The Daily Signal - INTERVIEW | Rancher Lauren Allen on Realities of Living on Southern Border

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

For Laura Allen and her family, illegal aliens crossing through their ranch is one of the “unique aspects” of living on the border, she said.  The illegal aliens who cross through her ranch are ���criminals, they've got criminal histories, they're not good people, and they are to be feared,” said Allen, who is not related to this reporter.  The Allen ranch, located about 170 miles west of San Antonio in Val Verde County, has been in the family for over 100 years.   “It was bought in 1920 by [my husband’s] great-grandfather and the family has been actively ranching it all that time,” Allen, 54, said.   Allen, the former judge of Val Verde County, says that over the years, her husband's family has watched the situation with illegal immigration change.  “Years ago, when my mother-in-law and my father-in-law built their home out here, which was in the ’50s, it was not uncommon for [illegal aliens] to come up to the house and be looking for work or looking for a meal or something like that,” Allen said. “Generally, they didn't have issues. They didn't have problems with anybody.”  “Nowadays, the people that we see crossing, they don't want to come anywhere near us. They don't want to be seen, they don't want to be detected. We catch them on game cameras with big, huge backpacks that you could almost carry a person in, which we're sure are drugs,” she said, adding: “They come through in the cover of darkness and they want to get out undetected.”  Allen joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to explain the realities of life on the southern border. 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, October 12th. I'm Virginia Allen. You've heard about the crisis on the southern border. And rancher Laura Allen, she's living it. Alan and her family own a ranch in Valverde County, Texas. Illegal aliens crossed through her property regularly. I had the opportunity recently to visit Laura on her ranch down in Texas to talk about the crisis at the border and how it's affecting her and communities all over Texas.

and America. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get to my conversation with Laura Allen after this. We've reached a critical point in American history. Washington, D.C. is ground zero for pushing back against the left, and we want to equip you for a career on Capitol Hill. The Heritage Foundation's Ready Set Hill program prepares you not only to find a job on Capitol Hill, but also advance conservative principles and impact public policy. It's just a two-day commitment and we're currently taking applications for October. Get more information and sign up at heritage.org slash training. Just look for the ready set hill program.

Well, it is my pleasure today to be sitting here in Del Rio in Valverde County, Texas, on the border of Mexico with Judge Laura Allen, who was a judge back from 2010 to 2014 in Valverte County, and she has a ranch right here in the community. Laura, thank you so much for your time today. Well, you're very welcome. So tell us a little bit about your family and the ranch that you all have here and how long you all have been ranching in this community. The ranch has been in my husband's family for over 100 years. It was bought in 1920 by his great-grandfather, and the family has been actively ranching in all that time. We still do. And we were kind of touring your property this morning, and you have beautiful, beautiful scenery across the property. but you can look and see Mexico right and you kind of drive up on the high peaks on your

ranch and you can look and see Mexico so what what does that mean for you all sharing a border with Mexico? Sharing the border with Mexico comes with lots of unique aspects because we are north of the dam the Pekas River and the Rio Grande River converge here on us and feed into Lake Amistad Reservoir that was done years ago for flood control purposes downstream on the Rio Grande. The water down south that's used to irrigate comes through our dam here. For us, you know, we've always had issues being so close to the border, and literally we are the border.

But the issues that we have are still the same. The people that come through our property are not good people. it's always been that way these are not people looking for somebody to pick them up and take them to the Border Patrol these people are trying to get away and you know they're either

have criminal histories, hauling drugs there's some interesting individuals what are some of the things that you have seen in the decades that your family your husband's family has owned this ranch that you all have seen maybe kind of back in the day

versus what you're seeing now regarding the individuals that are crossing at your ranch? Years ago, you know, my mother-in-law has since passed, but years ago when my mother-in-law and my father-in-law built their home out here, which was in the 50s, it was not uncommon for somebody to come up to the house and be looking for work or looking for a meal or something like that. And, you know, generally they didn't have issues. They didn't have problems with anybody.

Nowadays, the people that we see crossing, they don't. want to come anywhere near us. They don't want to be seen. They don't want to be detected. We catch them on game cams with big, huge backpacks that you could almost carry a person in, which we're sure are drugs. We see them filling their water things. We have them climbing fences. There for a little while, we did have some problems. They were breaking some gates and things like that. But for the most part, you know, they come through in the cover of darkness. and they want to get out undetected. And how are they coming across?

Well, they're being brought across for the most part by boat. And I know years ago, we were told that they paid like $200 a person, and this was probably 20 years ago, to come across on a boat. Now we're hearing that it's closer to $1,000 a person. And there are Mexican citizens that we can see. We see them on a regular basis. that there's a couple of boats that are identified as regular crossing, and they bring loads of eight, nine, ten people across, and I'm sure they're making thousands of dollars doing it.

But recently, we've actually seen people come across on pool floats, so it's not out of the question. That's wild. And I knew you said you found some kind of, you found interesting things down at the edge of the reservoir. Share a little bit about that. Well, we had found clothes back when the weather was still cool last fall. We found blankets.

We found several changes of clothes. Backpacks. We find lots of water bottles, abandoned backpacks. Food. Canned food. You know, we just debris all over the place. And you can see where they've taken off wet clothes and put on dry clothes or whatever. And then they just leave what they don't want to carry and leave it behind.

So your ranch is 16,000 acres. How does what is happening with illegal immigration and having an unsecured border, how does that impact you all and your ability here on the ranch to do your jobs? You know, when you put it into perspective of looking at like what's happened with the Haitians in Del Rio and now what's happening in Eagle Pass and moving towards El Paso, these are concentrated numbers and very well organized. these people are brought to these locations and told, all you have to do is just get across that river and they'll take you where you need to go. I myself have seen the coyotes that bring them across, walk them across the river and within arm's reach of our soil

and just say, you know, keep going, they'll take care of you. That's a different kind of illegal alien. Those people are just literally, we'll walk up to you and say, can you call immigration? They want to be caught. They want to be processed because they've been told they're going to get to go wherever they want. What we've had in the past on us, the people that are out here, they don't want to be caught. They don't want to be detected.

They're criminals. You know, they've got criminal histories. They're not good people. And they are to be feared. But with everything that's happening, our biggest concern initially, as the number started escalating was if all of the easier crossing areas are being inundated by these, you know, people that want to turn themselves in, the so-called godaways that we have, were those numbers going to increase, you know, how much, you know, how much more violent were people

going to be, you know, where we're going to have more property damage, things like that. As far as the border being secure in our particular area, I can't speak for the whole United States border, but in our particular area, it will never be secure. You cannot secure this area. I mean, we're surrounded by water. There's no fence. There's no Border Patrol.

They're not here all the time. Getting someone from law enforcement or Border Patrol out here, on a good day, it could have a 30 to 45 minute response team if it was life or death, or response time, I'm sorry, if it was life or death. But we've called Border Patrol before. had eight people show up at one of our hunters' houses. And my husband called Border Patrol and said, look, we've got a group over here. You need to come and get them. And they said, well, if you can put them in the truck and take them to the highway, we'll come get them. Yeah, that's not really feasible

and not really legal either. So that's kind of, we're just, we're on our own. And there's no way to secure that. There's no way for anybody to secure that. So then what do you think needs to happen in order to deter illegal migrants from, you know, coming onto your ranch where you do have property that you can't logically, because of the way the water is, the molland is, you can't just say, well, we're going to build a giant fence that doesn't work. So in sections of border like this, how do you go about preventing bad actors or just illegal migrants from taking advantage of the system? You know, it's going to sound simplistic, and I have to laugh because when the numbers started increasing, we all said, ship them to Washington and people will pay attention. Here we are two years later

and they're being shipped to Washington and people are paying attention. And so that's kind of funny. But my idea about securing the borders basically as simplistic as that it was, you know, at this point, if you're going to let them out and you're going to let them go anywhere they want to go on the country, let them out, let them out, let the border patrol come back to the border. let them hold the line. If we had agents out here, because even though we don't have high traffic right now, Eagle Pass does, and they can't handle the traffic so the overflow comes here. So all of our agents are having to handle overflow from Eagle Pass.

So, you know, if you're going to let them go, let them go. Put the agents back on the line and hold the line, and it would be a whole different scenario. If you could sit down with President Biden and talk to him about, you know, what you experience here on your property, talk to him about your ranch and say, this is what we're facing, and this is what we need. What would you share with him? You know, my gut instinct is to say he would never understand, and that's not because any fault of his, but conversations that I have with people, even in the state of Texas, that have not visited the border, don't understand. It's hard for people to comprehend what's

happening and it's so dynamic. So my first thing to everybody is come. I'll host you. I'll take you. You want to go to Eagle? We'll go to Eagle Pass. You want to go to Del Rio. We'll go to Del Rio. You want to to come to my ranch and see my ranch. Whatever you want to do, we'll host you. But until you come and see it for yourself, you don't know. And so the problems where you have the high volume crossings, that's a simple whole line. You know, we recently had media coverage of, you know, the gate being locked by National Guard, and the Border Patrol came and unlocked it. So does the right hand know what the left hand's doing?

That's the problem we have, and you have people making decisions in Washington, even in Austin, that haven't been here, and they don't understand all the nuance of the different areas and the different types of crossers. And until you get to that point, you just can't have an education. discussion with someone. You just can't. They don't get it. I think some people would look at your

situation and they'd say, well, why not move? Why not move away from having to worry about people crossing on your property illegally constantly? Have you ever considered leaving this part of the country moving off the border? You know, it's funny. I've considered leaving this part of the country, but not because of the border. Sometimes it's just good to be anonymous. But, you know, for people that say just leave, just move, this land has been in my husband's family for over 100 years. Generations of blood, sweat, and tears are in it, and we're still actively ranching. You know, we're not to the point where we just say, you know, we don't want to do this anymore, we're done. We love our life, but I think there's times we're the last generation.

So it has nothing to do with the border. It's just this lifestyle. style in general. It's not an easy one, and it's not one that many generations are carrying through. And do you feel safe on your property at night? No. And I say that, I mean, if I'm here by myself, I'm going to be aware of my surroundings, and I'm going to protect myself, and so I don't have any concerns about that. But having you here as a guest or having my children out somewhere, I have maybe a maternal need to protect. And so that means being armed at all times, being aware of my surroundings, and not taking anything for granted because we don't know, you know, when we're going to run into someone and

what their intentions are. And we have been counseled by several Border Patrol agents in the last six to nine months that has said do not confront people because we're finding more and more with guns and that's a scary proposition so you know we live on the precipice of it's not if we're going to have to shoot it's when and and who's going to be the martyr for the cause and that's a scary proposition that is a scary proposition and wild way to live what would be kind of your message to the American people or, you know, folks like what we saw happen on Martha's Vineyard, that, you know, this is touching them now for the first time in a very real way. What would you want to say to them? You know, again, it's so hard to have this discussion with people that don't

understand it. But Martha's Vineyard was, it was such a reality. And the funny thing about, you know, there was going to be criminal investigations into what was being done and these people were being I'm standing there. I've stood there on multiple occasions when these people are getting on these buses and these are huge buses that they're loading. They're excited. They're Viva America, Viva Biden. You know, this is their narrative. And nobody's forcing them. Nobody's coercing them. And if you talk to them, they will tell you, yes, we came here because everybody's told us that Biden and this government are going to let us in this country and here we go. We're going. When we had the thousands of Haitians underneath our bridge here, we had a guy from Cuba that was making TikToks from underneath the bridge. I mean, this is,

this is their reality. They're not stressed. They're not forced. They're not forced. The victims are the children. I mean, you know, children are trafficked and traded regularly, and that's a sad reality, but we can't stop that no matter what we do. So for the people who think 50 people or whatever, Martha's Vineyard, and they want to say, you know, these people were forced into it. No, they weren't. They weren't. They have to voluntarily consent to get on that.

The NGOs, the non-government organizations that help them process after they're released from Border Patrol, absolutely, ensure that they are treated the way the NGO believes that they should be treated, which means they have food, they have clothing, they have travel arrangements, they have everything that they need to go where they need to go. So nobody's being held at gunpoint and sent anywhere. And if they're saying that they're getting on the bus and they didn't know where they were going to be sent, that bus makes regular stops. And when the bus leaves, there's probably about 100 people on there. If only 50 got to Martha's Vineyard, there was probably a few that got off. In fact, I know for a fact, there were a few that got off along the way.

They stopped for a snack break, and they said, hey, you know, we don't want to get back on the bus. We're going to stay here. And they do. They're free to travel. They have, ironically, more freedoms than we do. And I'll give you an example of that. I had a friend visiting here for the border last week. Took them to the airport flying back to Dallas. We get to the airport. Now, mind you, we're American citizens going into the TSA line at the airport. I'm standing there watching all this. You have to be cleared by Border Patrol before TSA will allow you to go through TSA. And where are the American citizens? So what's the conflict and the duplication of efforts there? And how, you know, that's an inconvenient for us. They go through with a piece of paper. I've been really fascinated to begin to learn a little

bit about the role of nonprofits in this whole immigration system, a legal immigration system specifically. When, as I know, you know, both living here, being a rancher, having been a judge, you know how this system works so well. Walk through a little bit from the moment an individual who wants to be essentially caught, wants to encounter border patrol, from the moment that they cross the border, what are the steps? What happens? You know, that's funny. I'd be careful with that term non-profit, that's used very loosely because there's profit being made, lots of profit being made. So it has changed, and it seems to be some kind of a fluid. Most of the policies are fluid these days.

They're not rigid like they used to be. But you can be standing on the river when somebody walks up and says, you know, well, you call immigration, you call immigration, Border Patrol picks them up. A couple hours later, you see them at the local convenience store, Border Patrol has dropped them off after they've been processed. Well, then here comes a white van, and the white van picks them up and takes them to the NGO. And then from the NGO, then, you know, they call sponsors is what they're called. They have sponsors.

Now, my understanding of that sponsorship could be donations that were sent to them to pay, it help pay these people to go where they need to. I don't exactly know how they find that. I've never actually been into the NGO. I don't have any desire to be in the NGO. I definitely have some very differing views from the people at the NGO, meaning, you know, people are human. Yes, they need to be treated like humans, but we have laws, and these laws are being broken, and they're facilitating that.

And they're facilitating that in the name of the dollar. bill, but they'll tell you it's in the name of the Bible. And that's not right. And I think it's a great amount of hypocrisy. But long story short, in the worst of times, we could probably see people that would hit the riverbank and be out of our county within six or eight hours. So they're brought in, their process, and in that processing, they're taking what basic fingerprints some basic information down, getting a name, and then they're released, correct? If they have time. One of my favorite ones, though, and I use this analogy to try to explain it to people.

So I've never broken the law in Canada, never had any contact with anybody in Canada, but I want to go to Canada, murder somebody. Go to Canada, never been in their system. I murder somebody. I don't get caught. And then I come back to the States. but when I have an interaction with the Canadian government at the border, my name's Jane Doe.

They have no record of my fingerprints. They have no record of any of my biometrics to prove that I'm not Jane Doe. So they say, okay, Jane, well, have a nice trip back to the States. That's all they know. So we just talked about this last week about the numbers that are coming in. You know, there's certain countries that our government has exempted, you know, they talk about Venezuelans and Guatemalans and these different countries. You know, we're not going to hold these people.

We're not going to ship them back. We're not going to do this. So now every person that you meet on the border is from one of those countries. You know, they won't tell you they're from Cuba. They won't tell you that they're from Mexico. They won't tell you any of this. They're all from those countries that they know. So, and I know from personal experience, we have United States citizens that are working within Mexico

to help facilitate these people getting across. and they tell them, okay, you say this or you don't say that, or you tell them this or you tell them that. And there's so much more to this. You know, family units are exempted. Well, family unit, do you know that means brother-sister? That means uncle, niece. That means any blood relation.

Okay, well, I'm Jane Doe, and this is my nephew, John Doe. Who's to say? We have no way to prove or disprove that. And then once they're in our country, we finally, finally got some admittance from our government that these people are not being tracked, that they're not reporting. Imagine that.

They're given a notice to report. You know, they're not reporting. Of course they're not. But where are they? We don't know because the NGO has sent them on a bus. Where did the NGO send them to? And then people that criticize our governor, or Governor Abbott because he's sending these buses or whatever.

So if 100 of them got on the bus and it's a three-day drive to get to Martha's Vineyard and only 50 of them arrived, where are the other 50? I mean, did they, the shop in Oklahoma? I mean, where'd they get off the bus? Who's keeping track of that? Does the NGO track that at all? Do you know? No.

No. They are responsible for getting them to where they want to go to. and you know we have um Texas Department of public safety DPS personnel that have been at our local NGO and so the state run buses those people are given the option you can get on this state run bus and this is you know they'll take you to San Antonio to the airport or whatever or you can get on the NGO whatever the NGO is facilitated are you willing to name any of those NGOs that you're aware of in this area um Catholic Charities is the biggest umbrella organization of a lot of them.

But, you know, like I said, I don't spend my time focusing on the NGOs because all they are, again, it's a non-government organization. They are contracting or, well, contracting is the best term to use working with our federal government. And they're doing it and helping our own government break our laws. And I don't agree. Laura, thank you. We really appreciate your time. This has just been a pleasure.

Judge Laura Allen, really appreciate it. Thank you. You're very welcome. You're welcome anytime. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. If you haven't had the chance already, be sure to check out our evening show right here in your podcast feed

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