Speaking to a gathering of law enforcement officials, Rick Perry stressed the need to secure the border and attacked the Obama administration for allowing Operation Fast and Furious.
He called Fast and Furious a “bureaucratic bungling” that had made guarding the border “substantially more dangerous.”
“Our own federal government provided more than 2,000 firearms to some of the most dangerous criminals in North of America, many of which are still unaccounted for,” Perry told the audience at the annual Federal Law Enforcement Foundation luncheon, held at a hotel in New York City.
“Federal law enforcement officials deserve an attorney general who displays the same courage and the sense of responsibility with which they serve,” he added. “And America deserves a president and a Congress willing to give law enforcement officials the support they need to truly secure our borders.”
Perry pledged that if elected, he would increase by thousands the number of border patrol agents on the border, and use “aviation assets” to provide real-time information to those on the ground. “We must secure that border,” he emphasized.
Perry also touted his new “Uproot and Overhaul Washington” plan, particularly its elimination of lifetime terms for Supreme Court justices and its plank to cut congressional members’ pay in half and push for a part-time Congress. “In our home state, our legislature meets for 140 days, every other year,” he argued, noting that if a nation, Texas would be the world’s 13th largest economy.