Thread: TX: Sheriff on 'border problems'

Sheriff on 'border problems'

By Karen Gleason
Del Rio News-Herald

Published May 5, 2007

Val Verde County Sheriff A. D’Wayne Jernigan says he believes state and federal elected officials and administrators are finally beginning to pay attention to the needs of the border.

“The southwest border has been ignored by our policymakers for as long as I can recall,” Jernigan said Friday as he discussed his most recent trip to Washington.

“I’ve noticed that cities like Dallas, Houston, Ft. Worth, San Antonio, they seem to always attract the big bucks, the big grants. Several years ago, I got to thinking about why is it that the southwest border is so ignored; not just in the law enforcement arena, but everything. Our colonias need attention, our water systems need attention, law enforcement needs assistance. It seemed like all the help out there was going away from the border,” the sheriff said.

Jernigan said he began to notice that the “common denominator” in cities that seemed to receive the bulk of attention and assistance were those whose local elected officials “were constantly beating on the doors in Washington and Austin.”

“And I began to believe it was incumbent on me and on my fellow elected officials to start banging on those doors and bringing our problems and our needs to their attention. We have some problems down here and they’re bigger than what we can resolve with the revenue sources that we have,” Jernigan said.

“I love the border and I want to do everything I can to make it a better place to live,” he added.

The sheriff said his most recent trip to Washington, D.C., showed him that the lobbying is beginning to pay off. That trip included meetings with Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez, as well as an audience with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and a number of other Congressmen.

“Previously when we’d go to D.C., we’d get a short period of time. It seemed like we’d get five minutes, but this time each of the legislators we visited, wanted to hear our story, finally. . .They were asking a lot more questions and they were telling us that they were going to craft legislation to fund additional ‘boots on the ground’ along the southwest border.”

The sheriff added, “I think they are all beginning to realize that, yes, the Border Patrol plays a tremendous role along the border, but a lot of the illegal aliens entering the country, instead of coming here for economic reasons, they turn toward violence, they turn toward crime. And who deals with that? Your local sheriff and your local chief of police. And I think the legislators and policy makers we talked to are finally realizing that.”

Jernigan complimented the attention paid the border by all of the legislators he and the border sheriffs visited.

“And all of the legislators seemed to agree that these are not partisan issues, they are really red, white and blue issues,” he said.

http://www.delrionewsherald.com/story.l ... f905c52e90

“Previously when we’d go to D.C., we’d get a short period of time. It seemed like we’d get five minutes, but this time each of the legislators we visited, wanted to hear our story, finally. . .They were asking a lot more questions and they were telling us that they were going to craft legislation to fund additional ‘boots on the ground’ along the southwest border.”

Since we started kicking these legislators in their collective butts their ears have perked up.