The Daily Signal - #481: What's Really Happening at the Border?

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Visiting the Texas-Mexico border, Rep. Michael Cloud saw what it was really like on the ground for Border Patrol agents, what the drug cartels were taking advantage of, and how secure the border actually is. The Texas Republican also visited an unaccompanied minors facility--and found out that around 40% of the girls there had been sexually abused on their way to the U.S. We also cover these stories:•House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is adamant that impeachment is still a possibility. •Around 90% of families asking for asylum didn't show up for their court dates, per Department of Homeland Security.•Another social media site is censoring pro-lifers.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, June 12th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Kate Trinko. Today, we featured Daniel Davis's interview with Representative Michael Cloud, who just went to the border. Cloud shares what he saw down there and what can be done. Plus, we'll talk about another instance of a social media company censoring pro-lifers. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be less impeachment ready than some of her colleagues, but she's not ruling it out. Here's what Pelosi said Tuesday at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's Fiscal Summit. You've said in the past, you're not that path to impeachment. Are you still, how do you reconcile those? But it's not off the table. You can't. I don't think you should impeach for political reasons,

and I don't think you should not impeach for political reasons. It's not about politics. It's not about Democrats and Republicans. it's not about partisanship, it's about patriotism to our country. It's upholding the Constitution of the United States. If, in fact, the executive branch can say, you can never have oversight over us. You have destroyed the system of checks and balances,

which is the wisdom and the heart of our Constitution. And if you go down that path and you look to the Bill of Rights and the assaults that they make on the press, et cetera, then you are undermining the Constitution. not honor your oath of office to support and defend. Freshman lawmaker Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, is not backing down on her support of giving lawmakers a pay raise, even after House Democrats nixed a spending bill that would have given raises to members of Congress for the first time in 10 years. Members of Congress currently make about $174,000 per year, and Ocasio-Cortez thinks lawmakers should be making an additional $4,500. This is why there's so much pressure to turn to lobbying firms and to cash in on member service after people leave because precisely of this issue.

So it may be politically convenient and it may make you look good in the short term for saying, oh, we're not voting for pay increases. But we should be fighting for pay increases for every American worker. We should be fighting for a $15 minimum wage pegged to inflation so that everybody in the United States with a salary, with, with, with, with, with a wage gets a cost of living increase. Members of Congress, retail workers, everybody should get a cost of living increases to accommodate for the changes in our economy. And then when we don't do that, it only increases the pressure on members to exploit loopholes, like insider trading loopholes, to make it on the back on.

In a hearing Tuesday, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said in a back and forth with Senator Lindsay Graham, Republican of South Carolina, that many of the families who came requesting asylum at the border never showed up for their court date after they were released into the United States. Tell the country what happens when you get here from Central America and you claim asylum. Very briefly, what happens? So as a family unit, as you've already noted, Mr. Chairman, you're going to be released because you can't be held more than 20 days, and we have to have due process and a fair hearing.

For single adults, you'll be held pending determination of whether you have a fear of return, If you meet that bar, and 87% do meet the initial bar of credible fear from Central America, you'll either be held or bonded out by an immigration judge pending a final adjudication. If you're a child, they'll be transferred to HHS, and you'll go through a process to be placed with a sponsor in the United States. So if you're a asylum seeker from Central America and you claim asylum in the United States, you're not going to get sent back to Central America anytime soon. Is that correct? Unless you're a single adult, it is very unlikely that you'll be repatriated. What percentage of the people show up for the asylum hearing?

So it depends on the demographic, the court, but we do see too many cases where people are not showing up. We did an expedited pilot with family units this year with ICE and the immigration courts. Out of those 7,000 cases, 90 received final orders of removal and absentia. 90% did not show up? Correct. Okay. That is a recent sample from families crossing the border. Representative Justin Amash of Michigan has left the House Freedom Caucus over his stance that President Donald Trump should be impeached.

Amash was one of the founders of the House Freedom of caucus, a group of roughly 40 or so conservative lawmakers, and was also the first Republican to say that Trump should resign. Amash told CNN that, quote, I have the highest regard for them, and they're my close friends. I didn't want to be a further distraction for the group. Here's what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had to say about Amash. Justin Amos can determine his own future, but I think in a philosophical basis, he's probably in a different place than the majority of all of us. Abortions in Maine will no longer need to be performed by a doctor. Now, physicians' assistants and some nurses will be allowed to perform abortions.

Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, said in a statement, quote, allowing qualified and licensed medical professionals to perform abortions will ensure that Maine women, especially those in rural areas, are able to act. access critical reproductive health care services when and where they need them from qualified providers they know and trust. And added, by signing this bill into law, Maine is defending the rights of women and taking a step towards equalizing access to care as other states are seeking to undermine, rollback, or outright eliminate these services. Next up, we'll feature Daniel's interview with Representative Cloud about what he saw on the border. Do conversations about the Supreme

Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. Well, I'm joined now in studio by Congressman Michael Cloud. He represents Texas' 27th congressional district. Congressman, it's been a few weeks. Appreciate you joining us again in studio. Sure. It's going to be back. So you're fresh off of a congressional trip to the border. You took a few of your colleagues down to the border and it was their first time. Tell us why you went on this trip and what you saw. There's a couple reasons. Certainly the situation has developed since I've been there about six

months ago. Wanted to go back and get firsthand update to see how we were dealing with it. I mean, we're up to now 144,000 migrants a month that are coming across three months in a row of over 100,000. Wanted to see how that was developing. But while we were there also, one of the of the things I realized when I got to Congress was the fact that coming from Texas, you know, we have an understanding of how the borders affecting our communities. But I began to realize that a lot of representatives didn't have an understanding. Whether they were for or against it, a lot of it was based on, you know, what they read or a report or something like that. But it's different when you go down there firsthand. You talk to the boots on the ground. You're seeing the

situation firsthand. You're seeing the infrastructure, the tools that our agents are having to deal with. And just our capacity to deal with the situation is so limited compared to how well-funded the cartels are in doing what they're trying to do. And my first trip down there, I asked them, I said, so what's a win? And the answer I got was, well, we're trying to get to situation awareness right now. I said, what's your next big win? It wasn't stopping the flow of drugs, of slave trade. or anything like that. It was, we were trying to have the tools we need to,

to understand what the cartels are doing on the border. And that was before we began to see this massive, before the surge of a hundred thousand a month. And so going back, wanted to get more details on how that was developing. Also bring understanding to other representatives, show them what was going on. And so we had a couple reps come with us.

We also brought a van of local media. And so that was interesting to see their eyes open, once even within 20 minutes being on the ground and talking to people on the ground of just like, oh my, this is this is a serious situation. And so I think, you know, as a nation, we're finally past the point where we're calling this a manufactured crisis. I think we realize it's a real one, finally. I just hope we can find the will to really address it. So I understand that one of the Border Patrol officers that you spoke with said that they're not even doing border security operations anymore. Can you explain what that's about?

Sure. We visited two sectors, the Rio Grande Valley sector, the Laredo sector. In each of those sectors, 40 to 50 percent of the agents who are supposed to be on the front lines are essentially doing paperwork. They're sent in a facility, working on computers, filling out data entry, as opposed to protecting our borders. And so the cartels know and understand this. And it's intentional. They're taxing our resources because it opens us. opens up avenues for them and all the illicit activity that they make money on. And so there was an estimate that cartels are making about $80 million a week off of their illicit activity. While we fund for that sector, it was $13 million a year. And so, you know, in the Lareda sector in particular, you know, they have cameras in a camera monitoring station. They have enough cameras to, when everything's working, monitor 30%. of their responsibility. And the cameras are working about 75% of the time.

They're usually only up about 75% capacity on that. And the cameras are from the 1990s. So we're dealing with 20, 30-year-old technology while the cartels are, they waste no dollars in flying drones up to monitor our activity. And they have night vision goggles and all this kind of stuff. So we're severely outmanned. We're severely outresourced.

And so it's a sad situation. And I understand you also visited a unaccompanied minor detention facility. Tell us about that. Yeah, that was really heartbreaking. The particular facility went to houses about 200 young ladies. And we asked while we were there what their situation was like. They said about 40% of them had been sexually abused along the way, along the route. And is this often from Central America all the way up through Mexico?

Yes, yes, along the journey. And so we went through one room and all the young ladies there were in a class at the time, which we also visited. But their, I guess, room facilities were open. So we toured that as well. And on the wall there's sketch some art that said, I miss mom. And it's just heartbreaking to think what our lax policies have allowed to occur. You know, the fact that these young ladies are being sent here and then being abused along the way. It's just, you know, we've got to stop it.

So obviously, Congress is divided on this issue, and that's holding up a lot of what could be done. But what are the things that the Department of Homeland Security could be doing, without congressional approval that they're not doing right now. Yeah, ultimately this is Congress's responsibility. So I'm not going to be the congressman to come in here and try to wash our hands of that. This is Congress's job to fix. We need to fix the asylum loopholes that have allowed this massive influx that we need to fund our border security. We need the infrastructure.

We need the boots on the ground. We need the technology. We need the beds. We need the whole package. But in the meantime, in our current environment, unfortunately, it looks like that's not going to happen in the short term. And this is an emergency situation, which requires emergency action. And so we've sent a letter to Homeland Security and to the president talking about some things that could be done with administrative action. For one, we could train the Border Patrol agents to do the credible fear interviews.

So what happens right now, they come, they get their information log, they get put on a docket that's about 800,000 people back. And so their court case might be in a couple years from now, and they never show up, right? And so this is an interview that could happen within 30 minutes across on the border. This isn't, you know, you think of an immigration judge, but it's not a judge like you think with the black robes. It doesn't take a legal degree. You know, they need to be trained to do it, to do it properly. but it could be done. It would take about two weeks of training.

So you're saying instead of having a whole court case that's drawn out over years, just do it right there on the spot. Right. Yeah, immediately coming across the board. We just need agents train to do it. We could even set up video conferencing in a sense to where you have immigration judges on different parts of the country. I mean, there's a lot of ways to accomplish this.

But the big deal is that instead of creating this two, three-year backlog, when we already have 800,000 people waiting for their hearing. And again, they rarely show up for their hearing. And so to take care of that hearing right away, where we make a decision on what's happening, of course, as migrants are coming across, and they're claiming incredible fear, you know, a fear of persecution or something like that,

when the vast majority of them, 90% or more, it's about finding a job. It's about economics, which, You know, I understand, but there's a different way to fix that situation. But, you know, that's one of the big things we can do. One of the other things is we're giving work visas to people who are on that waiting list for their asylum court case. Well, we can stop giving work visas, you know, and that would, again, would, the deal is, is what can we do to take away the magnet? You know, that's drawing people here improperly.

And so, you know, while we have a heart and concern for the world, the true answer to heal the world isn't to migrate three and a half billion people here who make $5, $10 a day. I mean, you know, the South of the world's population makes about that much a day. We can't heal the world that way. But the thing we can do is stand for the principles our nation was founded on and let other nations know. If you stand for these principles, you can have the same sort of prosperity in your nation. I mean, the goal is for all people all over the world to have prosperity, to be able to live, you know, and pursue their dreams. And so that's the answer. The answer is for us to be that shining city on a hill and let the world know that live by these principles.

You can have the same prosperity. Of course, there's a proper place for immigration. My wife's an immigrant. But the key is where at some point we're all children of immigrants, you know, whether it's from the 1600s or yesterday. But when it comes down to it, we need to have a legal process, and we can talk about reforming that legal process, it's streaminglining, and making it simpler, you know, as the president said when he was running, you know, put a big, beautiful gate, you know. Yes.

But we need to have an environment that respects the laws of the land and that people can come here and apply properly for citizenship, for legal status and those kind of things. Well, you've said that Democrats are offering faux compassion on this issue of immigration and border security. Explain what you mean there. Well, there's come this thing in our culture where lawlessness is compassion in a sense, you know, where we just, we just, and it's it's a false assumption. You know, I the idea that, well, if you want to uphold the laws of land, you don't care about people. You know, and that's the faux compassion. It's like it's not it's not caring for my children to leave them undisciplined.

It's not caring for society to have laws that are not followed. We can have a discussion on what the law should be. We can work to change it and have that rightful context, that discussion that's supposed to happen in a republic. But this idea that we throw out the laws of the land or we comport with cartels, worst case to allow their illicit activity to have an effect on our neighborhoods. I mean, when you think of what's happening on the border, when you truly understand what's happening on the border, it's having a far more impact on our neighborhoods across this country than what's going on in Afghanistan.

But we don't treat the cartels on the southern side of our border, which control the entire southern part of our border like they're a hostile force. We need to take seriously what's going on there and make sure that we're doing everything we can to address it. Well, so much of the polarization on this issue seems to be coming from Washington and other communities that aren't affected as much by this. Do you think if your Democratic colleagues came on a visit with you to the border that they would have second thoughts and change their position? I like to think so. I mean, I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt, unless I, you know, have a reason to otherwise. And that's kind of why when I say, you know, I came here and

and understood that if you don't live from Texas, you know, you live in Wyoming, it might not be as felt of a need. It takes you a little harder to understand the impact. And that's fair, but realize that you need to do the due diligence of your job and really figure out what's going on, because this is one of the top, if not the top issue right now that we're dealing with as a country. And so we have to deal with this. I like to think that, you know, a few months ago you heard a lot of talk about a manufactured crisis. Well, Nancy Pelosi, to her credit, did take a trip to the border. And you haven't heard the manufactured crisis. Now, I think politically she's not in a position where she feels like she can come out and say,

well, I saw the light and I'm going to move this policy forward. But you haven't heard this talk about a manufactured policy or manufactured crisis anymore. What about other Democrats? I'm just curious, though. Do you think they'd be open to coming on a trip to the border? I think so, and we did reach out to a number of them and to come with us on this time. We're looking to plan another trip in the future. Many were open to it. So hopefully we'll be able to see that. Well, we saw over the weekend President Trump made a deal with Mexico that involved a tariff threat, which was not needed eventually because the deal was made. It involves Mexico sending 6,000 troops to secure their southern border. Are you optimistic that this might finally stem the tide of migrants and give Border Patrol at least some relief? I'm happy to see that Mexico's partnering with us in this.

For sure, they've in a sense been complicit in allowing this to happen. In the worst cases, they've aided and abetted. you know, a number of the cities and communities were busing people north to our border. Some of that was just kind of past the potato kind of thing, you know. But it's good. I was asked right off, what do you think about this? I said, well, I think, I think, you know, what do you think about the terrorists? I live in a net export district south, you know, real close to the border.

And so there's a lot of concern that. well, you know, they're on the plane the next day and they're talking about it finally and they're taking it seriously. So it looks like the president's strategy has played out and worked in this situation that Mexico is beginning to take it seriously. Of course, this is a situation that, you know, it's ever evolving. And so we have to stay on it and continue to monitor it. But it's certainly encouraging to see Mexico taking responsibility for their portion of this. Yeah, it seems like the president finally found his leverage point where he could get around Democrats in Congress and force Mexico to provide some of the border security that we need from our own government.

How do you feel about this in the longer term of the next two to six years? This strategy, especially with tariff threats, do you think it's a viable approach in the longer term? Well, one thing we have to realize, you know, you'll see different members of Congress criticize, but it's our job to fix the problem. It's Congress's job to fix the problem. And short of us doing that, there's not really good solutions left on the table. We've passed the point of the good solutions. You know, we've allowed this issue to fester for a long time toward.

It's really our entire systems of the southern border attacks. You know, it's like if you had one spare bedroom and you invited somebody to come stay because you have a generous heart, but 50 to 100 people showed up and then you're getting blamed for, well, why don't you have room for it? It's like, well, we just don't have the capacity. We just don't have the capacity. it's not built. And so there's not good solutions at this point that are going to be easy.

And so the situations we have right now are going to be tough. It's an emergency situation that's going to take dramatic action. And this is what it takes. I'm happy to see that Mexico's on board. And, you know, I'd like to think that two to six years will have this resolved and won't be talking about it anymore. That's my optimism. them. Hopefully, we'll be able to see some, see this certainly take a, with dramatic action, with executive action and maybe getting some other Congress men and women on board with this.

We'll be able to see some positive action forward on this. Well, if you do hear back from those Democrats, colleagues, please let us know. We would love to have them on the podcast to talk about their experience on the border. Congressman Cloud, thank you so much for coming back and joining us. Well, thank you. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org.

Social media site Pinterest, where people primarily share photos and images, has banned live action, a pro-life and human rights organization, after listing it as a porn or site according to live action. The group's director of external affairs, Alison Centofante, tweeted Tuesday, quote, live action now banned from Pinterest, end quote. She shared an image of a letter purportedly from Pinterest that alluded to the organization being banned for spreading, quote, medical misinformation and conspiracies that turn individuals and facilities into targets for harassment or violence. Kate, what do you make of this development?

Well, first of all, I don't fully understand. And I guess, yeah, as you mentioned, they were originally banned for potentially being pornographic. That came through, I believe, an investigation done by James O'Keefe's Group, Project Veritas, but it's a little bit confusing why they would have been deemed pornographic at any point. But anyway, it sounds like medical misinformation was the ultimate reason for the banning. Anyway, Pinterest is not a site that we've really heard in any of these controversies. Pinterest, at least when I used it, was not very political. And it's surprising to see them taking in action like this because they, just haven't been in these censorship wars before. I mean, Rachel, do you use Pinterest?

I do use it some. I don't use it every day. But I think what's interesting is how this is kind of evolved with Pinterest. First, they said it was due to pornography, live action, having that on their Pinterest account. And then now they're saying it's due to harmful misinformation, medical misinformation. And it's kind of, that's a big disparity there. I mean pornography and then, medical misinformation. And I think that at the very least, live action should demand that Pinterest show them, you know, where is our medical misinformation? What are you, you know, what is the proof behind what you're saying that we're doing? Because this is, I feel like, in a way, could be playing into, you know, potentially people in leadership at Pinterest or elsewhere

who don't want there to be pro-life organizations in these spaces. And I think that if that is the case, and they are being censored, in fact, and it's not just a mistake, then Pinterest should be held accountable for that. Right. And I think what's concerning here is this might be a dispute over the facts, which, you know, pro-lifers would say, you know, it's not a clumpus cells. It's a human baby. We would say the New York Times is guilty of medical misinformation. But clearly they are not banned from Pinterest.

I have no idea if they have a presence there or not. But I think this is concerning because if you make the case that all pro-life views, are founded on medical misinformation, you could see more widespread banning. And this is truly a case where, you know, I'd say the other side is one of the misinformation. But it's also troubling because live action, and we've had their founder and leader Lila Rose on this podcast, they are allowed on Twitter, but they are not allowed to advertise on Twitter. They've pointed out a lot that Planned Parenthood, I believe, is allowed to advertise on Twitter. So it's just concerning to see these companies, you know, it's a free country. They are private businesses. They

can make these decisions. But given what a huge percentage of Americans use them and probably aren't aware of what they're censoring, these are concerning moves. They're very concerning moves. And I mean, I think that the American people, I mean, obviously we're following this. There are many other people that are following this. And we need to stand top of things like this. because if it is, in fact, you know, Pinterest is in the wrong and is trying to censor them, that shouldn't be tolerated. Absolutely. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation.

Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud. And please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.