For this episode of Talk at Ten, we're joined by U.S. Congressional District 23 Rep. Will Hurd, (R) San Antonio.
Hurd beat the incumbent U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine last year to win District 23, which stretches from the eastside of El Paso to Bexar County and includes about 800 miles of the border and all or part of 29 counties.
In the conversation, he discusses how his worldview has been shaped by his CIA experience, the increasingly connected issues of immigration reform and funding for security on the U.S.-Mexico border, and how the United States Congress should respond to President Obama's request to aggressively counter the rise of Islamic State of Syria and Iraq known as ISIS.
Hurd is a San Antonio native and he is the only former CIA agent in Congress. He lost a 2010 GOP primary bid for the 23rd District seat but this year defeated former U.S. Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco in the Republican primary before besting Peter Gallego by 2,465 votes.
He formerly served as a senior advisor at cyber-security firm FusionX, and, before that, he worked as an undercover officer at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nine years, where he was focused on counterterrorism and cyber-security in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
He heads a newly-formed House Information Technology Subcommittee. He’s also a newly-minted member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
