U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, visited the Baker Institute this week to discuss the current and potential security risks along the U.S.-Mexico border as a guest of the institute’s Homeland Security and Terrorism Program.
McCaul, serving in his eighth year on the House Committee on Homeland Security, is currently chairman of the Oversight, Investigations and Management Subcommittee, which has oversight of all Department of Homeland Security operations. He has chaired numerous hearings on the operational presence of Mexican drug cartels in the United States and the threat they pose to civilians and law enforcement. Other hearings have focused on terrorist safe havens and the threat of Iranian terror operations inside the United States.
His remarks on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2012, addressed the increasing violence in Mexico and the human toll.
“Since 2006, since (Mexico’s) President Calderón declared war … against these drug cartels, 50,000 Mexicans have been killed,” he said. “That’s more than Americans that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.”
McCaul also talked about the upcoming presidential elections in Mexico and U.S. policy.
The full video of the congressman’s remarks follows.