Politics

Texas Monthly Talks

Last month, Congressman Reyes sat down with Evan Smith, the editor of Texas Monthly magazine to tape an episode of Texas Monthly Talks, the magazine’s weekly television show that airs on PBS across the state. As you can see from Smith’s introduction of their show, which was posted on their website, their conversation ranged from immigration to the issues Congressman Reyes deals with as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Excerpts from Smith's introduction:

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 that story. For more than twenty-six years, Silvestre Reyes worked for the U.S. Border Patrol...

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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 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 is more than capable of providing it.

The show aired on Sunday, December 8 on KCOS in El Paso. If you missed it, you can watch it online on the KLRU website: http://www.klru.org/texasmonthlytalks/archives/reyes/intro.asp

Full post as published by Silvestre Reyes Blog on December 18, 2007 (boomark / email).