Politics

Josh Gottheimer Says He’ll Listen To Border Experts About Fencing But Won’t Embrace A Wall

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Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey said he’ll continue to listen to border experts about possible security measures, so long as they don’t include a concrete wall.

Gottheimer appeared on “Fox & Friends” Monday to discuss his plans for added border security, but said he didn’t deem the wall to be part of his “tough borders” strategy.

“I’m hoping in the end we actually find a path forward where we can have tough borders, which I believe in, but do it the way that I think is the way that I’ve heard from the experts, which is you really need several approaches to this — everything from sensors to evidence-based fencing,” he said. “There’s a lot of approaches here and the question is what’s that look like and how do we keep the government open?”

Co-host Steve Doocy pressed Gottheimer about deferring to experts and asked why he’d disregard border specialists who claim the wall works.

“When you were on with us last time you, Josh, you were talking about how you want to hear from the experts and we just had an expert on. Tom Homan says walls work. So is that part of your tough barrier?” Doocy asked.

“What I heard and I’ve been working on this for months now, this goes back to last Congress where many of us found a bipartisan agreement here — what I heard from experts was … a big, concrete white thing is not actually going to make, actually solve the problem,” Gottheimer replied. “In fact it could cause more problems, but there are other solutions that might work.”

“My feeling is you listen to the experts. You make sure that it’s cost effective, because we always spend our taxpayer dollars wisely,” he continued. “And I think it takes a lot of pieces like sensors, like drones — making sure you actually have more officers at the border and then evidence-based fencing where they tell us this will actually makes sense and actually make us safer.”

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