Border Patrol union weighs in on SOTU comments about the border

A major point that President Donald Trump touched on during the State of the Union address was the condition of our southern border.

President Trump claimed our southern border was dangerous alluding to facts regarding the number of people murdered by illegal immigrants and the drugs crossing into our country.

Yuma Border Patrol’s union president connected with the president’s message because he has served our frontlines for 12 years.

Mario Campos, president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 2595, explained that throughout his career he has seen the crime that President Trump described.

Campos touched on an assault against a Yuma sector agent last year.

There were a total of 847 assaults against Customs and Border Protection (CBP) law enforcement in 2017, according to CBP.

So far this last year, there have been 619 assaults against just Border Patrol agents, according to CBP.

Campos said the wall is necessary.

“There was thousands and thousands of people coming across our border here in Yuma, Arizona. In fact, Yuma was one of the, I guess you could call it, focus sectors for the Border Patrol back then because that’s one of the sectors where we had the most entries. After they put up the fence, we went from very high up on their radar as far as entries into the country through Yuma to being one of the lowest,” said Campos.

He added that the wall won’t take jobs from agents because they still need to secure our border by making sure barriers are not breached.