3% have a criminal history. that is according to customs and border data from august of 2017 to august of 2018. that is border customs under president trump. the trump s own threat assessment points out while drug related murders in mexico continue to reach epidemic proportions, there is, quote, little spill over violence in the united states. this is the drug enforcement agency in 2018. as far as president trump s claim the wall would stop drugs from coming into the country, well, according to the dea s 2015 national drug threat assessment, cartels, quote, transport the bulk of their drugs over the southern border through ports of entry. big pieces of land that don t have a barrier that might have a river, that might have a canyon, they re not actually the place where the bulk of the drugs come from. these are ports of entry. ports of entry is a place you go up to and there is a human that checks your truck or your car or
most americans, that could mean losing a house. it could mean losing a car, not sending your kid to college. it means a lot of things. and that s just on the folks who aren t getting paid. we ve got farm service agency offices that are closed, that are shuttered, they re not open. we just passed a farm bill. i think it s a pretty good farm bill. farmers can t get access to the fsa offices. why? because they re closed due to the shutdown. we have businesses that have small business loans out there that can t close on the small business loans because the espa shut down. the list goes on and on, lawrence, and the impacts are to real families. and i can t talk enough about how irresponsible this is for congress not to do its job, pass the bills, put them on the president s desk. if the president vetoes them, do our job, try to get a veto override. but the ultimate thing here is this is not doing our economy any good, it s not doing our people any good. we have to recruit people to work in
if the president vetoes them, do our job, try to get a veto override. but the ultimate thing here is this is not doing our economy any good, it s not doing our people any good. we have to recruit people to work in tsa and border customs. frankly, who would work for a government that in the last year has been shut down three times? this is crazy. we have the president s chairman of economic advisers saying this is like a vacation for federal workers. we have tsa agents who are working. the difference for them is they re simply not being paid, as no federal workers subjected to this are being paid. yeah, i mean, this is not a vacation. this creates a lot of the uncertainty and anxiety and families in montana and across this country, and that doesn t do anybody any good. and from a taxpayer standpoint, it is a gross waste of money. you ve got folks who are basically locked out of their