The Daily Signal - Far From Southern Border, Illegal Immigration Is Hurting Idaho, Lawmaker Says

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, isn't from a southern border state, but he says illegal immigration still adversely affects the Gem State. "I mean, drug- and sex-trafficking impacts everyone," Fulcher says. "And we're feeling the effects of that," he adds. "Our citizens, our taxpayers as well. We have to pay for services through federal taxes that are being expended here. We have a very large dairy and egg industry. The dairy industry in particular has relied upon immigrants for a lot of the labor, and that's not always been legal." He joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss those issues. Plus, he weighs in on vaccine passports and his perspective of the Biden administration four months in. We also cover these stories: Democrats have begun a formal effort to increase the size of the U.S. Supreme Court, proposing to add four justices. President Joe Biden has placed new sanctions on Russia for its election interference and cyberattacks.  Is there a disparity in criminal charges between those pressed against the U.S. Capitol rioters of Jan. 6 and rioters in Portland, Oregon? That was the question Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., asked FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday at a hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  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 Friday, April 16th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Richard Del Judas. Congressman Russ Fulcher of Idaho isn't from a border state, but he says illegal immigration still impacts his state. He joins me on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. Plus, we hit on the Biden administration's vaccine passports and why they are a threat to privacy. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. Democrats have launched a formal effort to increase the size of the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Gerald Nadler, Democrat of New York, and Judiciary Committee members Mondare Jones, Democrat of New York, and Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia,

held a press conference outside the Supreme Court on Thursday. They argued for the expansion of High Court from nine justices to 13. Senator Markey said expanding the court is needed because the United States Supreme Court is broken per Forbes. We have a stilted, illegitimate 6-3 conservative majority on the court that has caused this crisis of confidence in our country. The Republicans stole two seats on the Supreme Court, and now it is up to us to repair that damage. Our democracy is in jeopardy today because the Supreme Court standing is sorely damaged. And the way we repair it is straightforward. We undo the damage that the Republicans have done by restoring balance. And we do it by adding four seats to the court to create a 13-member Supreme

Court. These four new seats to be filled by President Biden will reconstitute the United States Supreme Court. The bench will then rightly reflect the values of the majority of the American people on whose behalf they serve. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a press conference Thursday that she does not have any plans to bring the Democrat back bill to the House floor for a vote, but Pelosi did say she supports President Joe Biden's commission to examine whether or not the court should be expanded. And she added that expanding the court is not out of the question. President Joe Biden has placed new sanctions on Russia for its election interference and cyber hacks.

In his statement, the White House said, President Biden signed a new sanctions executive order that provides strengthened authorities to demonstrate the administration's resolve in responding to and deterring the full scope of Russia's harmful foreign activity. This EO sends a signal that the United States will impose costs in a strategic and economically impactful manner on Russia if it continues or escalates its destabilizing international actions. Is there a disparity in charges between the January 6th U.S. Capitol rioters and rioters in Portland? That was the question Oklahoma Republican Representative Mark Wayne Mullen asked FBI Director

Christopher Ray on Thursday during a House Select Committee on Intelligence hearing. Let's take a listen to their exchange, per the Washington Examiner. Under the Biden administration, there appears to be a wave of lenity being granted to individuals arrested for federal crimes in Portland. Federal prosecutors are apparently approving deferred resolution agreements and number of cases and allowing perpetrators to do community service and avoid jail time and criminal records. Why are we seeing such a disparity between the individuals charged in January 6 and those that are charged in Portland. Well, let me answer that in two ways.

I think the first part, which is probably the most important part, is that charging decisions, prosecutorial decisions are not made by the FBI, but are made by the- But you make suggestions. I get that. I understand that. And that's an important distinction.

I'm sorry. But you absolutely bring the charges to them, and then they decided how they're going to charge them. Is that correct? We investigate. We investigate. And they decide whether or not. decide what whether to, so a question about whether to defer prosecution would be a decision by the

prosecutors. Do you think there's disparity between the two of how they're being prosecuted January 6th? So that gets to the second point, which is I think, you know, in many cases charges related to the capital. That's not what I'm asking. Is there a difference between the two, the way they're being charged? You have 140 plus federal officers that have been injured in Port and alone. You have federal buildings that have been attacked, been burned, been stormed, and you're not treating it the same as you are January 6. Would you agree with that? I believe we are taking, we, the FBI are taking a consistent approach in both situations. Consistent. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't even know how many federal officers you've been charged.

Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who's charged with the death of George Floyd said he won't be testifying in his own defense. Here is his exchange with Lee defense attorney Eric Nelson via Bloomberg Quicktakes. Have you made a decision today, uh, today whether you went to to testify or whether you intend to invoke your Fifth Amendment privilege? I will invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege today. Is this your decision not to testify? It is, Your Honor. All right.

Do you have any questions about your right to remain silent or to testify on your own behalf? Not at this time I don't. All right. Does anyone promise anything or threatened you in any way to keep you from testifying? No promises or threats, Your Honor. Do you feel that your decision not to testify is about, one on your behalf. Yes, it is.

Now stay tuned for my conversation with Congressman Russ Fulcher of Idaho. Never has it been more important for us to fight for America. Each day we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation. Our elections are under assault. Our economic freedom is on the decline, and our culture is turning its back on the founding principles that have made us the freest, most prosperous nation in history. That's why the Heritage Foundation developed a

plan to take on the left and take back our country. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of Heritage recommended action items delivered on a regular basis to your inbox. Make an impact in your community and in our country. Sign up for the Citizens Guide at at heritage.org slash citizens guide and join in the fight for America today. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Congressman Russ Fulcher of Idaho, Congressman Fulcher. It's So great to have you on the Daily Signal podcast. Well, wonderful. Thank you for having me on today.

Well, it's great to have you with us. You recently had an amendment that Democrats blocked, but this amendment would have stopped taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal immigrants. So Congressman Fultcher, can you tell us about your amendment and what it would have done had Democrats not blocked it? Sure. Well, I have this belief that you should be following the law if you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to, to take advantage of some of the things that this country has to offer. And one of those things has to be insurance coverage. And the coverage is the U.S. government provides to typically for taxpayers. And that's basically what I was doing is I was taking issue with the fact that

immigrants are getting some of these benefits by, in effect, as a result of breaking the law. And I just don't think that is, that's right. But in order to understand the entire picture, you have to understand what the Democrat motive is. They want the open borders. They want people coming in that are receiving government benefits that are getting addicted to those government benefits that are becoming dependent on those government benefits because they are more likely over time to support the Democrats to put that in place. That's how they're growing in their party. That's how they're trying to get control in a substantial margin over the course of time. And that's at the root of this very problem.

Well, speaking of this problem, we've just seen the situation at the border escalate and become more and more of a crisis. And so I wanted to hear from you, just your perspective on what's happening there right now. It's bad and it's getting worse. And you have a combination of problems. You've got this crush of people trying to get in, and they're truly trying to better their employment, better their lives. This president, as a candidate, advertised that he was going to open things up, that he wasn't going to be deporting people. They believed it, they heard it, they took him up on it, and so here they come. And the ramifications have been horrific.

The cartels, who actually control the border, have now engaged with trafficking people, not just the, sex and drugs the way they typically have. And so by default, they are controlling our border because our border officials are busy trying to accommodate the number of people that are showing up, the unaccompanied minors. It's a terrible situation. The profits are going to cartels that the losers in this particular case are the people that are coming in as immigrants, the conditions that they're under, and the American taxpayer, who's footing the bill for this, and the presidency, the administration is woefully not doing anything about it.

They're allowing this to happen. This is a crisis on a monumental level. I believe it's over 100,000 per month at this point, the engagements that we've got, the apprehensions that we have on that southern border. And that doesn't even begin to address some of the homeland security concerns that are coming at. People that they're not coming from Guatemala or Mexico or Honduras are coming from Middle Eastern nations that we are finding or China. So when you open up your borders, you relinquish your control as a nation. And we're putting our citizens in horrific harm's way. Well, even though Idaho is not a border state, I wanted to hear from you.

Does illegal immigration impact Idaho? Oh, no question. I mean, drug and sex trafficking impacts everyone. and we're feeling the effects of that. Our citizens, our taxpayers as well, we have to pay for services through federal taxes that are being expended here. We have a very large dairy and ag industry.

The dairy industry in particular has relied upon immigrants for a lot of the labor, and that's not always been legal. And so we see the impacts of that, and the ramifications of in-person teaching to illegal students, which is mandated by our state and by federal laws. And so it has a very significant impact on us. We haven't had the gang activity that some states have had,

but nevertheless, there is some, and that's only going to grow as that population continues. And, you know, Rachel, we just have to also keep in mind. Orderly immigration, legal immigration, is good for everyone. including the immigrants. We immigrate in this nation on a legal basis over the course of a year, more than every other nation in the world combined. And so it's not like we're not open to immigration.

But what I'm saying is that it has to be orderly. We have to enforce the law. And it's just unfathomable to me that this administration is not living up to the legal responsibilities that it has. Well, you mentioned the fact for legal immigration. Are there any sort of fixes or reforms you see that could be potentially used down the road to, you know, begin to address the crisis we have when it comes to, you know, having people come in legally versus illegally? As long as there is quality work conditions in the U.S. and not so much in the rest of the world, we're going to see this pressure. As long as there are entities in the world that don't like America, and that will be forever, we're going to see problems in this area. However, we can control it.

We can enforce the law. We can do things that will make it better. And I don't want to just make unwarranted parallels, but the previous president really did take some steps. He took some steps to put a border wall in place. He took some steps to empower the law enforcement down there and ICE and the border control and give us. them resources they need and enforce the law and did things with the governments of neighboring nations and other nations that made it clear were not just going to be this porous line where where just anyone can come through for any reason. Those are simplistic things. They're not

necessarily easy to do, but it was working. Comparatively speaking, if you take a look at the number of counters. I got some data yesterday. There was 34,000 encounters in March of 20. There's a 172 more than 172,000 in March of 21. So we can see what the difference of policy enforcement or lack thereof does. Simply enforcing the law is a, uh, it was a major step in the positive direction. Well, moving on off from the border for a minute. Uh, something else you've recently been working on is you let a group of 26 house members to send a letter to president Biden regarding, uh, this potential potential

vaccine. passport program that's been discussed. Can you tell us about the letter and what it said? Well, first and foremost, up until very recently, the president has not been meeting with members of Congress and has not been willing to meet with me and up until very recently, apparently, not even with the leadership of our party. And so that was the genesis of writing a letter, I would much rather have had the conversation in person, but nevertheless initiated a letter. It has to do with vaccine passports. This whole notion. of an individual citizen, an American having to prove that they receive the vaccine for certain

privileges is something that I take great offense to. And what also that could lead to, for example, how that information gets tracked, how that information is owned and transferred. There has been published reports of the administration having contacts with technology companies about creating apps for the tracking of people with vaccines and their records. It begs the question, is it compliant with HIPAA, Health Insurance, Portability, Accountability Act? And if there's that activity going on, do these tech companies now own that data? if they transfer it, what happens to it?

Where does that data reside? There's the personal privacy concerns, which I have great concerns about as well. And here we're talking about, you know, the U.S. government potentially restricting the movement, restricting the personnel within our own nation over this. And I think it's just simply wrong. legitimate concerns, people who want to opt out of that vaccine. How do they be affected by that? Some are concerned about pregnant women taking the vaccine. How will they be affected by that? So my letter was to the president, and it was urging him not to go down this path.

There were 25 to 30 other members who signed on to that particular letter. And a number of states, including Idaho, has taken his fault on that too and said that they're not going to enforce such a mandate if it comes through. Have you received any sort of response yet from the administration or people, officials that may have received any sort of discussion or response or nothing? No response from the administration. Did get a response from a few state legislators, and this was something that they felt was a good idea, that their state was going to follow up on that.

We had some discussion from other members who were concerned, similarly. with how big tech, if you will, those who are currently censoring people and discriminating how they may play a role in all this and the fact that they oppose that. But nothing that has come directly from the administration. Well, something else that you've talked a little bit about on Twitter is this new study that estimates that the tax increases in President Biden's infrastructure proposal will cost about one million jobs. Can you talk a little bit about what's going on here?

and just that potential number, that cost of one million jobs? Yeah, for 24 years before being in Congress or in the state of legislature, I was in the technology world. I was in the worldwide technology business. I had a lot of employees over the course of that time. And I learned that people perform better when they are allowed to keep more of what they earn. In other words, if they're performing, they're going to produce more, if they can keep more of what they earn, they're going to invest more, they're going to spend more, and that's going

to have positive ramifications throughout the economy. So when the president starts talking about raising taxes on people, whether they're making more than the average or not, then in my view, what's happening is you're penalizing that performance, and that's what he's doing. And it's going to have a very negative impact. And so people who have businesses, people that are employing are going to be much more obliged to send that work offshore, to they're going to send that work overseas. And that's exactly what we don't want. We want to encourage that to be taking place within the U.S.

And so I have very significant concerns. So ironically, when the president is saying this tax increase is going to translate to a, much better infrastructure. That much, I agree with him on. The problem is, it's not the U.S. infrastructure. It's going to be China's infrastructure. It's going to be India's infrastructure because our jobs are going there. He is taking exactly the wrong approach.

Well, lastly, you've commented on some of these things already, but when I wanted to wrap up on it, just what is your perspective of the Biden administration so far? We're about four months in, give or take a little bit. And I guess what's your opinion on what we've seen happen since President Biden has come into office? Well, first of all, like a lot of people, I don't know for sure who is really behind some of the decisions. There's questions that I have about whether or not he's making some of these decisions or not. But if you're a conservative, if you are a free market capitalist,

If you are someone who believes in individual liberty and independence, this is not the administration for you. And it's my hope that we can portray to as many Americans as possible that this is not the path that a republic goes down. I'm not talking about democracy. We are not a democracy. We're a republic. This is not the governance.

And this is not the policies of a republic. And this is, you cannot maintain a republic with. these policies. We're spending ourselves to oblivion. We're sending invoices to our grandkids with these major bills, and we're going the wrong direction. So it's my hope that we can message that. We can show what's going on to the American people, and in 20 months we can overturn the leadership, at least in the U.S. House, to stop some of this and start pointing ourselves back towards that free market capitalistic society that has created more well-fueless. any other nation in the history of the world combined.

So that's my hope. Well, Congressman Fultcher, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast. It's been great having you with us. Rachel, thank you so much. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play,

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