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Welcome back, everybody. We're going to talk about border security today. We're going to talk about the crisis on the border that this administration refuses to acknowledge is a crisis. I'm going to have my friend on Mark Morgan forming acting commissioner of CBP 2019 to write till the end of the Trump administration. Mark, thanks so much for being on.

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. It's a very critical topic for our country. Mark. I was just down at the border this weekend. You know, it's especially in Star County, the Rio Grande Valley area being hit especially hard right now. They're worried this is going to quickly spread to the rest of the southern border as well. You know, from from your view and from your contacts, I'm sure you still got a lot of friends in the Border Patrol.

What are you seeing? And let's start with the 30000 foot view.

Yeah. So first of all, it's a crisis. Let's go back to former Secretary Johnson. I was chief of the Border Patrol at that time, working under Johnson, and he said a thousand was a bad day, trust me, and a thousand apprehensions was a bad day. And we're looking right now at between four thousand five hundred to five thousand a day. I know we're really focused on unaccompanied minors and those numbers have skyrocketed as well. But some of the overall numbers you're going to see in February when they finally allow CBP to release the numbers is in excess of one hundred thousand people that were apprehended, tried to illegally enter the country at 6000 in custody.

Just real quick in perspective, in twenty twenty, we have less than five hundred an hour in detention. Now they're at six thousand over three thousand. Almost half of those are unaccompanied minors. That's what we have on the border. And it's overwhelmed and just like happened in twenty nineteen. So we got a handle on it. As predicted, HHS, who takes the unaccompanied children, they're already overwhelmed their backlog. And so now the children are studying the Border Patrol officials where they shouldn't belong well in excess of 80 hours.

I can't keep going on right. I mean, it's a measure of success. It's a crisis.

Yeah, it's a crisis. There's too many people. Look, I mean, everybody wants to overcomplicated. Sometimes the simplest way to to talk about this is there's too many people coming across a border like like if if there was too many people coming through customs at an airport, you you would be overwhelmed. And, you know, and if some of those people weren't even supposed to be there, that in other passports, I mean, where would you put them?

There's not enough officers. Like if there's thousands and thousands, you know, I mean, it's it's common sense.

There's too many people. We will never be able to handle it correctly. The Biden administration's learning that now. Right. It was easy to cast stones at the Trump administration when when, you know, you had to build these extra structures, put to put, you know, put kids in holding facilities and, you know, so-called you know, it my question is like, well, what else is the alternative? You're either you either just let them go.

Do you want are you going to pay for their hotel room? Would you want hard sided structures instead of cage like structures where there's no airflow and you can't see if somebody is getting hurt or assaulted? You know, the conversations, utterly ridiculous. But let's go back to, you know, maybe some history lessons for people.

We we covered this a lot two years ago. I think most people have forgotten, haven't done a border security podcast in a while.

Um, so let's walk through what caused the crisis two years ago, what caused the initial crisis in twenty fourteen? I mean, before that, look, we'd always had open borders. It was frustrating, but it really got bad in twenty fourteen. It really got to an unsustainable number in twenty fourteen. So, so help us in layman's terms understand why all that happens.

Yeah, that's a good question. And I think it's important for the American people to have that kind of history in twenty fourteen doca. It's that simple. And I still believe Doc was was unlawful. Unconstitutional. That's what started the crisis, the first wave of unaccompanied children because with DOCA, the Dreamers. Now if you came, you were it was an incentive, right, to come here illegally and then you were going to be allowed to stay. And then and then a couple of things happened.

Right. The Flores settlement agreement we call the FISA judge. Gee, this is very, very important because on top of DOCA, then we have the TVPA, which is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which basically says that that if you're an unaccompanied minor from from a non contiguous country, i.e. outside Mexico or Canada and you come here, we have to keep you. If you're from Mexico or Canada, we send you back. So both of those things started to coalesce in 14 and 15.

And so we started to see this this wave of the unaccompanied minors come in and then for settlement to came here. And that's where they said that we cannot keep unaccompanied children for more than 20 days. It's impossible to get through the immigration process in 20 days. So that meant if you were unaccompanied minor, you were in three. Never be heard from again. First wait, then the floor settlement agreement was reinterpreted in fifteen sixteen to also apply to families.

So now so then we saw the unaccompanied minors start to go down because now they didn't. They need to come across. By themselves, they could just form a family and now they were let in again, according to the settlement agreement. We could not keep children or families for more than 20 days. That meant that they were released. And by 2019, fast forward. That's where we were at. That was the genesis of the crisis. So it's not just about the numbers, because a lot of people will go back to the late 90s early to say, oh, we had well over a million at that time.

Well, first of all, almost 98 percent were single adult males, most of them Mexican citizens. And we were able to remove them quickly by 2019 because of what had transpired over the previous few years. We were seeing families and unaccompanied minors. So that demographic, our system was not designed for that. Our system was designed for single males. And that really what led to the crisis.

Right. And that's the thing people need to understand. You could have one hundred thousand crossings in a day. If they're all single adult males, most of them will pretty much get removed. There's a process for that. But if they're all kids, it's an entirely different story. And the and the cat's out of the bag. Right? They know how to leverage our immigration system. They know what the Flores settlement is. They know exactly what is allowed and what isn't allowed.

And if they don't know, then drug cartels will tell them.

Right. We got the right to use social media and actually spread the word. Acosta, you're spot on, that's another I'm really frustrated right now, this administration, because not only do I feel they're spending an intentionally misleading in some cases are blatantly lied to the finances of this country, but you're you're spot on and that's why they're holding out pretty. Please don't come yet. It's just a joke and it's absurd. The cartels and smugglers, they put them back in business.

Look, with the rhetoric during the campaign, they already started kind of convincing the immigrants to come and coaching them. And now, you know, once he won the election and then obviously he started to remove all the policies, you know, after he took over, Biden took over. Of course, they're using that to exploit the migrants, exploit our loopholes, and they're not stopping because their business is back on. It's a booming business for the smugglers right now.

And they're laughing all the way to the bank as their bank accounts are being filled on the backs of the migrants and at the cost of our national economic security, in my opinion.

So I'm sure you're familiar with this part of the border, the Salinas crossing. It's in Roma and Starr County, Texas. And we were there and I was looking over this bluff at the the Mexican town just across the way, or I'm told that two rival drug cartels are constantly battling each other. You can you can hear automatic weapons fire going off every once in a while. And they're battling for the spot because it's very lucrative. It's very lucrative crossing area and about for about three hundred dollars per person.

They call it a piece. So it's just a you know, it's a it's a fair that you have to pay the drug cartels in order to be allowed to get on that raft and come across. And after about six, seven p.m..

You'll see dozens of rafts coming across all throughout the night. I was there this past weekend and they told me as soon as I left, they had about nine rafts almost right away. It was they apprehended about 50 something people right away within a couple hours of me leaving them. It just starts right away.

And this is a zero risk to the drug cartels. It's almost better than smuggling drugs in some ways.

Well, in a couple of ways. Right. For one reason, because it distracts border patrol. So then they can smuggle the actual drugs they want to. And the second reason it's zero risk, right? They just the drug cartels just stay on the other side. They have zero chance of getting caught. All they have to do charge that piece of and tell tell anybody who is crossing on that raft to walk in this case, what is about 50 to 100 meters to where Border Patrol basically just waits every night and starts processing people.

But, you know, if they don't get to do when they're processing, people actually patrol the border.

Everything you just said is absolutely spot on every word. I can't add anything to I could have said it better. And one of the issues there is because you've been to the border, you've watched you're talking to border patrol, you're actually seeing the reality.

Well, maybe I can answer. Maybe you can add something to it. How does this demoralize our Border Patrol agents? I mean, why are they even bothering? Honestly, why bother?

That's exactly right. And this is a horrible part because what you saw in two thousand and ninety was we had a capacity of about four to five thousand and we had twenty thousand at one time. You know, these these Border Patrol agents, their mothers, their fathers, who they see these kids coming across and they know they know it was our laws, the loopholes, our laws that we're incentivizing and encouraging these individuals to risk their lives. You're right.

I keep saying the cartels treat these migrants like pieces of garbage. They couldn't care less. In fact, they're changing their tactics. They'll tell somebody, hey, you know what? We'll give you a three for what it will be, but we'll give you three attempts because. Because they're locking the border down tighter. I mean, they change and adapt. Again, it's all about making money. But the Border Patrol agents, they're demoralized right now.

I just got an email from a long time Border Patrol agent who said, hey, sure, look, there's a lot of people that are getting ready to retire, even though they're not mandatory because they know what's coming. Look, 6000 in custody, again, 20, 20 at one point five hundred and three thousand of them are unaccompanied minors. These are deplorable conditions. This should not be happening, especially in the middle of coping. And this is all prevented.

Look, I don't want to keep former President Trump, but at CPAC, he was right. He was actually right when he said this was a self-inflicted wound on her right now. Right. I mean, why we're still trying to get kids back to school and businesses open and people back to work, and now's the time you're going to open the borders.

So let's talk about what president let's talk policy now, what President Trump did, because, look, this crisis happened under his watch, too. But then it happened. It improved to an enormous extent. So what was going on? I mean. Well, we've already kind of gone over why it happened in twenty nineteen, basically the same situation we have now.

But then Trump fixed it.

I mean, migrant protection protocols remain in Mexico. Policy wasn't around back then. Our agreements with the Northern Triangle countries weren't around back then. Explain what those are, why they're so effective and and what Title 42 is also and explain why we basically did get control of the border over the last two years.

So three things essential prior to Koven and then after Kopitar forty two. I'll talk about two of your policies. And then one though was unprecedented cooperation with our partners. So let's talk about the migrant protection protocols for the remain in Mexico as the media refers to it. That was the single handed, most effective game changing policy because one of the biggest incentives by 2019 that that look and this is not a right or left thing, it's just the truth is that the Trump President Trump inherited this broken immigration system by 2019.

It was at its height. If you grabbed a kid that was your ticket in the United States. It was that simple. It was not complicated. We had we had kids being bought, sold and rented. We've talked about that before. Again, 2019. Gabi, kid, you're in. So with the Migrant Protection Protocol, did was it removed that incentive? So instead of being released in the United States, as we were mandated under the settlement agreement, the MPP allowed us to remove the individuals to Mexico while they still wait and receive the most high level of due process that any country in the face of the planet gives somebody that's illegally entering their borders.

So they were still going the due process. But what we were taking away was their their goal to be released into the United States, that possibly single handedly what led to the end of catch and release. So the other thing.

Yeah, let's stick to that one for just a second. You know, I've heard that only about 10 percent of people who apply for asylum actually end up meeting the asylum requirement.

And that's a long process in and of itself. So, you know, it seems to me that once you get a feeling for for what you have to say to claim asylum, everybody's just going to say it. All right. And that's exactly what happens.

That's exactly right. In fact, Border 12 recovered like little cue cards, like I used to use this study for tests in college. Right. That actually told them what to say to get past the credible fear, the initial credible fear standard, which is no standard all which is another thing I've been asking Congress to fix. You're exactly right. They come in, they say literally the magic words. They can read it from a card boom. They're entered into the system.

And here's what's important. There's a combination because on the on the open border, up the Democratic side, they like to twist this around when we say. About 10 percent are really valid. There's important double impact here. Look, they either once they're released into the United States, they either don't show up at all for the hearings. Are those that do once they receive a final or removal, they don't comply with exactly on that.

And that's because you hear this. Can we debunk this statistic real quick? I think I know what the debunk is, but I want to run it by you. You probably heard it before. Democrats will always say, like over 90 percent of people show up for their hearings. You know, it's just not true that they just come back. So I believe they're referring to a very specific pilot study.

Right? Well, there's two things. So they're referred to a DOJ pilot study where they put families at the front of the line that entered at a certain point. Right. But here's here's where they're absolutely, in my opinion, intentionally misleading.

And I think, though, that say on to it's a pilot study where they're literally being tracked. Exactly.

Yeah. And that's a joke, too, because as soon as they get a final order removed, they cut them off. Right. So so they call 8D alternatives to detention. Does it work at a joke? So what what they mean is what happens is there is a good a segment that show up for their initial hearing. Yeah. That's important. Their initial hearing and that's the stat that they're using. They're intentionally misleading the American people because then after that initial hearing, they either don't show up for the remaining hearing and they get an order removal in absentia or the very few that continue through the whole process.

Again, once they get a final order, they don't comply. So that's where we get that, that once you illegally enter 90 percent, stay in the country illegally. OK.

Yeah, I just wanted to hammer that one home because, look, we get so many sort of false claims. And I think Democrats have this idea that if if there's a caravan of people coming, then they must have an asylum claim. And you're like, it's really the opposite. Frankly, if you have an organized caravan, it should be pretty obvious that asylum claims are are are.

Are pretty obviously not what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know, they're not true.

So here's a really important part of it. Again, fact look, we interview all of them, and it's clear from their own words, the majority of we're coming for two major reasons. One, to get a job and to reunite with family that's already here illegally. And that's just the truth. And the Democrats, they constantly lie about it and it doesn't make them bad.

People like the people coming.

Right. That's you know, and I think this was the wrong with Republican messaging for over for a short period of time. These aren't bad people necessarily, but they are cutting the line. You know who else isn't bad people, other legal immigrants to do it the right way? I mean, you know, there's a moral there's a moral case to be made here. And also, the other thing I get frustrated about, about the asylum process is, look, there's a there's a there's a geographic advantage that is very unfair to the rest of the world.

Right. Our asylum process is meant for true persecuted individuals everywhere, not just south of our border. And that system is completely clogged up by people falsely claiming to to be eligible for asylum. All right.

You have to. But I interrupted that. I thought on what Trump did you.

Yeah. So three things. The one we covered MPP. The other was the ACA Asylum Quapaw agreement, because here was another big loophole. Our system was forum shopping, if you think about it, the international standard comforting, you know, because I've heard you talk and you get this is that you should seek and we should encourage people that have valid asylum claims to seek relief and assisted in the first country. They can't.

That just makes sense as use common sense.

If it is valid, it would make sense. And it was a valid claim. You would go because you would be running away.

You would go to the first U.S. consulate or embassy that you could find because it's that dangerous. I mean, correct.

Correct. And that and that's what we should be encouraging. We should be encouraging those that have a valid asylum claim to seek relief and assistance in the first safe third country. That can't that was the genesis of the act, because what we saw, because we know the majority claims are false and therefore I'm shopping with the ultimate goal is to get the United States to get a job. The ACA stopped that. We had MPP on top of the ACA.

It was extremely effective.

DACA did we have American resources in like Guatemala, Honduras? Did we have American resources down there like immigration judge, or was that an idea that at least came up or that we could be great if we could adjudicate those claims right then in there?

Yes.

So it's funny I said so let me get to that. But first, put the resources. So we did have resources there for for advice and counseling and guidance. We help them set up their system. Absolutely. And now that wasn't just DHS. That was really a whole the government, of course, Department of State, USAID, I mean, just a lot of agencies that were embedded in the Northern Triangle countries that really, truly that part was a fairly effective whole government approach to really system to get them set up to be able to support the ACA.

But to your other point, though, is, yes, we were talking about that. We just couldn't quite get that across the line. Is that as hey, look, if you believe you have a valid claim, hey, go to the consulate right there in your home country, make the application right there immediately and have adjudicated. That's something we were working towards. I think that's a healthy, viable solution. Yeah, I'd be so good.

Yeah, a good investment. So was the third thing.

So so we had an ACA and by February twenty twenty the flow had been reduced by seventy five percent. But here's another important, the third element code. Right. There's a lot more other stuff but these are the key ones is the truly and I've said this a lot, is the unprecedented cooperation with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries. First of all, those acres never, never in the history. And we had agreements like that. At the same time, we're down there helping with their infrastructure.

Right, to help the flow of goods in and out of the port. We're helping beef up their national security within their country. And then let's move to Mexico again, unprecedented cooperation with Mexico. We saw at one point over twenty five thousand, you know, law enforcement and military personnel that were dispatched to handle the illegal immigration crisis. They beefed up their interior security and they beefed up their southern border security. All of that combined. We really were attacking this for the first time ever as a regional crisis that it was and it was effective then just one once.

That was so many, but one step in twenty nineteen. At the height, we were seeing 40 to 50 large groups, 40 to 50. I think it'll pass pass one was a thousand. A single care about a thousand in twenty two one zero zero. Wow. Really.

Right now. And now. Under the bind, they've already I think I stopped the last count, it was like 15, 16 large groups of one hundred or more. They've already experienced in the last six, six, seven weeks.

And part of that is covid title forty two. I want to spend a lot of time on title forty two because it's a temporary, you know, just short time. But it gave us a lot of ability to just turn people back because of covid restrictions. That's what Title 42 is, right?

It is. But here's here's here's what's important right now, though, right. And what it shows hypocrisy. Two shows that I believe that the press secretary continues to lead the American people. Here's the hypocrisy part of forty to. So they've ended the reign in Mexico in large part because they said it's inhumane to send people back to Mexico that better applied for asylum. But yet, Congressman, that's exactly what they're doing under Title 42. That's the dirty little secret, right?

Yeah. So so if if it's under the known remain in Mexico policy, it's not good to send it back to Mexico, but if it's under forty two, it's OK to send it back to Mexico, including families.

So that's I mean, that's the thing about a decent, dishonest arguments. It's easy to find contradictions.

So but it's also important to distinguish for people the difference between there's effectively two types of illegal immigration.

There's sort of your economic migrants. And again, in many cases, if they have a kid with them, they just turn themselves in because they know that.

I mean, going up to Border Patrol is like literally part of their journey is if we tried to ignore them and said, I don't see you, I don't know that you're an illegal immigrant, go right ahead.

They would be like, no, no, no, I need to come through you. I need to turn myself in, because how else am I going to get a bus ticket and how we're going to get some food and some water cleaned up?

You know, we've we've I've heard from somebody.

Border agents. Yeah. They took an Uber here. They took an Uber to the border station to turn themselves in because it's actually become part of their process.

So there's that kind of migrant. Now, single adults in that situation actually are trying to get away because they think they can they rightfully think they'll probably be deported right away.

But then there's the other side of it, which is the real bad guys. I mean, the guys who definitely don't want to get caught, more sophisticated smuggling, drugs, smuggling, fentanyl are a horrible story that they found. Twenty pounds of fentanyl on one guy recently in south Texas. That's like enough to kill the entire country. Yeah, it's insane.

And so, you know, when it comes to that type of border security, it's it's a totally different ballgame. All right. That's where the wall comes in. That's where the technology comes in. That's where Texas DPS comes in because Border Patrol has become humanitarian processors. And now you need Texas DPS to fill the gap.

So talk to us at the wall a little bit, you know, because that there was a big subject a couple of years ago and Biden immediately paused construction when I was down there.

I see all these these half-finished border walls. I thought it was really hilarious on one particular border wall exactly where it ends and you can just walk right around it.

There's a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. It's like it's like they built irony right into the wall. It was great.

So, you know, just give us an idea of of what walls do and what they don't, you know, an honest discussion about their effectiveness. Yeah.

So so first of all, everyone a of this decentered everything you just said is completely correct. It's absolutely spot on, especially. I'll add one thing to that is that what happens to when we see that the number of unaccompanied minors and families increase again, common sense, border patrol then are are pulled off the line, what I call to do their national security job, to really do the day care providing again, we're we're in the middle of insanity because we saw the exact same in twenty nineteen.

We told the administration exactly what happened. So now there's wide swaths of the border now that are open for that criminal activity coming in. But let's let's talk about the law. So again, I think I think we also did a bad job of messaging, quite frankly, because we got brought into this trap that our borders was all about illegal immigration, about just those individuals looking for a better life. It's just not true that there is an enormous amount of people that are bad that are getting through.

I'm not saying that the families and the kids coming across are bad people. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is truth is, though, is that people criminals are making their way to our border and getting past this every single day. On the average, CBP alone apprehends a thousand gang members, just gang members. You add thousands and thousands of other people that have convictions that have been either charged or convicted of crime. Those are all facts.

It's not hyperbole. And now the wall. This is what we've said all along. Is that the wall is an integral part of the multilayered strategy of infrastructure, technology and personnel. We've never said the war was to end all the be all we've ever said. The war was the only tool. But when you apply the infrastructure, the wall is that multilayer strategy, along with personnel, along with technology. The data, historical analysis shows everywhere along the southwest border, you apply that every measure of success has improved, illegal immigration has gone down.

Drugs in that area have gone down. Upwards of criminal aliens have gone down as assaults on agents and officers have gone down. It's just the fact that we can show that. And so when you add again, if you think about it, it goes back. So much of this that Common said if you build a 30 foot tall wall, right. With with integrated lighting, access roads and technology, it's really hard. Come on. It's like it's like a parking lot carpet on a parking lot.

What are you going to do? You're going to steal a car that's locked or one that's open. Right.

And yet people climb over it or cut through it. Well, you need special equipment to cut through that thing. I'm not saying it's impossible, but, you know, in a sophisticated drug cartel can do it. But, you know, it's a lot easier if they just drive over. I mean, and then you're definitely not going to catch them. I mean, you know, with some motion sensors and some cameras, I mean, you'll get to if somebody's getting a buzz saw cutting through it, you can get to them climbing over that.

It's not that's you need special equipment to to climb over these things because they have these people have seen it. Right. There's sort of a flat area on top. You can kind of shimmy your way up. You know, we call Anticline Plate.

Yeah, I clean plate in a good spot. Look, we've always said, again, part of that multilayered strategy, but then again, of the wall itself, just the wall. We've never said it was foolproof. We said it was just what it is ineffective and it's in denial tool. So what times what it does is it's going to deter some from trying to do it and others that do it's going to slow them down enough so that we can respond.

So either it's going to stop some of the others, it's going to slow them down enough for us to get there. And look, here's here's a really measure of success. And the Democrats and open border advocates really like to use this as a negative. And I just laugh. They're like, well, you know, they're just going to fly over and go under it. Yup. That tells me the walls breaking. Work it. Yeah, that's good place.

And it takes an enormous amount of resources to do that. It's it's not some simple thing. You know, the entire point is, is mitigation just from a security standpoint and like. Well, the go around it. Right. Because you can't unless it's completely contiguous. Yeah. I get that. But that also allows Border Patrol to focus resources. That's just a tool. Right tool. This is a very, very common sense.

And one less thing on that. What you just said is spot on is that we keep trying to do this instead of right now. Where we're at is that the cartels shape our behavior with the more infrastructure and technology and personnel that we have as part of that multilayered strategy, we become offensive in nature and we get to shape their behavior. I know from the military experience you fully understand that ultimately what we wanted to do if we had the wall and that technology personnel all on Southwest border, we needed, our goal was to funnel the border to our police.

We're completely on point and have the ability to claim asylum at the actual point of entry.

Like, that's a crazy thought. And we could have, you know, a processing system there, because right now it's like, well, we have to have basically a school bus going around literally all over the border driven by our border agents. I mean, our border agents instead of national security enforcement officers are bus drivers. That's it.

That's it. And I and I can't take care providers. I still remember going to RTV, which was then and still is the epicenter. Well, I walked in there and I called the mini Cascos. Yeah. I mean, you got baby formula, baby diapers, you brand new clothes from toddler all the way to eighteen. I could go all different sizes.

Yeah. No that's true. I taught it. OK, so. So what did Biden do differently on day one he removed the remaining Mexico policy and this stuff is a little complicated. So I'm going it's going to summarizer will remain in Mexico or migrant protection protocols, the exact same thing, the cooperation agreements with the Northern Triangle countries. What this amounts to is international agreements that get our asylum processing under control. OK, that's fundamentally what we're doing with those particular policies.

They just say, look, just because you show up and read from a cue card doesn't mean you have an asylum case. All right. We want to encourage you to to either do it in your own country or, hey, that's fine.

You claim asylum, wait here in a safe area while we adjudicate it. Now, when people hear that, they're like, wait, wait, wait. I don't just get released into the country. Well, there's a disincentive to come in. If there's an open invitation, says, OK, not only yeah, if you just read from the cue card, come right in, get released into the interior. Here's your bus ticket. Here's a covid test.

That's a whole other problem, by the way. Hundreds of covid positive people being put on buses and. I don't know where they want, but huge incentive to come in, as long as you have a kid with you, you will be good.

OK, so Biden ripped up these international agreements. Not only that, he paused deportations. I want you to talk about that. And I've also he also another executive order said, hey, all of you who were remaining in Mexico and awaiting your adjudication, you basically have a visa now.

That's exactly what he said. He said you can now a way inside the United States that's equivalent to a visa you just gave about what I believe is about 30000 people.

I've been told we don't have an exact number.

They're. A a visa to cut the line in front of literally everybody else. Why? Because you dared to cross our border illegally. This is so immoral and unfair to legal immigrants who wait years to get visas.

But again, everything you said, I could have said it better myself. I'll go somewhere. I believe it's unconstitutional. I think it's counter to the Oval Office for this president to protect our borders and secure this country. It's unconscionable. So many levels. But you're right. I'll going to step further. And not only did they stop new enrollees in NPP, but then they're given visas. I think I'm going to use that from now on. I think that's correct.

Correct way to put it. Visas to those that were already rolled. And they're going to go one step further. There have been conversations about actually directing DHS to go and find people in their home country that were previously were removed under MPP and bring them back. It's absolutely absurd.

It's like it's like they feel like they owe them something.

It's absurd for violating the law. I mean, for me, look, I've been to law enforcement 30 years, so talk about just kind of ingrained and kind of common sense for me is it's about the rule of law. We have borders for a reason. We're a sovereign nation for a reason. We have laws for reason. I would think we should all as a country who cares whether you're right or left? It doesn't matter. We should all be unified in the basic fundamentals of a successful, civilized society, and that is getting behind the rule of law.

And we're encouraging, incentivizing, facilitating people to break that now every single day. But here's what's important. So that's what's happening on the front end. What I've been saying now is, is we basically created reception centers on the front end. And then they know. They know, as we talked before, the majority either don't show up for their parents or when they get a court order removed, they don't comply. Here's what's important, though. So what are they doing on the back end?

Through White House directed DHS guidance, they've removed 90 percent of ISIS enforcement authority. So so today, the very people that they're letting in, they know we're going to show up and then the back end, the preventing ice from deporting them. So we've created reception centers on the front end and a sanctuary country on the back end. That's where we're at. Right.

You go into a little bit more detail on that, on the pause on deportations and what ice can and can't do and how that's different from a few months ago. So I mean, to try to walk through how it's different, we don't have enough time, every fathomable way, it's different. And here's what I'll say. And this is not hyperbole. A lot of people want to dismiss it as but this is not it's in their memo that they bought it out.

And let us try to make it simple, like, look, unless you're known or suspected terrorists or convicted, convicted, aggravated felon, you are basically off limits for ice. And then they threw in.

And if you're convicted, shouldn't you already be in jail anyway?

It's like, so so that's that's key. That's right. That's very important. So I just talked to a bunch of sheriffs a couple of weeks ago, and so we were talking back and forth. There's this program called 287 G. Which which allows sheriff's departments to to work with ICE to facilitate if they if they apprehend an illegal alien for a crime they call ICE and they work together. Wow. Imagine that law enforcement agencies work together to enforce our laws.

But here's what's happening. Sheriff's department. Now, look, I could give you a thousand examples, and this is not hyperbole. They arrest a known gang member, a known gang member who who they discover is an illegal alien. In fact, they discover that that he has multiple illegal entries back and forth and they've arrested him and charged him with burglary from a motor vehicle they call ice up and say, we have a known gang member has multiple entries.

We just arrested him for burglary from a motor vehicle. You know what ICE tells him? No, sorry. Not a priority. Go ahead and release him back to your community. That's right.

That's insane. Like, I know I'm going to Texas DPS. I mean, they can only enforce when somebody breaks a Texas state law. I ask them if we'd ever consider just passing a Texas state law that says it's illegal to cross our border, the southern border.

You know, I think that would probably pass the constitutional test to something.

Think about all I'm going to text Governor Abbott about this along those lines, because you see to the states or the last line of defense now, clearly, and Texas seems the only one taking it seriously right now, the crisis is in Texas.

Frankly, it's worth noting, one of the reasons for that is the the Mexican state right across the Rio Grande Valley has now refused to take back any immigrants under title forty two. So that's not that's not the entire country of Mexico. That's just one locality. That's why they're there, frankly, seeing a crisis.

You know, that word gets out, but that's going to grow, right. It already started to grow because because the sheer volume Mexico is tapping out saying we don't have the resources to do this. So and Tamaulipas area, you know, families with teenage kids, they're like, well, I'm out. That's why today this is the press secretary said today that all we're still what was the phrase? We're still returning the majority people. What a total spent.

First of all, since January, they've released eleven thousand illegal aliens to local shelters and bus stations along the southwest border. Eleven thousand. And to say the majority. Yeah, it's a barely now because they're up to about if I'm doing my math right. About thirty five. Forty percent now of individuals that are counting, they're actually bringing into their facilities and the majority of those are unaccompanied minors and families, which they are really. So just another spin, another series of misinformation they're trying to give the American people.

And look, here's another key. These are my words. These aren't your words, but these are my word. I'm and also what they're trying to do right now is a cover up. So so what they're trying to do is not just let Border Patrol release the illegal aliens right at bus stations and shelter right at the border. Now, they're they're actually getting ICE to be part of this, to bust them into the interior. United States in the interior of Texas.

I've heard Chicago is a place now that they're actually going to bust these individuals to to relieve the pressure along the southwest border to make it not look like the magnitude of the crisis that it is by doing that. And FEMA actually directed FEMA right now to give millions of dollars to nongovernmental organizations, NGOs to actually help facilitate buses, individuals into the entire United States.

Right. That's not that's not going to Americans who need it. And, you know, these communities are getting hit hard. I was asking about how it's affecting communities down at the border. They're telling me, look, we've had six hundred pursuits. That's 600. That's just for illegal immigrants. That's car chases. That's dangerous to the community.

It's it overwhelms hospital systems, especially in covid times. It's really just not fair to these communities. That's why you see Democrats, Democrat representatives on the border actually speaking out against this looking of Henry Cuellar, a lot of credit. He signed on to my bill that I have a. Introduced last night, and he's a co-sponsor to just just ask that Texas gets paid back for all the resources that we've delivered on the border over the past 10 years. It's not fair.

And I tell you, not not agree with that. But but then I know this will be very hard to is. Let's take a look at the men and women of CBP. Right. So you start filling up these facilities, you start increasing their exposure to SAKOVA, not just to the migrants themselves, but to the CBP personnel. We've already got multiple sectors that are already way beyond covid capacity levels right now, I believe by the last count was five that are well above capacity.

And now, like I said, over 6000 that are in custody right now. So now the exposure risk to those CBP or high, we've already lost twenty one CBP personnel in the line of duty because of now not being vaccinated.

Like they're not being prioritized for vaccinations either.

They're not, you know, where they're getting state, local. And so they asked them for the testing. Thank God for, you know, the warp speed vaccine process, because some of them are getting that. And I think that's probably why we're not seeing astronomical numbers of the CBP workforce continue to be infected. As you're seeing the numbers in these these open air kongregate settings being being overcrowded right now. All all preventable. All preventable.

It's very frustrating. I've got to go, unfortunately, OK, here on the Hill, we're do it or I think we're voting, we're meetings, whatever it is.

I think we covered it all, though. I mean, I think I mean, that's the basics what people need to know. All right. It's very simple. There's a crisis, No. One, and it's totally preventable. Just do what the Trump administration was doing. That was a completely humane way to deal with this. It's more common sense. You know, it's it's it's very frustrating. And I you know, we were both on Hannity last night and he didn't call me Ben this time.

So I was really excited about that last four.

I was like, Ben, I'm like, everyone's got one question.

I know it's always it's a fast show. But at last I was out there. He you bet bed. I was like a big golf fan. And so it's like it's funny. I think they cut it for the final segment.

But so anyway, the you know, he was asking he was like, do they just want more illegal immigration? I'm like, yes. I mean, I look, I didn't always believe that about Democrats. Obama deported a lot of people. He talked about the border a lot, all Democrat. I can find videos of all of them talking about how important the border is.

And and then I think meaning it to an extent. And now they don't even try.

I mean, it's just a complete flip. And I think they want more illegal immigration. I think they want to give them citizenship and vote for them.

I don't know what to think. I'll tell you, the current bill, immigration, right. Is the most radical progressive immigration bill we've ever seen. And when me think about what you just said, that at least before, at least there was some pretense to, like, secure our borders and this bill is not going to pretend they've gotten completely away from that. They have no desire to secure the border again. They want to remove the illegal part from illegal immigration.

Again, reception centres on the front in sanctuary countries on the back. And I've been doing this for 30 years. And so nothing makes sense except what you just said. They see a policy perceived political benefit either through the census or a pathway to citizenship for every illegal alien. They think it's going to be a Democrat vote. Nothing else makes sense.

It's frustrating. Mark, thank you so much for being on with talk longer, but we're going to do it again. Thanks for all you're doing. Thanks for being out there and get the truth out to people. People need to hear it and understand what's going on.

Well, thanks for having me.