Crisis at the Border: Immigration Policy Failures

hello and welcome to this week's edition of the texas public policy foundation's weekly live stream you know for those of us who live in texas the southern border is an institution of pride it's it's something that we have cherished for a few hundred years and probably more than most borderlands in this world folks who live in texas understand that crossing borders ought to be transparent it also ought to be legal because otherwise we encounter some difficulties like what we're seeing today those of you tuning in from outside texas might be wondering what in the world is going on with the u.s border with mexico we're going to cover that today especially given the expertise of our three guests if we haven't met i'm kevin roberts your host also executive director of the foundation you know as i woke up this morning thinking about all of the issues facing america and lord knows it's a long list the one that really is at the top of the list not just for those of us who woke up today in texas but for all of us in the united states is the absence of the rule of law the absence of a transparent immigration system especially at our southern border and so what we're going to do for you today in short order is lean on the expertise of three friends and colleagues who can assess for us very quickly also with a great depth of knowledge what's going on and what can be done to fix it and then of course as we always do we'll turn to your questions so if you came into this live stream already with a burning question on your mind you can already begin entering that question in the comments section of whatever stream you're watching this on let me introduce our guest i'll introduce all three of them and then we will turn to each of them in turn for a high level assessment of the problem that we're seeing let me first say that for those of us at the foundation and i think i could speak for almost all texans except for those on the extreme extreme left who probably don't want a solution to this problem we see the southern border that is the border we share with the nation of mexico as not just some neutral entity but as something that really informs who we are as texans who we are as americans i think we have proven for several centuries that people who look differently who go to different churches who speak different languages don't just get along but we can flourish in a civil society that starts with one thing and that is the rule of law it is therefore not just a legal problem that we have this border crisis it is a social and cultural problem that victimizes not just those of us north of the border but those of us who with good reason want to be americans i think it's incumbent upon us in fact it's a moral obligation that we have to get this right not just for us but also for them and so helping us unpack this problem and eventually by the end of today's episode get to some some solutions our three friends first of all john zadrazzi he's a fellow with the rule of law defense fund as you will learn over the next hour john has extensive experience as an attorney he served the trump administration capably as well as having had several other roles throughout his career we're real privileged to have john join us we're also joined by our friend alfonso aguilar president of the latino partnership for conservative principles and also president of the international human rights group alfonso is a longtime friend of the the foundation here and someone who is as you will soon learn articulate about solutions to this crisis and finally my very good friend and colleague former congressman john hostetler of indiana john heads up our dc operations for the texas public policy foundation so gentlemen thank all of you for joining us john zadrazni i'm going to turn to you first for this high-level question that we almost always ask our guests each week and that is give us the 30 000 foot assessment of this problem for audience members who know there's an issue but maybe haven't had a whole lot of time to delve into specifics thank you kevin very much for having me today and uh sure i'd love to um there are there are quite a few different approaches you could take for discussing this issue and there are a lot of things to cover i think the one thing i'd focus on i want people to think about it's very important is that um what we're seeing at the border is not the result of some sort of incompetence or bumbling i think this is very important for us to understand because it's not only important for us to understand what's happening but it gives you an idea of how to solve it um i think when people look at things like this they tend to think oh the bite administration is just not handling this well they're making some mistakes they don't understand what's going on this is the this is by design they are trying to encourage thousands upon thousands maybe many many more over the next few weeks and months to come here because i think the left's end goal ultimately is an amnesty and they're trying to drive people they've used excuses and they've said things like well these people are unsafe and their countries are violent and some of that doesn't stand up when you look at what some of their leaders are saying and what their leaders are trying to do um but i just think it's very important for us to keep in focus that this is something that my administration wants it wants tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of people to come here from other countries so they have a critical mass for an amnesty in the future um what to do about it it's it's very tough question that's partly why we're here today we'll be talking going forward i think one thing that is this is an opportunity for states and localities to realize that they have a tremendous amount of power here i think we have a bad habit especially as republicans of looking at government even though we all claim to be small government people we all look to washington to solve problems and that's just probably not the best solution and it's not going to do us any good for the next three and a half years so there are a lot of things based on what we've seen over the last few years that we can start looking to states and localities to try and handle and got a lot of work to do so i'll leave it at that kevin yeah thank you you've set the table well already particularly given one thing we'll focus on which is what states can do obviously we'll be encouraging texas as we already have to be even more courageous than it's been but this is something that all states on this issue really need to be thinking about but before stealing anyone's thunder let me move on to alfonso what would you add to john zadrazzini's 30 000 foot assessment of why we are where we are regarding the border crisis well first of all thank you kevin and the texas public policy foundation for for having me having us uh and leading us in this uh important discussion of such a timely issue uh the most important issue that we're facing at this time uh i agree 100 with uh what john said uh this administration is is being very cynical about how they approach uh the immigration uh just recently uh a few weeks ago in a uh a press briefing uh white house spokesperson jane sackey she loves to talk we all know that well uh she said something very remarkable she said asked about immigration that the biden's immigration agenda it's part of his uh is part of the racial equity agenda now that statement to me is quite remarkable so now we're having a shift in immigration policy where apparently immigration policy is seen as a tool of social engineering so to uh john's point i think yes they want to bring let a lot of people come in grow the population of undocumented immigrants to put pressure on congress to pass some form of legalization some form of amnesty but i think it goes beyond that it goes up it's about changing using immigration as i've said as a tool of social re-engineering um to change dramatically the demographics of the country hoping at the same time that you change the politics of the country this is very cynical but you have now the administration saying it when you think of racial equity and we know what that means in terms of their domestic agenda but in talking about immigration why would you say that immigration is part of your racial equity agenda and i think they are using this as a tool of social engineering and it's it's troublesome uh because they're not taking into account you know they keep saying that they want to make the system more moral more humanitarian but the reality is that by dismantling the common sense policies that the trump administration put forth uh to ensure border security they are fostering this corridor of criminality of illegality from central america to the southern border where people are making this very dangerous trip to the southern border uh and if you look at some of the statistics i mean there's a consensus among experts that women and and and girls are victims widely victims of uh sexual violence and there are different studies some studies show that as many as as much as 60 of children and of women and girls could be victims of sexual violence there's even one study that says that up to 80 but even if it was just 20 that's a huge number of of people being abused so they're creating this environment uh encouraging people to to uh make this trip that is very dangerous where they're risking their lives uh and there's nothing human and moral about it so if if thanks alfonzo so if if it is the case and i've got no evidence to suggest otherwise that a very high percentage of the women who are coming across are abused in every meaning of that term and as you and john zadrazney have laid out persuasively it is the intention of the administration and their allies in congress to create this crisis then the moral problem here is not on those of us who are trying to protect the rule of law it's not on those of us who are trying to protect american interests which would include immigrants coming over legally the moral problem is on those very people who are talking about america needing to be more open to the point of having open borders and i think for those of us who are frustrated by the rhetoric on this this issue especially the rhetoric coming from dc we always need to be mindful this is some advice for our audience members we always need to be mindful not to accept the narrative that the white house and the allies in congress are producing and an expert in that is someone who served several terms in congress my friend john hostetler and so john even though you've been in congress for a little while you are in dc and you still know how the game is played based on your experience as a member of the us house and based on your expertise in this policy area what's your assessment of what's going on and what would you see is at least the first or two steps towards solving well thank you kevin and with regard to my experience in washington dc i um i see a very uh common trait that's uh practiced here and that is uh blame your predecessor when things are falling apart and that's what's happening now and i'm sure i know we've heard it as we witness and observe the various uh proclamations coming from whether it's the spokesperson for the white house or the president himself blaming the trump administration for what has grown uh ever since the first half day of joe biden's presidency and but the simple fact of the matter is the reason why this is happening now is because the byte administration has changed policy from a policy that has worked as alfonso uh so uh eloquently uh said it earlier that these were working from the time that uh that the southwest border experienced some of the highest apprehensions of individuals trying to enter illegally in may of 2019 and then the trump administration putting in place uh what was referred to as the migrant protection protocols otherwise known as remain in mexico for individuals who were claiming asylum in the united states and had been coached by their smugglers and others to make it to the border and once crossing the border not flee from a border patrol officer but seek one out to make a claim for asylum once the trump administration realized uh the folks in the department of homeland security realized that this was the new uh poll as a the draw you might say to the united states the administration uh the trump administration quickly moved into the remaining mexico policy which uh in keeping with international law and and u.s statute said that if an individual had come through mexico now not a mexican citizen but if someone had come through mexico to the united states and claimed asylum then they would be returned to mexico to remain there while their asylum uh claims were being processed uh pending in the united states well as you can imagine when folks learned that they were not going to be caught and released into the interior they stopped coming to the united states in great numbers uh it was almost uh an 80 drop in apprehensions at the border once folks learned that they were not going to be caught and released and that they were going to have to wait in mexico and they also knew that their their claim would not be would not be given a positive response by the government and so they would not ultimately be permitted to stay in the united states well on the first day once again the first half day of the byte administration that his department of homeland security terminated enrollments new enrollments in that remaining mexico program and what what both uh my colleagues john alfonso have pointed out i think needs to be stressed in that if you if we don't want to believe that this is part of some organized plan and and i'm uh i don't believe that that's not the case if i can use the double negative but if you want to if you want to believe that you you must understand that this was known literally from the very outset the same statement that the department of homeland security issued under the new biden administration on january 20th on inauguration day included this note and i have to i have to read it uh so that you'll understand quote individuals outside of the united states will not be eligible for legal status under the bill president biden sent to congress today he actually didn't send it that day he sent it several weeks later but it's here he said the legalization provisions in that bill apply only to people already living in the united states end quote so from the very first half day of the biden administration they knew that these changes in policy would draw great numbers to the border and numbers that we now understand are likely to be unprecedented in magnitude uh thanks john hostetler for that wonderful assessment in fact you you you provided the best segue as you often do for me into where i wanted to go with the next round of questions for the three year that's about numbers i i think that i can speak for a lot of people who are observing the news on this issue that it's it's relatively easy to get lost in the numbers so i'm going to ask each of you for a different aspect on the numbers and john zadrazzi i'm going to come to you first for some overall numbers but let me just say that a and media outlet axios.com not known for being conservative has begun in the last few days to be softly critical of what they are observing to be i don't think they use the word hypocrisy but some different statements some conflicting statements about the biden administration regarding the border crisis one example before i turn to you john zdrazny and that is looking at the numbers of unaccompanied children crossing the border the record in one month up until this year was 11 475 unaccompanied children in may of 2019. we're now expecting those numbers to be more than twice that perhaps by september of 2021 as high as 26 000. the biden administration's been all over the map in projecting those numbers and so with that framing john des rosney i want to ask you what are the overall numbers of illegal immigrants that we can expect to be crossing the border between now and the end of the summer yeah that's a great question uh the in terms of exact numbers i think we're going to see we already have seen an unprecedented volume i think it's a testament to how subtle things can drive population movement i remember in the beginning of the trump administration when the president's rhetoric on the campaign trail leading up to his election and then up to inauguration the border was super quiet um and so it took a couple months and there were because we were having trouble getting some things rolling then the numbers started to tick up and then they got pretty high and then we had to swing into action and the numbers went down again um this is a short way of describing how like just the subtlest things can drive those numbers up um what you mentioned i just wanna the uac issue is very important and i wanted to talk about this because we worked on this in the last year and we ran into some major problems with it um i can tell the viewers that um until we really were able to dig into this in 2020 uh the agency that was responsible for making sure that uacs were taking unaccompanied alien children were taken care of it was very apparent to us uh that there was no interest in this these children's safety um i'm not 100 prepared to say that people were okay with human trafficking but the net result of it was that we were essentially with federal resources by the way the federal resources were being used to place children with people of questionable backgrounds and we were trying our damnedest to prevent that from happening and we made some success i'm sure the buy administration has unraveled it pretty much entirely but um we were literally having bureaucrats tell us uh well it's not really we can't ask too many questions about these people's background or fitness to be sponsors because that'll slow down their release time and when you got into it really what you figured out was what really mattered to the bureaucrats was uh how quickly you can get a kid out the door yep um it was it was tragic in the sense that we know from working with ice and a couple of other agencies that thousands of children disappeared they flat out disappeared um so while i'm not 100 comfortable saying that like everyone in the federal bureaucracy who worked on this issue was okay with human trafficking you do the math there was no interest in asking important questions about who was receiving these children and every time you did you got pushed back on money um the other one other thing kevin i don't want to want it too far but it's important in the uac population this would be a big enough problem if we just had actual honest-to-god innocent children for whom we needed to care the problem is that we we are being played by ms-13 and other transnational gangs ms-13 has mastered they figured out that they can walk up to a border patrol agent or an ofo officer at a port of entry and say uh i'm 17 and i'm unaccompanied minor now with all due respect to the vast majority of border patrol agents and ofo agents um dhs essentially told them to do very little due diligence so in other words if someone walks up to you and they've got 25 tattoos on their face and a 5 o'clock shadow when they say i'm a 17 year old uac dhs had previously instructed them just send them to orr now that's a problem even if they're miners which means we're sending minor ms-13 members into facilities you can handle that with segregation and law enforcement involvement we were sent they were sending adults and when you tried to ask questions about this dhs said well it's not our job we just we give them the orr we have to get rid of them so not only do you have like thousands of children possibly being deposited into the hands of traffickers because of lack enforcement but you literally also have ms-13 gang members on federal dime having a year plus to eat he housed recruit other kids who weren't in gangs in the first place and then be released into the general population um so i fear when we're talking about uac numbers skyrocketing at one point believe it or not last year we had that number under a thousand and people were actually upset because they were concerned that we were we were there were too few people in custody as if that was a problem that just meant we were actually doing our job um now it's the opposite now you're going to have tens of thousands of kids being handed to god knows who um it's a big problem no it's it's i mentioned to several friends over the weekend who are calling or texting and asking kevin given the research of the scholars and friends like y'all outside tbpf what what's what's the scale of this i said it's actually impossible to comprehend and and part of it is just the difficulty of getting numbers but also it's we wouldn't want to be engaged in hyperbole anyway because we're dealing with human lives south and north of the border but it's almost impossible to exaggerate the scope and scale of what's happening at the southern border just ask elected officials of both political parties in cities and counties along the border and for that matter in dallas where we're beginning to house some of these teenage boys so we're going to turn audience questions momentarily if you're in the audience viewing this you have a question go ahead and post that we'll get to it shortly but first i want to pitch a similar question to you alfonzo and the new john hostetler about the overall numbers do we have any sense alfonso of once we get to the end of september say of this year of how many people of any age will have been able to cross the border well yes uh by the own admission of the secretary of homeland security alejandro majorcas if migration levels continue as they are right now at this space we may end up this year with the largest number of people arriving at the border uh in over 20 years so and this is something important to to look at because uh we heard the other day the president at his press conference say that he's not responsible for this that these are flows that happen naturally they've been happening for the past years now there's some truth to that uh i mean president trump faced uh a surge in 2019 now i would argue that that that surge was encouraged by smugglers and even non-profits encouraging migrants to go to the southern border and ask for asylum even though they didn't have they don't have a legitimate claim to asylum but while that is true we haven't seen this magnitude in almost 20 years and not only that the incredible spike in uh arrivals in such a short period of time i mean and it's basically when by then arrived at the white house from january to february there was a spike in uh migrants arriving at the border of 28 uh that's pretty dramatic and obviously it's because of the rhetoric of the president and of the policies and it's not only conservatives saying this the leftist president of mexico manuel lopez obrador the other day said it we have the situation which by the way doesn't only affect the us it affects central america it affects mexico certainly and he said it he said by then has to become the migrant president they have listened to that rhetoric i mean come on some of them even arrived with the the biden t-shirt with a campaign logo uh they've they've heard the message and the message through the campaign was very clear come come and then when he arrives the first thing that he does is to dismantle remaining mexico he says we're gonna uh pause deportations for a hundred days we're gonna begin with uh uh catch and release we're gonna stop um building uh the the wall system so all of that sends a clear message and that's why we've seen the spike in numbers and i think to to echo uh what uh my colleagues have said what we're seeing right now is just not another democrat in office uh pushing an open borders policy we're seeing a major shift in immigration in immigration and border security policy even during the obama years there was an effort even though the measures of the border were weak certainly the obama administration could have done much more but i think even obama's tried to send a message to dissuade people from making that dangerous trip i remember during the search that obama faced of minors president obama saying don't come illegally to our southern border period that message all of a sudden has changed the message now is don't come now where and that's not a strong enough message in fact that's a terrible message it says at some point we're going to be ready to receive you so if i'm a migrant i'm gonna say i'm gonna go right now because i know how this system works you have to get in line so i'm gonna go now to ensure that i'm ahead uh when they're ready to receive me this is a this is exactly what's uh what's happening and and part of it as uh the congressman was saying is the abuse of the asylum system and that's part also of the messaging of the of the biden administration saying that anybody has a right to ask for asylum at a border now that message has to be clarified you have a right to ask for asylum if you have a legitimate claim and you only have a legitimate claim if you're individually persecuted for religious political reasons general general violence uh or lack of economic opportunity is not a reason to ask for asylum but the body administration is not making that point 90 or more of the people that arrive at our border do not have a legitimate claim why encourage them to come to our border so i think the message from the administration has to be clear don't come illegally at all and only ask for asylum if you have a legitimate claim because if if not what we're going to create is this corridor of terror that's what it is uh this and going to john's point of child trafficking were creating the massive it was cardinal robert sarah uh an african cardinal uh who knows uh migration very well because many africans go north uh to north africa to cross the mediterranean to go into italy and he has called massive migration a new form of slavery and it is because we're seeing children being abducted massive migration facilitates the trafficking of children for the sex trade for prostitution for pornography and as john was very well saying because of the florist agreement once we're detained once they're detained and they're so overwhelmed they have to let them go and if somebody shows up an adult and says i'm a relative they're gonna they're not gonna do a lot of research they're gonna release that child and they may be releasing u.s government officials a child to traffickers even if they uh don't want to do it but that's happening this is a travesty it it is a travesty thanks alfonzo for that thorough response so john hostetler i'm going to pitch to you the first audience question because we have a lot of questions that you guys have have provoked which is great and so congressman the this question from the audience i guess is leaning on your experience having been a member of congress and it is what should congress be doing to fix this crisis well that's a great question because unfortunately uh congress at least in the house to this point has has done the opposite and that is it has uh in in joined you might say the bite administration and encouraging more because uh understanding how the illegal immigration process if you will works the more often that congress passes a bill the house passes a bill for example or the byte administration issues another executive order or a directive from a department or agency that information is is taken to the uh is acquired by the the smugglers the smuggling industry if you will and and they act upon it in order to obtain greater revenue a greater clientele base and greater revenue and so what what the house did recently was to pass two bills uh one of those bills was to uh grant extended authorization legal permanent residence status to individuals who are dreamers otherwise known as daca recipients daca is an acronym we deal in acronyms in washington dc all the time deferred action for childhood arrivals and and would grant these individuals legal permanent residents well uh initially daca was for individuals who i if memory serves me right because i was out of congress at that time but up to 2012 the byte administration would like to extend those numbers for children who were brought here by their parents and uh have been enrolled in the uh in daca uh to 2017 well you can you can just imagine if you if you it doesn't take a lot of uh imagination i guess i should say to to see that the tens of thousands possibly likely hundreds of thousands of children making their way across the border and and congress wanting to extend these daca enrollments to include the young people that are there now now the legislation that congress that the house passed does not do that but a point that was made by a former colleague of mine and a call that that when i asked when we were talking about previous immigration legislation passed in 1986 the immigration reform and control act he i wasn't here then he was and he just reminded me that that they were initially told that that 300 000 individuals would be eligible for the amnesty in that bill in urca 1986 300 000 ultimately over 3 million were processed through that so you can just imagine that that with that type of precedent we're talking about uh massive uh more people being being given uh legal status as a result of this legislation that was passed by the house recently now it's likely not going to pass the senate but um we don't know that uh so congress has got to uh go the other direction they've got to do something that would slow the process and quite honestly i believe a good place to start would be to enact and statute what the trump administration did through executive action and that is this remain in mexico policy that is consistent with federal statute that's already in place um agreements uh that we have with foreign countries uh in the 1951 convention on the status of refugees it's all consistent with with law and with principles that the united states has been a party to for for decades and they need to go in that direction in order to to uh if nothing else and this is you know as a as a grandfather with grandchildren um it you know it just breaks our heart to know for certain that tens of thousands i i i don't think that's being hyperbolic tens of thousands of children and and women and girls are going to be trafficked when they come into the united states because that's just the nature and you've heard from guests that are much more expert on this than i am but we know that that that this is proportional the the greater number of ill legal aliens that migrate into the united states the greater the number of those uh that are that are going to be trafficked and congress should should do what we know worked in the past in the recent past and that is uh codified put into federal law the remain in mexico program for for starters well thanks for starting us out on this list of solutions john hosteller john zadrosney i want to build on that using a question from one of our viewers who is asking about all of the funds that the federal government sends to other countries and i think you're probably the best to answer this given your experience in the trump administration this viewer is asking could those funds if in fact it were possible to get divided administration do the following could those funds be earmarked by the united states to those countries to actually help solve this problem so that we're not having this influx of people at the southern border the answer kevin is absolutely but but let me take a step back on exactly that issue one of the biggest problems we have is that unfortunately the united states no matter which which party's in charge has to battle a bureaucracy that wants to shovel money out the door to foreign countries no matter what they do so the previous administration of the trump administration was the first one that actually said well look in a long time that said look we've got this money in foreign assistance we're happy to share it with you but we need what you're doing to not counter our national interest and we were able to extend that message to the northern triangle countries mexico and other countries as well but they're the deeper problem which is that um it's unfortunately it's very paternalistic and it's very frustrating instead of looking at these countries as neighbors partners and friends with who we could help have 21st century economies and be our friends in the world we're looking at them as these poor third world countries that need a handout from the united states that's going to stop the problem the only thing that's going to stop the problem is these three countries guatemala el salvador and honduras becoming modern 21st century economies that need their own workforce where they're competing with other countries for have people come into their country to work um it's it's not you know it's not just a matter of they need money for a bridge they need money for a damn they're poor they're not they're growing they're increasingly proud of being a 21st century economy we should be feeling that and working with that i think the worst thing we could do is treat this as sort of a global welfare situation uh one quick story which i think sort of hammers home the changes that happened over the course of the trump administration in 2017 i had the privilege with some colleagues of meeting with the salvadoran foreign minister it's a very nice gentleman who came to talk to us in the white house about a bunch of different things but one of the things he basically said to us was don't end temporary protected status tps for the salvador nationals in the united states they had come here many years ago because we granted tps to salvadorans who were here when a disaster struck their country um he basically argued don't end it because our economy depends on the remittances we get from the salvador nationals who live in the united states it was a very sad meeting because i remember thinking this gentleman was basically saying don't send my countrymen home don't let them come home we need the money they get from working here fast forward to 2020 we had quite a bit of engagement about economic growth in el salvador they were very proud to be in a good position there's a point of pride being a modern economy and growing and having your people have what it what they need to survive and be a strong nation they were getting there and they they had moved away from this these lobbying for the remittances and they were trying to grow their economy so i think we made great strides i think it's going to be disastrous if we go back to this mold of journalistic third world global welfare we have to get these these countries into the 21st century economy yesterday yeah that's that's right otherwise the next decades will be facing similar situations thanks for the expertise that you bring to the table there john so alfonzo next question for you and it's going to be two questions in one if you don't mind one question from one of our viewers which is what steps should states like texas take to handle this crisis but i think it would be naturally paired with something you and i have talked about recently and that is this concept of circular migration which which i think is part of the solution as well so put those questions in one what should states like texas be doing and how can we get to what i think all of us would agree would be at least a large part of the solution which is this this historic mindset of circular migration well to be fair uh the states can do something at the border but but it's limited at the end it is a responsibility of the federal government to to ensure the the security of the border to get operational control of the border so uh i i think governor abbott has been looking to a number of things that that could be done from somehow activating uh national guard uh but again it's very limited uh to um what the states can do and it's unfair in the states because uh immigration doesn't happen at the federal level it happens at the state level and uh you're seeing uh you know large numbers of of uh uh migrants arriving at towns uh uh uh at the southern border uh left there by uh cbp and now they're being flown to different parts of the country so without states being asked so it puts states at a disadvantage this is not the federal government collaborating or communicating with the states this is very bad policy and i think it's very incompetent and it puts the states in a very tough position because really they're very limited in what in what they can do uh look i i think in terms of looking at at the future um i think we need new thinking i think texas is in a in a unique position to to lead the dialogue in terms of what can we do to to solve this problem uh because it's a border states uh because it it has an um an active business and trade relationship with mexico and central america so what i would say is first and foremost yes we have to focus at uh ensuring operational control of the border uh we have to dissuade people from making that very dangerous troop to the border uh send a message that is just not worth it so that should be the first um um aspect uh that we have to look at and and again as congress the congressman was saying restating remaining mexico policy uh what about continuing to build the wall system you know in 2000 i served in the bush administration that was the chief of citizenship for six years we were able to pass the secure fence act and that mandated 700 miles of double fencing along the southern border democrats supported that joe biden voted for that barack obama voted for that so now all of a sudden they don't support that anymore uh so going back to uh extending the wall system because any i don't know any border security expert that has told me that fencing doesn't work it works so let's go back to that but once we have a border that is secure then how do we and we shut the door to irregular irregular illegal uh entry and and we stopped this these massive movements of people how do we facilitate a legal flow of migrants that we need uh the the trump administration led by jaren kushner was looking at reforming the immigration system to make it more merit-based now i'm one of those who thinks that perhaps we can achieve the same goal without necessarily doing it through immigration meaning that we're going to bring people for them to stay here permanently uh we may want to look at the bracero program as a as a as a model where we allow circular migration we allow people to come here to work when they're needed any new job should be offered to an american but if we can't find american workers companies should be able to bring in those workers they work here then they return to their home country and then re-enter legally when they're needed you and the good thing about that is for the us these people are not going to stay here permanently or have access to in to entitlements the countries descending countries are not going to lose valuable human capital uh they're going to have people come back bring technical skills that to help those economies uh grow and those democracies uh uh to strengthen those democracies so i think that's a concept that we should look at now i understand that there has been a great deal of abuse of programs like h1b and other guest worker programs but i think we the answer is not just forgetting about the possibility of facilitating that legal flow is how do we recognize the need that we have those foreign workers and create a program that is workable perhaps look at biometric technology years ago the krebel foundation proposed the idea of a a more market-based guest worker program based on this principle of circularity using biometric technology to ensure that you know people don't overstay their visas or whatever uh ensuring also that those who hire immigrants absolutely need them so it's not they're not using the the program as an excuse not to hire an american and i think we can find a way um to to work something out i think but right now nobody's talking about that the left doesn't like the idea of a guest worker programs because the unions uh hate it but perhaps it's something that we should look at instead of trying to fix everything through uh the immigration process not everyone that comes here wants to stay here the truth is that the majority of people who stay here illegally is because to if they were to go back to their home country they would have to re-enter illegally we have a system that that fosters illegality so that perhaps is is is is something to look at and then finally if i may just to say something that john said which i think is very important important about central america because joe biden in his press conference and and uh said that besides blaming trump because he says that trump created this crisis at the border he's now also blaming the corrupt governments of central america well you know this idea that we're going to go down there and fix this country's is very arrogant i mean for decades we've been providing technical aid uh assistance we've been created uh uh under bush uh a free trade agreement with the kafta agreement with those countries i mean are we gonna wait until they get their act together to uh ensure that we have operation control the border that's nonsense not only that i am concerned that because we're seeing very aggressive efforts he already said that kamela harris is going to oversee diplomatic efforts to put pressure on these countries they have already created a task force that's going to be working on uh pushing those countries to make more democratic reforms and fight corruption i am really concerned that we're going to have we're going to go down there with the same mentality that we went uh to iraq to nation build and at the end instead of building strong democracies and strong economies we're going to destabilize these countries and the end product is going to be worse it's going to actually destabilize those countries and generate more massive migration i'm really concerned about that and i think the trump administration was more realistic in how they dealt with this country those countries are not perfect but they're they're way better than they than they were 10 20 years ago and i think we have to respect their sovereignty president trump worked in a very multilateral way with mexico and with the countries of the northern triangle to achieve the not only the remaining mexico policy but also the safe country agreements that was nobody in the media has recognized this because you have to criticize republicans of the trump administration for not respecting multilateralism but that was a multilateral effort in how they dealt regionally with the problem and i think it was a very smart way smart way to deal with the issue yeah i i agree alfonso so let's ask let me ask one more question from the audience and i'm going to pitch it to you john zadrazni and then we'll we'll wrap up with some some optimism i believe and the question for you john is where i think there's a consensus among the four of us this is going to get worse before it gets better that's that's unfortunate but we do believe that's the reality given your experience what do you think will prompt the breaking point yeah i know we might argue we're already at the breaking point but you know the i think what this viewer is getting at is what is going to happen that just compels this administration and congress to realize everything we've been doing up to this point is not working we've got to fix it that's a great question uh unfortunately i don't have the answer to that one what i worry about the most is that um we are experienced i like to think of this in terms of the closest analogy i can to which is 09 and 10 when republicans were dealing with the first two years of the obama administration and it was really kind of hard for a while to pin down what that breaking point was but i think it was probably when obamacare passed and became law probably the breaking point that made a huge difference in the fall for republicans and the rest is history i don't know what the breaking point is going to be for the american people i'm biased because everything i hear coming out of this administration is flat out of stalinski's playbook and it's really kind of embarrassing that we're already not at the breaking point but though i say this and i don't want this to happen but the thing that worries me the most is that we are actually going to experience a tipping point that involves some sort of act of terrorism right now we've been having this conversation based on the premise that um only people from central america and only good people are coming and that's what's making up this flow i can tell you this is unclassified that there are quite a few we have quite a lot of evidence showing that people from other parts of the country other parts of the world with increased terrorist activity have used their resources and that's also a bad sign when someone can fly from the middle east to ecuador and work their way up to the u.s mexico border and then pretend they're from central america we've created a giant terrorism gateway and i hope that doesn't happen but i worry that that might be the thing that gets people's attention the most um it's a shame that we have to worry about that because we were in a good path in terms of border security if i may kevin i just want to follow up with one very important thing that alfonso said uh he said border security is a federal function and technically that's true although historically if you go back and you look you we we know that up until the 1920s with the creation of the u.s border patrol border security was not purely a federal function and we can debate all day long whether or not the state should have some role in it i think there's some room for that um what's more important that states can do a lot of things um they are sovereign states you know we this is a failure of public education in this country where we haven't reminded people that states are sovereign entities they're not just subdivisions of a giant federal monstrosity they are in control and so in their spheres they can do quite a bit states can pass e-verify they can mandate that all employers in their state have you verify um they can basically limit the receipt of welfare benefits to illegal aliens they can we should i personally think we should revisit the borrowing of driver's license access to illegal aliens uh some people will say well arizona tried that in 2012. we can get into the conversation about court overreach another time um but it's also 10 years later with a different court and the left never stops pushing the boundaries why don't we try again um there are lots of things that states can do if they really wanted to get involved it's the question of willpower political leadership in these different jurisdictions but they can do quite a bit i mean just one last thing we said it all the time border security is national security and so the idea that just because uh you know i'm not picking on states but let's say like nebraska or wisconsin they're not on the u.s mexico border doesn't mean they have a stake in this they very much do and the collective weight of what the states do in their capital is pushing back with laws and executive orders it will have an impact it's going to have it when you can't get a driver's license and you're illegal alien and you can't get a driver's license in oklahoma and texas arizona you're going to turn around the collective weight of these things is going to have a chilling effect on illegal immigration yeah that's extremely well said and of course you have to account for mybias leading the largest state-based think tank in the country and in texas where we see this firsthand but as i mentioned in my opening comments this is a problem for every state right for the reasons that you mentioned it also because if we're going to allow the the folks who are currently in power in dc to run roughshod over the rule of law then what will they cover next and so for those of you in the in the audience who are asking questions what's the end game on other topics we're not being dismissive of those questions we agree we'll have to cover those in another live stream and we have some time and of course we will but to sum up what john zadrazzini and alfonso and and john hostetler have said basically now is the time for greater political courage to fight for federalism and to fight for states to do the right thing they are not powerless in this by any stretch of the imagination so gentlemen as i i tried to our viewers certainly know this i try to get at least one of our guests each week to close us out by telling us why they're optimistic about america and this week i'm going to turn to my friend john hostetler to do that john in spite of all these challenges in spite of a difficult conversation about a difficult reality just now the the border crisis why did you wake up this morning optimistic about america's future well um i'll start with what i didn't wake up to and that was the highly encouraging discussion that we had from our colleagues john and alfonso because what they're talking about is is exactly what needs to happen and to kind of piggyback on that you know uh the the people are being heard by their representatives in washington dc in less than two weeks there have been three major congressional delegations to the border um it started with a minority leader in the house kevin mccarthy delegation a couple of weeks ago last week there were i think 17 to 19 senators that went to the border and now today there is another large delegation of house members that are there our own ken oliver is with them from right on immigration of the texas public policy foundation so um it's it's right to be encouraged because this is some of the most uh engaged i've seen members of congress in a long time i i i went to the the border a couple of times whenever i was in congress but never in large delegations so so uh the people in washington dc in on capitol hill at least are are listening and they're engaged in it and they're going to do more i think another point that that gives me hope is that is that federalism isn't dead by a long shot and we have states that are wanting to take on the federal government uh the state of texas attorney general uh started kind of this first shot across the bow by taking the bite administration to task for their so-called paws on deportations and won that the state of texas won that and not only won it for texas but one for the rest of the country quite honestly and then when you when you think of the state's ability to defend themselves uh i i think kevin i think that recently your op-ed piece and national review talking about the state of texas defending itself with a piece of infrastructure by continuing the construction of the wall with federal funds that are coming texas away and and the federal government is going to allow texas the ability to uh to expand infrastructure of all kinds and we know uh kevin as a result of your and my visit to the border early last year that that the wall is probably the most profound piece of infrastructure that the border patrol appreciates it is a force multiplier and it helps them do their job do it humanely as well as effectively so i i'm um uncharacteristically for me um uh uh very optimistic in this because i see action happening on the state level i see it happening on capitol hill like a little bit more uh uh lack of denial from 1600 pennsylvania avenue but if the rest of us push hard enough i think we can even get that done too yeah well well said my friend former congressman john hostetler basically if i were to write a headline of those wonderful comments as well as the excellent points made by alfonso aguilar and john zadrazni it would be do not give up the fight what i can tell you from fighting the left for 25 years is that they expect us to concede they expect us to give in and one of the reasons we do what we do at the texas public policy foundation the the reason john gerdrasney does what he does the reasons alfonso aguilar does what he does john hostetler does what he does is because we will never give up the fight that's why i'm optimistic i'm also optimistic because so many of you tune in and support our work please support the work of our friends john zadrazni and alfonso aguilar as well gentlemen i can't thank you enough for taking time out of your very busy schedules to join me today godspeed to you and may all of you who've tuned in enjoy a wonderful productive fruitful and peaceful 2021. thank you

Channel: Texas Public Policy Foundation

Views: 686,418

Rating: 4.7901978 out of 5

Keywords: Conservative, Texas Politics, Conservative Policy

Id: w2SDh7_htFs

Length: 58min 40sec (3520 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021