Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said Tuesday walls should be built along the southern border where “appropriate,” but said he doesn’t believe a wall makes sense along the entire border.
“I’m a fan of different approaches; one is better technology ’cause obviously technology’s making it easier for us to detect illegals,” Paxton, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton. “Second, more border agents; third, a wall in the places that is appropriate.”
Paxton added that he finds it “hard to believe” that a wall would would make sense across the entire southern border. The border between the U.S. and Mexico is more than 1,900 miles long and traverses a variety of terrains, including urban areas and deserts.
“I don’t know that that makes sense across the entire border but there are certainly places that does makes sense,” the attorney general told Hill.TV.
Paxton won a second term as attorney general even though he is still under indictment after having pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of securities fraud. President Trump helped campaign for Paxton during the 2018 midterm elections, saying at a rally in Houston that the Texas Republican was doing a “great job.”
Even though the border wall issue has become a divisive issue among some Republicans, Paxton has made it clear that he stands behind Trump’s national emergency declaration and insisted that there is “definitely” a crisis at the border. Trump declared a national emergency in order to allocate unappropriated funds to building a border wall.
“It’s definitely a crisis for border states — we’re talking about all of these new people coming in, you’ve got drug traffickers, you’ve got human trafficking,” Paxton said. “We’ve got lots of crime associated with what’s going on at the border.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that completing the border wall will help keep out drug traffickers, human traffickers and gang members.
During an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” in February, Trump claimed that “there is really an invasion in our country by human traffickers.” However, these claims are largely unsubstantiated.
The GOP-controlled Senate, meanwhile, will likely reject Trump’s emergency declaration.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) conceded on Monday that the chamber may have enough votes to pass a Democratic-backed resolution blocking Trump’s declaration. Trump has threatened to veto the measure.
—Tess Bonn
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