WASHINGTON – Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema spoke today in a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing and discussed the need to work across the aisle to address threats facing the United States and keep Arizonans safe.
“As a Senator from a border state, I know it is critical that we work together to tackle threats against the homeland and along our nation’s borders. I remain committed to working every day in bipartisan fashion to secure Arizona’s border, keep Arizonans safe and ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely,” said Sinema.
During today’s hearing, Sinema questioned officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Counterterrorism Center, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about how to secure Arizona’s ports of entry and combat transnational criminal organizations and the drug trade.
Sinema has worked across the aisle to keep Arizona safe and address ongoing challenges at the border. Sinema recently introduced the bipartisan Southwest Border Security Technology Improvement Act and helped advance it out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with bipartisan support. Sinema’s bipartisan bill, introduced with Republican Senator John Cornyn (Texas) and endorsed by endorsed by the Border Trade Alliance, NTEU, and the Border Patrol Council, requires DHS to assess technology gaps along the Southwest border, including at ports of entry, and determine how it could address them.
Last year, Sinema secured critical priorities in the bipartisan border funding bills that were signed into law, including increasing the number of immigration judges at the border, providing funding for nongovernmental organizations assisting migrants across Arizona, and improving recruitment and retention of border security personnel.
