

What has your position been on that issue?

WH: I'm one of the few Republicans up here
that has opposed that effort.

We are just now rebuilding our military,

and taking funds away from making sure

that our brothers and sisters,
our wives and our husbands

have the training and equipment they need

in order to take care of us
in far-flung places --

taking money away from them
is not an efficient use of our resources,

especially if it's going to build a ...

you know, I always say
it's a fourth-century solution

to a 21st-century problem.

And the reality is,
what we should be focusing on

is some of the other root causes
of this problem,

and many of your speakers today
have talked about that.

Some of those key root problems
are violence, lack of economic opportunity

and extreme poverty,

specifically, in the Northern Triangle:
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

We should be working --

AM: I was going to ask
what you would recommend

United States government does
to address the underlying,

what we call push factors, or root causes

in those three countries
in Central America?

WH: One of the things I learned
as an undercover officer in the CIA

is be nice with nice guys
and tough with tough guys.

And one of the principles
of being nice with nice guys

is to strengthen our alliances.

We have a number of programs
currently in these three countries

that USAID and the State Department
is doing to address this violence issue.

And we know, in El Salvador,

one of the problems was
that the police were corrupt.

And so we've worked with the Salvadorians
to purge the police,

rehire new folks,

use community policing tactics.

These are tactics the men and women
in the United States of America

and police forces

use every single day.

And when we did this
in certain communities,

guess what happened?

We saw a decrease in the violence
that was happening in those communities.

And then we also saw

a decrease in the number of people
that were leaving those areas

to try to come
to the United States illegally.

So it's a fraction of the cost
to solve a problem there,

before it ultimately reaches our border.

And one of the reasons
that you have violence and crime

is political corruption

and the lack of central governments
to protect its citizens.

And so this is something
we should be continuing to work on.

We shouldn't be decreasing
the amount of money that we have

that we're sending to these countries.

I actually think
we should be increasing it.

I believe the first thing --
we should have done this months ago --

is select a special representative
for the Northern Triangle.

That's a senior diplomat

that's going to work to make sure
we're using all of our levers of power

to help these three countries,

and then that we're doing it
in a coordinated effort.

This is not just a problem
for the United States and Mexico,

this is a problem for the entire
western hemisphere.

So, where is the Organization
of American States?

Where is the International
Development Bank?

We should be having a collective plan
to address these root causes.

And when you talk about violence,

a lot of times, we talk
about these terrible gangs like MS-13.

But it's also violence like
women being beaten by their husbands.

And they have nobody else to go to,

and they are unable to deal
with this current problem.

So these are the types of issues

that we should be increasing
our diplomacy,

increasing our economic development aid.

AM: Please, I want to take you now

from thinking about the root causes
in Central America

to thinking about the separation
of children and families

in the United States.

Starting in April 2018,

the Trump administration began
a no-tolerance policy

for immigrants, people seeking
refugee status, asylum

in the United States.

And that led to the separation
of 2,700 children

in the first year
that that program was run.

Now, I want to address this with you,

and I want to separate it up front
into two different conversations.

One of the things
that the administration did

was file legal court papers,

saying that one of the primary
purposes of the separations

was to act as a deterrent

against people coming
to the United States.

And I want to talk for a moment
about that from a moral perspective

and to get your views.

WH: We shouldn't be doing it,
period. It's real simple.

And guess what, it wasn't a deterrent.

You only saw an increase
in the amount of illegal immigration.

And when you're sitting,
debating a strategy,

if somebody comes up with the idea

of snatching a child
out of their mother's arms,

you need to go back to the drawing board.

This is not what the United States
of America stands for,

this is not a Republican
or a Democrat or independent thing.

This is a human decency thing.

And so, using that strategy,

it didn't achieve the ultimate purpose.

And ultimately, the amount
of research that is done

and the impact that
the detention of children has --

especially if it's over 21 days --

has on their development and their future

is disastrous.

So we shouldn't be trying to detain
children for any more than 21 days,

and we should be getting children,
if they're in our custody,

we should be taking care of them humanely,

and making sure they're with people

that can provide them a safe
and loving environment.

AM: I would challenge you
even on the 21-day number,

but for the purposes of this conversation,

I want to follow up
on something you just said,

which is both that it's wrong
to detain children,

and that it's not effective.

So the question, then, is why
does the administration continue to do it,

when we've seen 900 additional children
separated from their parents

since the summer of 2018?

Why is this happening?

WH: Well, that's something
that you'd have to ultimately

ask the administration.

These are questions that I've been asking.

The Tornillo facility is in my district.

These are buildings that are not
designed to hold anybody

for multiple days,

let alone children.

We should be making sure
that if they are in our custody --

a lot of times for
the uncompanied children,

we don't have a ...

we don't know of a patron or a family
member in the United States,

and we should make sure
that they're in facilities

where they're able to go to school

and have proper food and health care.

And if we're able to find
a sponsor or family member,

let's get them into that custody,

while they're waiting
for their immigration court case.

That's the other issue here.

When you have a backlog of cases --

I think it's now 900,000 cases
that are backlogged --

we should be able to do
an immigration hearing

within nine months.

I think most of the legal community
thinks that is enough time

to do something like this,

so that we can facilitate
whether someone, an individual,

is able to stay in the United States

or they're going to have to be returned
back to their home country,

rather than being in this limbo
for five years.

AM: If we think about
the asylum system today,

where people are coming and saying
that they have a credible threat,

that they will be persecuted back home,

and we think about the fact
that on average,

it's about two years for someone
to get an asylum hearing,

that many people are not represented
as they go through that process,

it makes me think about something

that they say in the health care
space all the time,

which is that every system
is perfectly designed

to get the results it gets.

And so as you think about this

and think about how we would
redesign this system

to not do what we're doing,

which is years and years
of detention and separations and hardship

for people seeking --

and again, asylum being a lawful
United States government process --

for people seeking
to enter our country lawfully.

What should we do?

WH: I tried to increase
by four billion dollars

the amount of resources that HHS has

in order to specifically deal,
ultimately, with children.

I think we need more immigration judges
in order to process these cases,

and I think we need to ensure
that folks can get representation.

I've been able to work with a number
of lawyers up and down the border

to make sure they are being able
to get access to the folks

that are having these problems.

And so this is something
that we should be able to design.

And ultimately, when it comes to children,

we should be doing everything we can
when they're in our custody,

in order to take care of them.

AM: So I have two more questions for you

before I'm going to let you
go back to work.

The first is about our focus
in the United States

on the questions of immigration.

Because if you look
at some of the statistics,

you see that of people
who are undocumented

in the United States,

the majority of people
have overstayed on visas,

they haven't come through the border.

If you look at the people
who try to enter the country

who are on the terrorist watch list,

they enter overwhelmingly
through the airports

and not through the border.

If we look at drugs
coming into the United States,

which has been a huge part
of this conversation,

the vast majority of those drugs
come through our ports

and through other points of entry,

not through backpacks
on people crossing the border.

So the thing I always ask

and I always worry about with government,

is that we focus so much on one thing,

and my question for you
is whether we are focused

in this conversation nationally
about the border,

every day and every minute of every day,

whether we're looking
completely in the wrong direction.

WH: I would agree with your premise.

When you have --

let's start with the economic benefits.

When you have 3.6 percent unemployment,

what does that mean?

That means you need folks
in every industry,

whether it's agriculture
or artificial intelligence.

So why aren't we streamlining
legal immigration?

We should be able
to make this market based

in order to have folks come in

and be productive members of our society.

When it comes to the drug issue
you're talking about,

yes, it's in our ports of entry,

but it's also coming in to our shores.

Coast Guard is only able to action

25 percent of the known
intelligence they have

on drugs coming into our country.

The metric that we should
be measuring [is]

are we seeing a decrease of deaths
from overdose from drugs overseas,

are we seeing a decrease
in illegal immigration?

It's not how many miles of fencing
that we have ultimately built.

And so we have benefited

from the brain drain
of every other country

for the last couple of decades.

I want to see that continue,

and I want to see that continue
with the hardworking drain.

And I can sell you this:

at last Congress, Pete Aguilar,
a Democrat from California, and I

had a piece of legislation
called the USA Act:

strong border security,
streamline legal immigration,

fix DACA -- 1.2 million kids who have
only known the United States of America

as their home --

these kids, or I should say
young men and women,

they are already Americans,

let's not have them go through
any more uncertainty

and make that ultimately happen.

We had 245 people that were willing
to sign this bill into law,

it wasn't allowed to come forward
under a Republican speaker,

and also the current Democratic speaker
hasn't brought this bill

through in something
that we would be able to pass.

AM: So I want to close,

and you are, perhaps, most famous --
I don't know if that's fair --

but you took a road trip
with Beto O'Rourke

from your district to Washington, DC,

and you've become known
for reaching across the aisle

and engaging in these
bipartisan conversations.

And one of the things
I've seen you say repeatedly

is to talk about how we are all united.

And I think, when we think
about the language of immigration

and we start hearing words
about enemies and militarization,

I think the real question is:
How do we convince all Americans

to understand what you say
that more unites us than divides us?

WH: Crisscrossing a district like mine
that's truly 50-50 --

50 percent Democrat,
50 percent Republican,

it's been very clear to me
that way more unites us than divides us.

And if we focus on those things
that we agree on,

we'll all be better off.

And I'm not going to get
a perfect attendance award

for going to church,

but I do remember when Jesus
was in the Second Temple

and the Pharisees asked him
what's the most important commandment,

and he said to "Love thy Lord God
with all your heart, mind and soul."

But people forget he also said,
"Equally as important,

is to love thy neighbor like thyself."

And if we remember that
and realize what it would mean,

and what you would
have to be going through

to be living in a situation

that you may send your child
on a 3,000-mile perilous journey,

because that's what you think
the only thing for their future,

the only thing that you can do
to make sure their future is bright,

if we all remember that situation,

and think what we would do
in that situation,

I think we'd also be better off.

AM: Thank you, Congressman.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

(Applause)