The Daily Signal - Do Borders Still Matter? Europe’s Struggle May Hold the Answer | Elaine Culotti

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Europe’s illegal immigration crisis might be the warning America needs to fix its own before it’s too late. According to Laura Ries, director of the border security and immigration center at The Heritage Foundation, America is “kind of on that same path” as countries like the France, Germany, and the U.K.  “The question is… Are we a sovereign nation? Do borders matter? Can we uphold the law? Can we enforce the law? What’s happening to Western civilization? And this is a real question for our country.” Follow us on Instagram for EXCLUSIVE bonus content and the chance to be featured in our episodes: https://www.instagram.com/problematicwomen/   Connect with our hosts on socials!   Elise McCue X: https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=EliseMcCue Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elisemccueofficial/   Virginia Allen: X: https://x.com/intent/user?screen_name=Virginia_Allen5 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virginiaallenofficial/   Check out Top News in 10, hosted by The Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjMHBev3NsoUpc2Pzfk0n89cXWBqQltHY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the RBC Avion visa, you can book any airline, any flight, any time. So start ticking off your travel list. Grand Canyon? Grand. Great Barrier Reef? Great. Galapagos? Galapago? Switch and get up to 55,000 avion points that never expire. Your idea of never missing out happens here. Conditions apply. Visit rbc.com slash avion. Right now, I mean, there are countries kind of ahead of us on this path where they let in a lot of people who crossed illegal. Whether it's, you know, the UK dealing with small boats of people coming in, whether it's France, whether it is Germany, Sweden.

Some countries like Poland or Hungary have really restricted and upheld the law. And the question is, what is happening to, you know, UK or France or Germany? And we're kind of on that same path. Hi, this is Elaine Collotti. I'm reporting for the Daily Signal in California, but I'm in D.C. And I have with me today a new head of heritage, Laura Reese. And I'm so excited to talk to her because we have a lot of things to talk about regarding immigration, especially in California. And what's happening in California politically.

And of course, the thing I love to talk about the most, voter ID. And we're on the cusp of it. How are you, Laura? I'm well. Thank you for having me on. I'm so excited to talk to you about voter ID because you know we have a little patron saint of voter ID in California's name's Carl DeMaio. And I've only recently met Carl, though I've been following him for years. And he took on getting the signatures for voter ID.

We needed a million. He's going for a million two because they're so particular they pull them out if it's like over the line even a little bit. And we're there. It's going to be on the ballot. And I know Heritage has been a big advocate for voter ID. Yeah, absolutely. It's really important to election integrity, and it's a very basic step. And it's very important to overcome the left's kind of mindless talking points on this to say it's too difficult to get ID.

It disenfranchises people to require to get an ID. you know, is the left claiming that none of those people drive? It's a basic step. It's actually not enough, in my opinion, given how many states allow for giving driver's licenses to people who perhaps aren't supposed to be here or aren't authorized to be here. But it needs to be done as kind of step one. I think the, I'm not going to argue for the, for, the California, you know, I, the California, what's the, what's the word I'm thinking of, you know, kind of position that it's difficult for certain people to go somewhere to get an ID. I actually think that at least has been my experience. And I do talk probably to more Democrats than I talk to

conservatives in California just because I live in, you know, the Palisades area. And I live in North San Diego County. And, and I've been, you know, flying up and down the coast, filming this show that I'm doing called Mayors Matter. I've been talking to all the mayors both left and right. And I can honestly say, I don't think that people don't want voter ID. I think that they do. I think there's a very small group that advocate for it that have microphones. But what I think people want more than they want voter ID is they want integrity and voting. They want to believe, they want to believe the outcomes, right? And so if that means that, you know, you have to do the squats a lot before your legs are going to be strong enough to ski the bumps, you've got to, you know,

unfortunately voter ID is part of the squat. You've got to do it. There's other things we should be doing as well. I think there's other things we should be doing as well. But the bare minimum is voter ID, and I do think California is coming around to that way of thinking. Well, that's good news because as California goes, the rest of the country goes. So hopefully it will awaken others in other states that are not requiring it to vote there as well. I hope that we, you guys, hello, my friends, my Democratic friends, listen, this mileage tax thing.

And kill switches in cars. I mean, if you don't pay your taxes, they're going to shut your car off. I mean, it's pretty crazy. They used to put kill switches in John Deere tractors and some other tractors. I don't know if it was just John Deere, but if farmers didn't pay their farm payment on their tractor, they would just shut them down. Like, that's how crazy it could be if you had a kill switch in your car. Imagine you don't pay your mileage tax and they could turn your car off. I mean, that's where we're headed. So we have to be really careful. about some of the ideas that are pushed through at the top level in California because they have serious consequences. And once again, this is Elaine Colladian with the Daily Signal, and I am at Heritage in D.C. And Heritage is the very boring policy writer. So we're going to listen a little bit about how important policy is because things like kill switches and mileage tax and the ability to have billionaires tax and the ability to do all sorts of crazy things, including turning off the water to the Pacific Palisades during the fires, comes from policy. It's how we write and perceive policy and then how we integrate policy into laws, and those laws create very big barriers of entry into common sense. And so Heritage has really put together

probably one of the finest groups of policy writers. And I know they're in D.C. and I know they're conservative, but listen, we can learn from that because what they're doing is they're writing policy that keeps us safe. They're writing policy that keeps us moving forward and growing. They're writing policy for people to be able to stay and come and go in our country. It's not all about blocking the barrier of entry. It's really about doing things in the right way. And I've just had a really nice discussion with Laura to try to figure out her idea about policy on immigration, which has been really interesting to me. And I want to get a minute to talk to her about it so that we can all understand how heritage is trying to help with immigration. Can you give me a little bit of a

spin on that? Yeah. So basically the goal is to have an immigration system, That's for Americans that is lawful, manageable, and orderly each year. And we are currently far, far from that. What do I mean? People understand lawful versus unlawful immigration, but even in those two terms, there is a lot of grayness in between, and the left has been very good at blurring that line. But viscerally, Americans understand we need to have a lawful immigration system.

People need to come here lawfully. We have the rule of law. What do I mean by orderly? Well, think about the border. Think about the last four years under Joe Biden where so many people crossed illegally, they overwhelmed to the border patrol. That's just simply not orderly. People need to go to a port of entry to be inspected and to come in lawfully that way.

What do I mean by manageable? This is more on the benefit side. Often, we don't hear about the backlogs of immigration benefit applications that are waiting to be adjudicated. So at the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is the agency, the sister agency to ICE and to Customs and Border Protection that adjudicates immigration benefits. The backlog there is over 11 million cases. That's in addition to, in the Justice Department where the immigration court system is, 3.4 million additional cases backlogged there. And so that is not manageable. And we need to seriously reduce those backlogs so that every year we can stay on top of the applications. And so that people who want to come here lawfully get their decisions and can move on with their lives. Wow, 11 million. Right. Plus 3.4 million additional cases in the court system. The 11 million, how far back did they go? How many years? They can go back many years. And what makes up those applications? It includes asylum applications, employment-based green cards, family-based green cards, naturalization applications, work authorization documents, and, and,

Burry visas. And so the 11 million people that are attached to that, those people that are here in the country in this line, in this like invisible queue of 11 million plus 3.5 million, they're, how do they get notification that they're moving through the system if they are? Do they get a paper in the mail? There is a system where you can kind of dial in or check online for the status. It's kind of large categories, so it's not like really specific. Like you have, you know, 1,534 more days until, you know, we'll get to your case. It's not that specific, unfortunately. But this is, you know, what people don't talk about or what people don't realize when, you know, some say, well, we just need more visas for this type of work or this category or whatever. It's like, wait a minute,

We've already got all these people waiting in line. How about we clear out those cases? And then when we get to that orderly system year after year, then we can talk about what should the lawful system look like? Do we believe that the whole, you know, not ice? I call them nice. I think they should be national. But let's just say ice is in California.

Do we think that the 11 million people that are on that list are on their naughty list or no? Is that not the list that they have? Is there a different list? There can be some overlap. If there are serious criminals, you know, murders, rapists, either for crimes that were committed abroad and we initially didn't know about it, or crimes subsequently committed here, but they already had immigration benefit application pending, you know, that one alien could be. not on the list or on the list on ice's list as well as the waiting list as that backlog interesting and then do so if those if those 11 million people have been here when you say years like let's say it's 10 years a decade i don't know i don't know if it's five years two years but let's just

say the 11 million people have been here a decade it is it unrealistic to think that they wouldn't work if they wanted if they needed to pay for rent or whatever in 10 years um well many of them have work authorization documents and have them extended. If they are asylum applicants, as soon as you file your asylum application, five months later, you can apply for your work authorization document and get it within a month. And unfortunately, that incentivizes asylum fraud because people will submit an asylum application really for the intention of getting work authorization, which is unfortunate, because people view asylum as, I call it the second most sacred immigration benefit that we give

after U.S. citizenship. But unfortunately, it is easy to defraud. We don't have the resources in the government to go run down every claim of, okay, you said this happened to you in your home country, and, you know, we're going to go verify that. That doesn't happen. And so unfortunately, you get a lot of fraud. And it basically comes down to your credibility. Do I believe what you're telling me? And because of that backlog, and, you know, you get to stay here for years until that case is finally adjudicated, people will game the system. I'll just file an asylum application.

I'll get my work authorization in six months. And I get to hang out for years because it takes so long for either DHS or D.OJD. get to these cases. Of the 11 million, you might not know the answer to this, I mean, because who could know the answer to all of these questions, but of the 11 million in the backlog, asylum and just regular, you know, citizen applications, does it 10% that have work? Is it 100% that have work options or visas? Do they know what percentage of the 11 million already have a work visa can work? I mean, USCIS would know that. So if you're applying for asylum, like I just explained, you can work.

If you are applying for naturalization, you already have a green card, so you're authorized to work. And in other categories, then you're authorized to work. Not every category. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head. I wonder if there's a world where

there could be, you know, like a work ID issued for anybody that's in the system that has a, you know, good standing in the system. Well, I mean, that is, I'd call it the default. So there's something, for example, called temporary protected status. They are authorized to work. I'd say most categories are authorized to work. That's great to know. I mean, I've, I guess if there's 11, How many immigrants do we really think are in America? I know I've heard numbers from 20 million to 30 million,

but how many Americans or non-Americans do we think have crossed the border in the last 20 years that are not on that 11 million person list, that we don't know that they're here? Well, I mean, the number that was estimated year after year after year of illegal alien population, pre-Joe Biden administration was 11 million. And the number never changed, which made it dubious. A Yale study came out in 2019 that said, no, it's really probably 21 million or north of that. So figure a range of anywhere from 11 million to 21 million pre-Joe Biden. We know during Biden's four years that Customs and Border Protection encountered 11 million inadmissible aliens. either people who snuck across the border and CBP encountered or went through a port of entry but didn't have a visa nationwide.

And we also know that the Biden administration let most of them in. Secretary Mayorkas of Department of Homeland Security at that time admitted probably 85% of those aliens were allowed into the country. Add to that another at least two million, quote unquote, known gotaways. What's a known gotaway? This is someone whose CBP Customs of Border Protection could see perhaps on a video camera or could track footprints. Basically, people who were counted, but they evaded the Border Patrol. Counted but not encountered. Correct.

And that's known gotaways. So, you know, add to that unknown gotaways, all a Donald. And so we're talking at least 11 million inadmissible aliens came in just during Biden's four years. So that's potentially doubling the population. That's 31 million to your 20 million. Right. And of the and then the 11 million that are in some sort of legal applicant status are sort of part of they absorb a portion of that. I mean, there's going to be some overlap.

So some of those aliens who came in illegally will file an asylum application. so they're going to be in that backlog. Or some were from a country that was designated temporary protected status. They're going to be in that backlog. And then for both of those two benefits, they can get work authorization. So they're going to have work authorization applications or extensions. So they might have two cases in that backlog. So there's overlap.

Has there been any countries other than America that have done? mass deportation? Not to some degree. And right now, I mean, there are countries kind of ahead of us on this path where they let in a lot of people who crossed illegal, whether it's, you know, the UK dealing with small boats of people coming in, whether it's France, whether it is, you know, Germany, Sweden. And so, you know, some countries like Poland or Hungary have really restricted and upheld the law and forced the law. And the question is, what is happening to, you know, UK or France or Germany? and we're kind of on that same path in terms of are we a sovereign nation, do borders matter?

Can we uphold the law? Can we enforce the law? What's happening to Western civilization? And this is a real question for our country. I mean, I definitely would, you know, ponder the question with my kids about American freedoms and how much bloodshed there's been to keep, you know, that flag in the ground and to keep, you know, a free country with patrolled borders to maintain freedom. It's a weird thing for especially people on the left to understand that,

you know, in order to really, you know, have freedom, you do have to protect the borders. It seems weird. It's like you're building a fence around yourself. But if your views aren't shared across the globe in terms of your freedoms, then protecting freedom, even if it's an imaginary line around your country, is really about, you know, letting your ideologies and your freedoms like blossom and grow in a country that is protecting those ideas through an imaginary border. It's not about saying that if you open the borders,

you're still going to be able to have those free ideas. Because in theory, they would be, you know, threatened by countries that don't like our ideas, right? So that's, I think that that argument can be made to most, you know, very liberal, very, very liberal minded people that, you know, you have freedoms in your own home and in your bathroom or in your, you know, in your marriage or with your children or out of school that are different than the freedoms you have at a supermarket or, you know, in a crowded place. And so you can make the argument and people can understand it. I think, What I'm trying to figure out is we clearly have in an effort to allow people to come to America,

we have not had enough bumper rails in place and enough expeditiousness in the process to create a safe path to citizenship. and I would call it planned obsolescence, I think, is kind of a term that I think when you know that something's broken, but you just don't put enough effort into fixing it because, you know, it's not hurting anybody, right? But it is in the end, or when the rubber hits the road, it does. And in California, obviously, like, I'm for the first time since 1994 really seeing the effects of what I would call negative. immigration. So what I mean by that is the immigration in historically to me has never bothered me. I've never been, I'm always quite happy to have people that want to work. I'm quite happy to try to learn Spanish. I'm quite happy to have like different culture and music and food. I, you know, I don't, I've never been bothered by it. But in the last couple of years, I've seen our streets become unruly, and I've seen

a lot of trash. And I've seen kind of an optic of, or something in the air of like giving up. It's a weird, in L.A., especially, especially when you go downtown. I feel like part of the fight to have this American dream is people are tired. And California is like the place you want to be, you know, it's like it's the land of opportunity. And it's the golden state and it's sunny and it's beautiful and the ocean is amazing. And we love our music and we support every person that you are and every one. of life. We're actually quite liberal. And I mean that in a way like our acceptance level is high. And I feel like a little bit we've been taking advantage of. And I mean that like in a really,

and I mean that from the top two of our government in California. Like I feel like our government in California has also taken advantage of our niceness and the kind of people that we are in California and how accepting we are as Californians, right? We accept everybody. But then you have like this group of people at the top in Sacramento that know it. They know that they can pull on our heartstrings and they have set up policy that has trapped us, truly trapped us. In some cases, like the palisades, it trapped us in a burning town. Like, it's trapped us.

We didn't clear brush, you know. we didn't when insurance companies came knocking on sacramento's door and asked for mitigation reports they couldn't provide them and so the insurance companies left now californians that pay their bills that didn't we didn't do that you know that was done by our government in california and this terrible thing with ice that we're seeing you know it's it's really traumatizing and And then they say things like, well, we're not going to have ice at the voting booths, you know, that that's intimidating. And I mean, I'm not stupid. Like, why? Why can't ICE be at a voting booth? I mean, is the answer true that our top management in Sacramento has set us up to the point where we're to believe as Californians, liberal Californians, California Democrats, California, California, conservatives, California moderates, we are to believe that the people that are going to the voting booth should be intimidated by ICE? Why? Aren't they Californians? And I just am, I'm fed up of

the gas lighting, I guess. And my thought was if I could help with immigration, if I could write immigration reform bill that would allow like, you know, three, four, five generations of Mexican Americans that have lived, that live around me every day to be able to work, really. that I would somehow be able to move the needle. And what I've discovered is that no one wants to talk about it, including California, by the way. Like, nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to have a genuine conversation about how to solve this unbelievably terrible problem, you know, with, with Mike Ardner lost 66 homes in the fire, employed 120 people. People were like, was he illegal or illegal? I'm like, I don't know he was my gardener. And these are, you.

real people in real people's lives and California has allowed this to happen. You know, we've allowed this to happen because no one wants to make any decisions about anything. You know, if your kid runs out in the street and you grab your kid and you pull them in and you spank them for running into the street, that's perfectly okay because it's in the name of safety and raising a child, right? We have 400,000 children missing in America or something crazy like that. Is that true? Like, it's so many people. and they're kids. Yeah, the unaccompanied alien children population is what you're talking about.

550,000 unaccompanied children entered the U.S. during Biden's four years, a absolutely historic level and not in a good way, of which the Department of Health and Human Services lost track of at least 300,000 of them. And so this is the third thing. So when President Trump was campaigning in 2024 and Tom Holman was out there helping him, this was the third element they talked about, particularly Tom Holman. After securing the border, after mass deportations, it was finding those kids. And this is something that does not get enough attention. And something I've talked quite a bit about the left, talking about playing on people's heartstrings.

unfortunately has built an illegal immigration system on the backs of children. In 2008, they passed a law that was supposed to be about anti-trafficking and combating trafficking of children. But what it did was give special immigration benefits to minors who cross the border unaccompanied. Anyone with a brain reading that bill would figure out all you're doing is incentivizing more. unaccompanied border crossings. You're telling parents, send your kid across the border unaccompanied, and they can get a special juvenile visa, asylum, or refugee-like protection. And parents would see, oh, that's my ticket into the U.S. That's my foothold. I'll send my kid across the border unaccompanied. They'll get to stay, and then eventually I'll get to join them. And it's absolutely perverse.

those kids are subjected to rape, slave-like labor once they get here to pay off, you know, the coyote who smuggled them across, sex trafficking, you name it. And so that is why so many have gone lost, gone missing. And then, you know, years later, the Democrats who designed this will say, well, we need to give green cards to anyone who came here as a child because they came as children. It's like, yes, because that's how you design. it. That is what I mean by they have built part of the illegal immigration system on the backs of children. And so fortunately, Tom Holman has found over 100,000 of those kids, but we need to repeal those immigration benefits that just entice unaccompanied border crossings. Because it just endangers kids, it does the exact opposite of what the title of the bill is supposed to do. which is so common with legislation, both at the state level and at the national level. You know, it has a nice sounding name and you think you're helping people, you're helping women, you're helping children, you know, whatever that issue is.

And in fact, it does the exact opposite. So in California, then, if there's been 100,000 kids found, do we know how many have been found in California? I don't know the breakdown of that, no. Okay, so if you're just tuning in, this is Elaine Kalati for this. The Daily Signal. I'm in D.C. and I'm talking with Laura Reese. And we're talking about immigration reform. And I'm going to call it immigration reform because we need immigration reform. I'm just going to start saying it. I know it's a dirty word, but we need to do something. One of the things that is top of mind in this conversation is that

that there was a bill that was written that allowed for children to come across the border and get special benefits. And whether it was ill intended or not, as anyone can argue that, maybe it was meant to be helpful. But unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be helpful. Instead, it turned out to be like a carrot, a dangling a carrot. For people that wanted to come to the country through using a child to come in who got benefits quicker, faster, for safety reasons, obviously, and for the benefit of the child and protection of the child, they made these loopholes or portals that were a child would be protected under this.

And so lots of children then flooded the border, 400,000, maybe as many as 400,000. thousand. And then those kids got lost, or at least 300,000 got lost. And so in California, for any of you guys who are doubting me, you know, there's plenty of data about this. And I've heard about it and I've never really like wanted to face it in the wind of living in California, because my goal in living in California is to be accepting of everybody and to make things worse, work the best that I can, you know. But if this is true, I mean, if we are as Californians harboring kids that have been gone missing and are in the system and ICE is in California trying to find these kids. I mean, for the love of God, do not harbor them. You know, this is not,

it's not about whether they're going to get deported. It's what's happened to them. And the stories that they can tell and the truths that need to be told about these kids that have been, you know, abused, literally abused on their, on their path to coming to America for any reason. And some of them can't, you know, speak out for themselves because the stories are so terrible that you wouldn't believe that they're happening in 2026 in California or in America. And you wouldn't believe it because you would think that, you know, we've come a little bit further than that. But maybe we haven't. And if we haven't, we should be certainly open to knowing that we haven't.

And we should be like, come on in and tell me how I can help. Not we want to call ourselves a sanctuary state, not a sanctuary city, a sanctuary state. And I, Elaine Clotti, I will not harbor. children that have been pushed through a system like this. I will seek them out and hand them over to the authorities so that they can be reunited with their families or whatever needs to happen. I just can't, I can't believe it's been that many people. And that's just four years. I mean, this goes back to 2008. So you talk about intentions and yes, some probably started out with good intentions on this. Some knew what the result was going to be. But going back to 2000,

You can see that anyone can see the numbers to not change it. Then you the intentions are are different. And so, but it takes a firm spine to stand up and say, this is perverse. We need to repeal this because then you'll be accused of wanting to harm children. This is perverse and we need to appeal this and don't accuse me of trying to harm children. We cannot let children cross the border into the hands of people that are trafficking them. That's just, and the law at the very least would need to be amended. So, you know, and I don't know if it's up for being amended, but we're here at Heritage.

And Heritage is a conservative policy writing think tank. People may or may not agree with Heritage, but you have to, when you think about policy, you have to think about how you can look at both sides. there is a conservative view to immigration, and the conservative view differs very much from California. Somewhere in the middle lies the best path. I know that, especially for California. But we cannot ignore this. We can't ignore kids. I'm not willing to do it as a California citizen, as a mom, as somebody who works and employs people all across California. if someone knew something about my child and didn't tell me I would find them. I would seek them out and I would find them.

And that's what we're trying to do. And I do hope that we do cooperate in California with ICE when it comes to kids and when it comes to criminals. We need to find a way to cooperate with ICE in California when it comes to kids and when it comes to criminals. I understand there are a lot of people to protect in California. But I think we have to give them a chance. And I definitely don't think we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And in this case, actually doing that. There's a reason that there is a mission for ICE to come out and look for these people.

There is a reason. And we're not looking at it in California. We are all terrified. We are all screaming that it's, you know, intimidating. and we've lost the plot if we're saying that they can't go to the voting polls. You know, this is where things go too far. It doesn't matter if ICE is at the voting polls because we all know that only American citizens vote in California. And we've been saying that and we stand up.

And so we all know that American citizens vote in California and therefore it does not matter if ISIS at the voting polls. Okay. Two people can play at this game. And as a liberal Californian, I want to know that I can. can trust my elections. I want to know that my elections mean something. And then when I go and I listen to every politician in California at hours and hours at nauseam to find out if they have good ideas, to find out who's running for governor and what they are offering, and who's running for lieutenant governor and what they're offering, I want to know that all the effort that I put in, and by the way, the money that I give

to support these candidates, I want to know that my candidate has a chance of winning. So I want to trust my voting system. And I want to trust my voting system across America. I want to know that the people that I vote for in Congress, in Senate and bills that I vote, and presidents and vice presidents, that my vote counts. And the way to start that is to believe that in your own state, in your own backyard, at your very own voting poll, that it should not matter at all of ICE is there because the people that are voting are American citizens. And this should happen in California. And if you want to argue with me about it. You can DM me.

You can make comments in the comments on Daily Signal. You can find me on Lipstick Farmer on Instagram. And you can talk to me about why ICE should not be allowed to be at voting polls. This is Elaine Colletti for the Daily Signal, visiting DC and Laura Reese.