South Texas lawmakers emphatically told the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee what the Trump Administration can do with its proposed border wall, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Several South Texas Sheriffs and County Judges were among the witnesses at the hearing.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino didn't mince words.
"The claims of lawlessness and rampant violence in our border communities is just wrong, and nothing more than an attempt to paint it as something that it's not," Trevino said. "In order to support the misguided rhetoric against the border communities, Mexico and it's people, and the immigrant, both legal and undocumented."
Rio Grande Valley residents have long told of getting e-mails and phone calls from friends and relatives asking about reports of illegal immigrants 'rampaging through the streets.'
Several border cities repeatedly release statistics showing that communities like Brownsville, Laredo, and El Paso, are among the safest in the USA.
U.S. Rep Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) repeatedly issues news releases pointing out that Laredo is far more safe than Washington DC.
"Utilizing a fourteenth century solution to address a 21st Century problem makes no sense," Trevino said. "Especially when it is the most expensive of all solutions."
Trevino said technology and other innovations which have proven effective guarding perimeters in much more violent places like Iraq and Afghanistan have either not been installed on the southern border, or have not been fully implemented.
Several border area officials also pointed out that the face of immigration is changing, and a wall is not going to stop immigrants who actually want to get caught.
They pointed out that the stereotype of the illegal immigrant as a 20 something Mexican man scrambling across the Rio Grande and then seeking to avoid the law while making his way to find work in San Antonio or Houston represents a very small segment of today's undocumented individuals.
They today are more likely to be families, or unaccompanied children, and are far more likely to be from Central America, the Caribbean, or Asia than from Mexico.
And rather than trying to avoid capture, many report to law enforcement immediately and surrender and then request political asylum. Rio Grande Valley officials point out individuals like this won't be deterred by a border wall, because they'll just walk across a bridge.
The Rio Grande Valley has long opposed the concept of a border wall for many other reasons.
Since the wall could not infringe on Mexican territory and could not be built in the middle of the Rio Grande, it would by necessity have to be built on the U.S. side of the River.
And where natural barriers interfere, that would mean that land owned by U.S. citizens, and even the homes of U.S. citizens, would end up on the 'other side' of the wall.Also, much border commerce depends on trade with Mexico, and there are fears that a border wall, cutting off that trade, would damage the Rio Grande Valley's already fragile economy.
IMAGE; GETTY