The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Every State Is a Border State: How the Migrant Crisis Impacts Wisconsin, Alabama, Virginia

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Republican Congressmen from across the country voted to pass H.R. 2, a massive border bill, in the House of Representatives Thursday. Many of them who represent states far removed from the border told The Daily Signal how the crisis impacts their states. Wisconsin's Derrick Van Orden, Alabama's Barry Moore, and Virginia's Bob Good discussed the fentanyl crisis, murders at the hands of illegal immigrants, and what they'd tell Senate Democrats who refuse to consider the bill. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I sat down with Republican congressmen from across the country who voted to pass H.R. 2, the massive border bill in the House of Representatives Thursday. Many of them who represent states far removed from the border told me how the crisis impacts their states. Rep. Derek Van Orden discussed the fentanyl crisis in Wisconsin. Rep. Barry Moore discussed the fentanyl crisis in Alabama, noting that enough fentanyl had been seized in Birmingham to kill every. man, woman, and child in the state. Rep. Bob Good, who represents Virginia, said that members of the MS-13 gang had murdered people in his Virginia district and that 400,000 illegals live in Virginia costing about $5,000 per illegal immigrant. Take a listen to these interviews now. I hope you enjoy them. This is Tyler O'Neill with The Daily Signal. I'm here with Congressman Van Orden.

from Wisconsin. Wisconsin. And why would you say the border bill that the House is about to vote on is monumental, is important? You know, what should Americans be looking for? Well, what the Americans, America Public, they're not just looking for it. They're seeing leadership coming out of the House of Representatives. That's what's taking place.

Kevin McCarthy has done a great job leading our conference here. And this is the strongest border security bill. that has really ever been passed. And we were talking a little bit about some statistics here. Over 26,000 illegal immigrants have been encountered in the last 72 hours, highest number in history. Over 100,000 American citizens have died of fentanyl overdose since Joe Biden has taken watch. It's a leading cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45. That's completely unacceptable and mostly preventable because we know 90% of that fentanyl is coming over the southern border. We know that because we're using Joe Biden's statistics, not ours.

That is not a Republican talking point. We're spending $50 million a year to store the materials that have already been purchased by the American taxpayers to finish the border wall. So line item number one on this, finish the border wall. We don't have to make a trip to Home Depot to pick up anything. It's already sitting there out in the desert. I've been to the El Paso and the Tucson sector of the border. It means I've been there twice, which is. is twice as many times as the President of the United States, and twice as many times as the

borders are, Kamala Harris, who we discussed earlier should not get an F, she should get an I, an incomplete, because she has done absolutely nothing to help secure the border. How does this crisis impact voters and constituents in Wisconsin? We have had a rash of fentanyl overdoses in the third congressional district to the state of Wisconsin, rural Wisconsin, we're having people die of fentanyl overdoses. And it's happening all the time. And it's tragic. That's a in-your-face testament to Joe Biden, Secretary of Marrake's, really the Democrat Party writ large,

especially over in the Senate with Chuck Schumer, just not caring about these things. I don't know how else you can describe that. If you could stop 90% of the fentanyl coming in over the southern border. Why wouldn't you? Because it's killing our brothers and sisters and mothers and cousins and aunts and uncles. It's just it's shocking to me. I mean, I sometimes sometimes I'm apoplectic. I just don't know what to say about how irresponsible the Biden administration's border policies are. When how would this bill impact the fentanyl crisis in particular? Build the wall secure the border. Make sure that border patrols.

is funded, give those guys and gals bonuses because they're working as hard as they possibly can, allow them to have other people do the processing so they can actually stop the folks, interdict of people entering the border and then not have to spend the rest of their day sitting down a computer typing. Those are big ones. I mean, those are huge right there. And this bill would make it require fewer illegals to be processed? This bill is going to build the wall, got to finish building the wall, sure we have enough agents, making sure the agents have what they need so that they can do their job in an effective manner. It's a good thing. And I am very disappointed in the messaging that's

coming out of the White House and Chuck Schumer's Senate. So the House of Representatives have been doing our job. We've got the debt ceiling through, passing a border bill today, and now it's incumbent on Chuck Schumer to do his job. It's up to the Biden administration to do their job. Sign these into law. Stop this fearmongering about the debt ceiling. Stop this fearmongering about their lying about taking veterans' benefits and all this stuff. They're just lying about this.

So Chuck Schumer needs to do his damn job. Joe Biden needs to do his damn job, too. We're doing ours. This is Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at The Daily Signal. I have Representative Barry Moore from Alabama. Great to have you with us. Thank you, Tom. Good to be here.

So can you tell us a little bit about how this bill, you know, how the border crisis impacts Alabama and what really, you know, leads you to support this bill? Yeah, well, you know, we seized enough fentanyl a few months ago in Birmingham to kill every man, woman, and child in Alabama. So although you may be a border town, this is a crisis for our entire country as it's fentanyl pores. And it's the number one killer now in people between ages of 18 to 45. And so, you know, it's not just those border towns, like I said, and it's going to continue to impact us. As we see these people, five million encounters, that's my state's entire population, have been contacted coming across U.S. southern border. That don't count the ones that got away.

So we basically displaced my entire state's population. So you have people who are coming here are going to need health care. They're going to need education. They're going to need food. We were giving them cell phones until we ran out. So my concern is now is how do we support these people who are not paying into the system? bypassed everybody who was waiting in line. And so it is a crisis truly for the entire country, but it does impact our state. And how would you respond to some groups on the left that frame

the issue as, you know, not caring for the marginalized, the poor, you know, how would you address that sort of attack that you might hear from the southern poverty loss? So my concern is what about the 85,000 children that our government has lost? I mean, we brought them in here unaccompanied miners, and they came here. looking for the American dream and somewhere they're in a sweatshop or they're being sex traffic. Who knows? We've sent them to God knows where for God knows what. And the people that are supposed to be their trustees or the people that are supposed to be in charge of them, you know, many cases, we're not background checking those people. And we're just,

they give us a Google address. We ship these children to those people and we've lost 85,000 of them. To me, does that sound like compassion to you? No. Yeah. And what is the most impactful part of this bill that is? So I think where we start saying we're going to detain you and return you, that lets people know stop coming here. There's no longer a free ride. In Yuma, Arizona, you know, I sit on Judiciary Committee and I'm a member of the Immigration Committee and the Subcommittee. You know, in Yuma, Arizona, we talked about people from 106 different countries that have come just through that sector. And so it's very important now that the American people know that we've got people coming here who may not be just seeking asylum.

They'd be seeking to do us harm. It's very important we get the word out. We've got to shut this border down and do what we can. And I think that when you tell them, hey, if you come here, we're going to detain you and return you rather than give you a cell phone $800 a month in subsidies and a future court date, I think it's a deterrent. Yeah, wonderful. Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. This is Tyler O'Neill, managing editor at The Daily Signal. I'm joined by Representative Bob Good of Virginia. How are you this afternoon? Doing great, Tyler. Thanks for having me. Hey, my pleasure.

So I'd like to hear how the border crisis is impacting Virginia and why you're excited and supportive of this bell as a result of it. Well, Virginia in 2023 was estimated to have 400,000 illegal aliens in Virginia, costing an average of $5,000 approximately per alien for Virginians to support them. And now you've got the cessation of Title 42, which is going to, by most estimates, double the invasion. Right now, we've got 10,000 a day coming. It's estimated maybe as many as 20,000 a day.

This president is on track for some 1520 illegals to invade the country during his time in office. And so far we've had five and a half million that have been released in the country essentially because of these policies. Well, what about the one and a half million that don't want the free healthcare, free social services, free education, free travel, free housing

that's provided by our generous administration to illegals, what about the one-half million that don't want those because of what they're trafficking in the country or what their terrorists or criminal ties are? We found a hundred on the terrorist watch list out of the five and a half million. How many might be in that one and a half million? How many did it take to perpetrate 9-11? If only one percent of the 1.5 million criminal got-of-ways are bad actors, that would be 15,000. I bet you, neither you, or anyone else that we know would take a bet that 99 percent of the criminal gotaways are good folks here for just productive reasons.

So the bill also expands the number of crimes that were, the type of crimes that would disqualify someone for asylum. Would that have a big impact in Virginia and would that address a lot of the problems that you were talking about? Yeah, this, an open border obviously contributes to the crime crisis in the country, which is exasper, or has grown massively under this administration, violent crimes up some 30% across the country. There's crimes being committed at the border. There's crimes being committed by illegals. We've had murders in my own community where I live in my district in Virginia from

illegal aliens who are here, MS-13 gang members. So you've got the crime issue. Again, you've got the health care tax on our health care services, on our education services, on our social services. So this is a comprehensive border bill. It is border security bill. It's the strongest bill that's ever come out of the house. It's better than Goodlat one and Goodlat two that we couldn't get out of the house, what, 10 years ago with a larger Republican majority than what we had here. So a significant accomplishment by this leadership team and by the Republican majority get this bill passed. Great. Thank you so much for speaking with me, Representative. Thank you, Tyler. And that'll do it for today's bonus episode. Thank you for listening to the Daily Signal podcast.

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