Winning the War on Terror Begins With Protecting Our Borders

Now that my first goal of rebuilding the Katy Freeway as fast as humanly possible has been achieved, I am totally focused on protecting our borders, strictly enforcing our immigration laws, balancing the federal budget and replacing the income tax with a national consumption tax.

We will never win the war on terror until we secure our borders. We have ample laws on the books to protect our borders and stop illegal immigration, but the Administration has systematically refused to enforce our immigration laws or employer sanctions, and has even moved Border Patrol agents out of Texas. Lawlessness breeds lawlessness, and this lack of enforcement has led to a stampede of illegal aliens across our border, which is overwhelming our health care system and social services, increasing our crime rate, and threatening our national security. I have confirmed that Middle Eastern terrorists have been crossing our open Southern border by pretending to be Hispanic illegal immigrants.

Winning the War on Terror Begins With Protecting Our Borders

My highest priority is to protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. While our brave men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq and around the world, I need to honor and support them in Congress by working to protect America’s back door on the border.

Here is what I have learned from federal and state law enforcement authorities, and from my personal visit to the Rio Grande in October. Narco-terrorists and Islamic terrorists have figured out that our southern border is wide open and virtually unprotected, and that many Mexican government officials can be bribed or overwhelmed with superior firepower, so northern Mexico is now like Colombia - owned and operated by the drug lords. Dangerous criminal gangs like MS-13 and highly professional armies of killers like the Zetas are providing protection and muscle for the drug cartels that control northern Mexico. The Zetas are now so confident and so brazen that they operate at least one, and perhaps four, terrorist training camps in the open in Mexico near the Texas border between Matamoras and Ciudad Acuna.

Winning the War on Terrorism

All of the 3,000 Americans who died on September 11, 2001, were innocent people who woke up on that quiet, normal morning in a comfortable world where we had grown happily accustomed to being safe in our homes and our schools, and places of worship and work.

Not anymore. We are at war against terrorism, and the front lines of this war are our own neighborhoods. We are once again fighting to protect our “Freedom from Fear.” We did not choose this fight, yet now that it is upon us, America will see it through to victory. It is an entirely new kind of war against an entirely new kind of enemy who is uniquely cowardly, psychotic and criminal.

Congressional Update and Transportation Report

Congress is dealing with a wide variety of complex and important issues that will affect us all, and I look forward to hearing your opinions. It is also important that we discuss the Metro rail referendum, the largest transportation project in Texas history, and that you hear first hand why I oppose Metro’s rail plan.

In January, I was appointed as the only Texan on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, so I am part of every debate that involves transportation in Texas. I am especially interested in creating a long-term solution that will truly reduce congestion and improve travel time for Houstonians. All of us who live in District Seven have lost countless hours stuck in Houston traffic, most of them on the gridlocked Katy Freeway, west Houston’s Main Street.

Congressional Report and Katy Freeway Update

The 107th Congress of the United States began on January 3, 2001, with a balanced budget, a large tax surplus and, before the end of the year, we had paid off $453 billion of the national debt. On September 11, 2001, terrorists launched a sneak attack on our homeland, and America was at war.

President George W. Bush has proven that he is magnificently suited to lead America as a wartime President. His focus and his determination to win this new war is inspirational, and I will do everything in my power as your Congressman to help him. America will defeat the evil fanatics who started this war just as surely as we defeated the evil fanatics who launched the sneak attack of December 7, 1941.