sometimes it was quite fine. i do want to mention to you, though, the president s comments and then show you some border some fbi statistics and get your thoughts on it. the president then says at these walls will make us all safer. you have the fbi statistics that you pointed out, just a few moments ago of border counties where crime is much less than nonborder counties as well as the overall average. so, that inmind, is the president right when he says a wall will make us safer? i think a wall or in my case i prefer the gnomen clay cher fence is part of a total border security program. but the state of texas geographically you can t put a fence from el paso to brownsville, it doesn t work. in fact, most of texas is private land. that won t work. but, you know, it does fences
i believe that a border security program should include as well a barrier on our southern border. when the vote for the president s proposal failed, we went to see the second alternative, i voted for that as well. again, because i want to see government get opened and government workers get paid. it s affecting our economy and more importantly it s having an effect on the lives of our citizens to not work and be paid. that proposal also failed. it s now it s going to be up to republican leadership and democratic leadership to come together and begin to negotiate. democrats have said they re not willing to negotiate unless the government is open. well, they tried their effort, i voted for it. it didn t happen. now they have to negotiate. we ve got to have the leaders of both parties, including the democratic party, sit down with the president and work out a deal that deals with border security and gets this government open. i voted both times to open the government, i will continue to
sarah westwood live from the white house. thank you, sarah. let s talk about this now. we have a great panel to discuss this. washington bureau chief for the associated press, julia pace, and olivia newsy. let s start with you. is it the wall, border security? seems like every time we hear from a different person from the white house we get a different interpretation of exactly what they re looking for here. how on earth can they hatch a deal when we don t know what they want? what they re trying to do is find a way out to get a deal. if the president is going to hold a hard line and say that has to be a physical barrier, then it s almost impossible to see how we get out of this. if he does try to change his position here, change what the money is allocated for, say that it s for a broader border security program, that s where you can start to see more democrats that he would need lining up behind some kind of package that would get us out of this mess.
i think it s moving in the right direction. it does encompass a number of areas that most of us have to talk about. it does include issues surrounding a border security program or a plan. that goes beyond that as well. that lays out the details that i was not directly involved with. i am aware as a courtesy. the individuals should be allowed to lay it out in the appropriate format. basically the dreamers would be allowed to stay as part of this deal. there would be enhanced border security. i take it that there is no longer a desire to build a 2,000 mile wall. it would be fencing and sensors and additional protection, but not necessarily that huge wall
two parties come november? reporter: well, we ve already seen the ideological lines drawn and the rhetoric begun to sort of come forth. democrats are arguing that republicans being antiimmigration reform and in support of what they consider to be an inappropriate arizona state law, democrats say republicans are being intolerant and democrats frankly hope that they can energize and court hispanic voters, the fastest and largest growing demographic bloc in the country, republicans on the other hand are arguing that comprehensive immigration reform with its path to citizenship and guest worker program is premature and inappropriate in the absence of a border security program. president obama has weighed into this, purring both immigration reform and the arizona suit, so you have both parties sort of courting the far left and far right, and arguing very, very toughly on all this, jon. there s no question that this is going to be an effect on t. from the campaign, and anywhere there s a c