that s why we re here at the border today. i m joined today by an outstanding secretary of the department of homeland security, janet napolitano, who s been working tirelessly on this issue. our commissioner working diligently on border issues, allen breslin. we appreciate him. so they re doing outstanding work. in recent years, among one of the greatest impediments to reform were questions about border security. these were legitimate concerns. what was true was a lack of manpower and lack of resources at the border, combined with the pull of jobs and ill-considered enforcement once folks were in the country. all this contributed to a growing number of undocumented people living in the united
states. these concerns helped unravel a bipartisan coalition that we had forged back when i was in the united states senate. so in the years since, borders first. borders first. that s become the common retrain, even among those who were previously supportive of comprehensive immigration reform. but over the last two years thanks to the outstanding work of janet and allen, and everybody s down here working at the border, we ve answered those concerns. under their leadership we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible. they want more agents at the border. well, we now have more boots on the ground, on the southwest border, than at anytime in our history.
yes, we will! and that s why we re here at the border today, and i want to say i am joined today about an outstanding secretary of the department of homeland security, janet napolitano who has been working tirelessly on this issue. [ cheers and applause ] our commissioner who is working diligently on border issues, allen breslin is here, and we appreciate him. so they re doing outstanding work, and in recent years among one of the greatest impediments to reform were questions about border security. and these were legitimate concerns. what was true was a lack of manpower and a lack of resources at the border combined with the pull of jobs and ill-considered enforcement once folks were in the country, all this
contributed to a growing number of undocumented people living in the united states. and these concerns helped unravel a bipartisan coalition that we had forged back when i was in the united states senate. so in the years since borders first, borders first, that s become the common refrain, even among those who were previously supportive of comprehensive immigration reform. but over the last two years thanks to the outstanding work of janet and allen and everybody who is down here working at the border, we ve answered those concerns. under their leadership we have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible. they wanted more agents at the border. well, we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history. [ cheers and applause ]
mississippi. as you can see south central mississippi. rick, how bad is the damage where you are? southwest mississippi. well, yeah, it s already bad. there s a number of homes, around 60, already that are completely flood. this morning, shep, what you re looking this, this was dry ground. now you see the waters coming up. as you said, it s a slow progression of this, that people get lulled into thinking it s not going to happen, and now they definitely see it is. people have just arrived. they ve been spending three days gathering their stuff, getting it out of here. tonight they cut off electricity to this community. final evacuations have to be done. if you re not out at this point, you re in trouble. shepard: the worst for vicksburg is still to come, right? yeah. we re not going to crest here until the 19th. a week from thursday, shep. nine days still. we re expecting another 4-5 feet of water. imagine this much water, and every state highway in and out of vicksburg