U.S. Representative
Silvestre Reyes
Notes from Evan Smith
"More than Iraq, more than health care, more than education, more than abortion, more than the death penality, more than tort reform, more than welfare reform, the most important issue facing our country — at least judging by the amount of attention it’s getting, and the emotional response it’s generating, and the political posturing it’s occasioning — is immigration. By some estimates, as many as twelve million people are in this country illegally, living and working and raising their families among us, so much a part of our communities that we’ve come to take it, and them, for granted. We know, because the doomsayers and demagogues tell us, that our borders are too porous, that our homeland isn’t as secure as it should be, that our American way of life is under assault. And yet there’s another side to the story, one focused on the long tradition of immigrants of all kinds coming to America in search of opportunity and contributing in so many ways to this great melting pot of ours, and on the economic development made possible by an unfettered flow of people and commerce, and this week’s guest is only too happy to tell it. For more than twenty-six years, Silvestre Reyes worked for the U.S. Border Patrol: as an agent and immigration inspector in El Paso, not far from his hometown of Canutillo, then as an instructor at the Border Patrol Academy in Dallas, then as an assistant regional commissioner in Dallas, and then as Sector Chief in McAllen and El Paso. In 1995, he was elected to represent the Sixteenth Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives — the first Hispanic to hold that seat. Following the 2006 elections, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi named Congressman Reyes the chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The 63-year-old finds himself at the epicenter of power and policy-making in Washington at at a time when experts on the thorny immigration issue are more in need than ever, and loudmouths who know nothing, of which there are many, need real schooling; in him, fortunately, we have someone who more than capable of providing it." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 12.6.07
