The chairman of the House Homeland Security committee said Tuesday in South Texas that the U.S. Border Patrol’s resources in the area are “woefully inadequate.”

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, made the comments after cruising the Rio Grande with Border Patrol and Texas Department of Public Safety officials in Mission.

McCaul’s House bill calling for a plan to secure the border is expected to be the first of several immigration-related bills taken up after the chamber’s August recess. McCaul is also leading a group of congressmen along the border, stopping this weekend in California and Arizona. Accompanying McCaul on Tuesday were U.S. Reps. Kevin Yoder, R-Kansas, and Leonard Lance, R-New Jersey.

The stakes of immigration reform were made evident to the group when they encountered a body floating in the Rio Grande on Tuesday.

“My colleagues and I saw firsthand the tragedies of this border and the loss of life when we saw a body floating just a few minutes ago on this river,” McCaul said. “And that is a sad fact of this border.”

Border Patrol spokesman Daniel Tirado said the body was recovered later by the Mission Fire Department.

McCaul’s bill is a stark contrast to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate. The House has rejected that and is instead taking up individual components that so far do not include a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.

His measure describes a list of metrics that homeland security officials would have to report to Congress, which would be used to determine what sort of resources work and what is needed where.

“In this sector, it’s woefully inadequate,” McCaul said. “This sector probably needs more resources than any on the U.S.-Mexico border.”

McCaul said Tuesday that he expects his bill to be the first the full House takes up.

via House panel’s GOP members tour Texas-Mexico border – Houston Chronicle.