Independent Women’s Forum Senior Policy Analyst Patrice Onwuka Talks Border and Kamala Harris Photo Op in El Paso

Independent Women’s Forum Senior Policy Analyst Patrice Onwuka Talks Border and Kamala Harris Photo Op in El Paso

 

Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed the Independent Women’s Forum Senior Policy Analyst Patrice Onwuka to the newsmakers line to discuss her recent piece on Kamala Harris’s photo op and a short visit to El Paso while avoiding the real crisis at the Rio Grande Valley area.

Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line by our very good friend Patrice Onwuka with the Independent Women’s Forum. Good morning, Patrice.

Onwuka: Good morning, Michael. How are you today?

Leahy: Well, I just thought that the topic that you wrote about recently was funny to me.

Onwuka: Oh boy.

Leahy: Because Kamala Harris went down to the border kind of sort of for a photo op at the airport I think. How long was she at the border in El Paso, which is not the center of the problem?

Onwuka: She ended up staying a few hours, in addition to meeting some Border Patrol agents at a facility. I believe she also sat down with some local religious leaders.

I pegged her time originally at about two hours. She may have saved three or four. But certainly not enough time and definitely not in the right place to see the actual surge in migrants and surge in illicit drugs and other illegal activity going on at the southern border.

Leahy: Nothing says border control like meeting with religious leaders right? (Laughs) I mean, look, I love having conversations with religious leaders about issues of religion, but why, when she goes to the border, does she meet with religious leaders? Are they involved with the enforcement of our immigration laws?

Onwuka: I believe maybe some of them are involved with housing or providing services (Inaudible talk) and other service providers.

And listen, I love our civic community, religious community groups they are important. But I think even more important is actually going to the areas of the border where that is not an actual port of entry (Chuckles) where the people who are coming across are not doing so legally.

But actually going to to the areas where it’s actually worse where you’re seeing the smugglers, the coyotes dropping little kids in the middle of the night, and open fields where you’re seeing many groups of migrants distracting Border Patrol agents while drug smugglers are running fentanyl across our borders.

And by the way, that heads northeast, and west to every part of our country. I get that she wants to deal with the core issues and she wants to get to the root of the problem, but she also needs to deal with the immediate impact, and she’s not doing that.

Leahy: Well, I can tell her exactly how to get to the root of the problem. Are you ready? She needs to go and stand next to Joe Biden and then put a mirror up and look at those two people. Right? That’s the core of the problem, in my view.

Onwuka: Let’s go back to day one of the Biden administration in their haste to undo every Trump policy, particularly on immigration. They reversed some really powerful policies that were in place that were stemming the flow of migrants and forcing people, shocker, to apply for asylum in the nearest country of sanctuary instead of skipping three or four countries that want to apply for asylum at the closest safe place to you. But things like that were changed. And as a result, we’ve seen the signal going out to Central America and the rest of the countries. The policies have changed. Come on in now. The cartels have exploited this policy change to again recruit people who want to come to this country for whatever reason, I understand. But they’re exploiting the situation. The drug cartels are exploiting it for their own nefarious purposes. And we have an administration that is intentionally sticking its head in the sand because it doesn’t want to disrupt the very far left of its party and its wing who think that we should actually have no borders. And who are frankly, oh, happy to allowing as many people that want to be, with no regard for who they are, why they’re coming and where they’re going to go.

Leahy: Well, let me ask you this. You say that the Biden administration is intentionally “sticking their head in the sand.” Now you’re being, I think, generous to them.

You’re kind of saying it’s a little bit, it’s really incompetence. Is it incompetence or is it an intentional violation of American immigration law?

Onwuka: It’s intentional. Incompetence would be to say, well, let’s try something different and we get a different outcome. No.

We’ve seen for the past, probably five or six months now, the rise that it’s hitting. A 20 year high for illegal border crossings. When it hits the high one month that may be incompetence.

Beyond that, that is intentional. It’s undermining our immigration system and our immigration laws, which, yes, they can be fixed.

And our system is pretty broken. But we have a system and we have laws in place. And if you want Congress to fix it well work with Congress to do so.

But this is what happens when we have executive orders from Republican and Democratic presidents that can be undone by the next administration.

For folks out there, this is just the beginning. We are hearing that the White House is ready to overturn Title 42. What is Title 42 you ask?

It was a measure that was put in place under the Trump administration last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. In essence, individuals coming by themselves would be turned away at our southern border just for health and safety reasons.

That is going to end because there have been activist groups pushing the Biden administration calling Title 42 somehow uncompassionate and heartless.

Now what you’re going to see is a rise of people, families, family units, young people coming unaccompanied and single individuals who had been turned away at the border.

Now they’re going to be able to come and gain illegal entry. I had the privilege of being on a television network yesterday where I got to ask Tom Homan, who is a former head of the Southern Border Patrol, about this issue.

And he absolutely said, Patrice, you’re 100 percent right. We haven’t seen anything yet when it comes to what’s going to happen once Title 42 is overturned or reverse. And we’re expecting the Biden administration to do that any day now.

Leahy: Any day now. By the way, I think you point out in your column that El Paso is not exactly the hotspot for illegal entry into the United States. That’s what, 800 miles away in the Rio Grande Valley?

Onwuka: It is. El Paso is actually a port of entry, meaning that it’s guarded. It’s a place where you actually have to go in there and we know who you are.

We know why you’re coming. So what you’re not seeing are a lot of illegal entries there. You’re also not seeing the apprehension of, let’s say, fentanyl or illicit illegal drugs and guns coming through our port of entry.

Not surprising, right? Where it is going on is 800 miles away in the Rio Grande Valley area. This is where you’re having migrants dying in the Rio Grande trying to cross that river to get into the United States.

This is where we’re seeing the heartbreaking video of young people, babies, kids dropped over the border wall, left in the middle of the night by themselves by smugglers who are simply using these individuals as distractions to the border agents.

While the border agents are trying to take care of a little baby or taking care of a group of migrants these drug cartels are running fentanyl across our border.

They’re running drugs and other types of drugs and guns across our border. Now, for them, it’s a fantastic money-making enterprise that the Biden administration has allowed them to tap into.

Where I would have loved to have seen Vice President Kamala Harris go to is that area so that she could see not just the detention center, but see exactly what our border agents are being overrun overworked and what’s happening there so that they could figure out okay.

We do need to change our policies. We do need to work with Congress for a long-term solution. But it’s wonderful when you go to a place where it’s nice and easy and there’s a photo op, then you can pat yourself on the back and say that the crisis is under control, when, in fact, it is not.

Leahy: Patrice, what do you make of this character, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas? Every time you turn around, my impression of the guy is he’s a smart guy who is using legal ease to defend the flouting of American immigration law, which is a convention of his oath of office.

He’s the guy you write about. He’s the guy that picked El Paso as the place for Kamala Harris to visit. What do you make of this guy?

Onwuka: Well, he was put in place for a good reason, which is, he is smart. He looks great on television. He seems measured, seems calm, and seems like he’ll have things under control. But really, he’s just doing the bit of his bosses and trying to advance their agenda on immigration.

So you may be a sweet talker. You may seem smart, but if you are again flouting the law, or if your policies are directly responsible for the rise in illegal entries, the rise in people coming into the United States, I don’t think you’re doing your job.

You’re not doing a good service to the American people. And really, that’s who you work for. The American people. Not just the president, not just the vice president.

Listen to the full first hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian on the Border Crisis: ‘Biden Took Something That Was Fixed and Broke It’

Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian on the Border Crisis: ‘Biden Took Something That Was Fixed and Broke It’

 

Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies Mark Krikorian to the newsmakers line to discuss the repealed immigration policies of Trump that has lead to the Biden administration’s inability to control the border surge.

Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line right now by our good friend, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian. Mark, what a terrific piece you had on Thursday in the National Review about Vice President Kamala Harris’s, your words, layover in El Paso.

I wanna take this sentence from your article and just get you to elaborate on this. ‘As hard as it is to believe the Biden-Harris administration was taken by surprise by the border surge that it caused.’ Can you tell us more about that?

Krikorian: Yes. The administration probably knew that there was going to be some increase at the border when they undid all of the things Trump had done which successfully stabilized the border.

I mean, Trump didn’t solve everything but definitely had stabilized the situation. They basically expected a little bit of a surge, but Mexico would help them suppress it, and people would listen to their pleas not to come.

Remember, the Vice President went down there and said, do not come, do not come. They’re kind of like Jimmy Carter back in 1980. I know it’s a long time ago, but Jimmy Carter basically did the same thing with regard to Cuba.

He said, anybody who gets out of Cuba, we will welcome them with open arms and open hearts. And Castro looked up and said, hey, that’s a great idea. So he emptied his jails. 120,000 people streamed out of Cuba until Jimmy Carter was like, oh jeez, that’s not what I meant.

(Leahy laughs) But he was able to shut it down because he hadn’t run on immigration. He wasn’t boxed in politically. This administration has run as the anti-Trump. And since immigration was one of Trump’s top things, they had to undo everything Trump did, creating this disaster that they really don’t have any good idea about how to fix.

Leahy: Yes. It seems very obvious they don’t have any good idea how to fix it. Crom Carmichael is our all-star panelist in Studio. Chrome has a question for you, Mark.

Carmichael: Well, if, Mark, if they do want to fix it, then the obvious answer is to return to Trump’s policies.

Krikorian: Of course. But my point is they can’t do that just psychologically or politically. Right? It’s not going to happen.

Carmichael: I think the obvious conclusion is they don’t want to fix it because there’s an obvious answer on how to fix it. I guess my question to you is that they’re not going to return to the policies of Trump. And so the surge is going to actually get worse. Would you agree?

Krikorian: Yeah, sure. There’s no question. In the summer, it may actually dip. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. The numbers may actually go down a little bit because it is unbelievably hot down there this time of year.

And frankly, if you are planning on sneaking into the U.S., not just Central Americans, but now we’re getting people from Romania, Uzbekistan, India, and everywhere trying to get in on the action here, some of them may figure, well, let’s cool our heels for a couple of months somewhere where there’s air conditioning, and then we’ll come.

So the numbers could go down a little. But even if they do, they’re just going to go right back up in the fall. Not to get too long into it but this is not some long historical thing we always have to deal with.

This surge is the result of specific loopholes in the law that was passed in 2008 and 2009 and other changes since then. So this is not something we just have to deal with in perpetuity. Congress and the President over several administrations created this problem.

Trump stabilized it again. That’s what I mean by he didn’t fix the loopholes, but he did stabilize it. Biden took something that was fixed and broke it. And it’s not going away until we fix those loopholes and change the things that make it attractive to sneak in. Because the odds are good that you’ll just be let go.

Leahy: What are the major loopholes and what are the chances of fixing them legislatively?

Krikorian: The chances, I can tell you now are zero until there’s a change in Congress and the White House. But not to get too wonky, there’s a provision that says so-called unaccompanied minors, and we kind of take your word for it that you’re under 18 can’t just be returned home.

They have to be given hearings. They have to be delivered into shelters and delivered to their parents who are here illegally often paying to smuggle them. That has to be changed. There’s a court ruling that Congress can overrule that says minors, even if they’re with their parents, can’t be held in immigration detention for more than three weeks.

But they have to be let go, including the parents. There’s more to it than that. But that’s the kind of thing that we have basically created the situation in a time when there weren’t a lot of kids or families coming over.

People in Congress figured out what’s the harm? Make us feel good. Virtue signaling, and it won’t really have any consequences. Well, within a few years, the problem exploded because these things started really in 2008, and 2009 is when these were passed.

It blew up under Obama in 2014. It’s just been getting these ups and downs, but it’s just been getting worse ever since.

Leahy: What you take on the job, direct Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas has been doing?

Krikorian: Terrible but terrible because that’s what he was hired to do. In other words, he’s doing the job that this administration hired him to do, which is, first of all, not to enforce immigration law.

ICE, which is under his purview, is basically not permitted to do immigration enforcement except in the most extreme cases of terrorists and spies. And that sort of thing. Other than that, illegal immigrants have a free pass.

Leahy: Let me ask you this about Mayorkas. Is his failure to enforce our immigration laws an impeachable offense?

Krikorian: That’s kind of up to the Senate. They could impeach him. The House in the Senate, and frankly, they probably should, but they shouldn’t have approved him in the first place. And anybody who replaces them is just going to do the same thing because this is what the President promised to do.

This is a political problem in the sense that we’ve got to get rid of or change who’s in the White House and then change who’s in the majority of Congress before any of this can change.

Carmichael: Mark, is Mayorkas not upholding the law, or is he exploiting loopholes? And the reason I’m asking the question is in a new administration, once he is out of office, could he be indicted for not upholding his oath of office?

Krikorian: I don’t know. Probably not. I don’t think he’s upholding his oath of office, but I don’t think the president’s upholding his oath of office. The Constitution requires the executive to faithfully execute the laws, and that’s not what Biden is doing.

It’s not what Mayorkas is doing at Biden’s instruction. So, I mean, potentially, I guess. But I don’t like the criminalization of politics. I think what we need to do, and this is me talking as a citizen, CIS doesn’t get involved in elections, but as a citizen, the solution is to get rid of these guys from office and put in somebody who actually is going to do what’s necessary.

Carmichael: Here is I guess question, and you’re hitting on an excellent I’m asking you something in your responses philosophical in nature, which is appropriate. But if Republicans were to retake the House and have a majority in the Senate, but not 60 and have the presidency, you can’t fix immigration legislation with less than 60 votes.

Krikorian: You can’t fix everything, obviously, because of the filibuster. But the filibuster is protecting us this time. Do you know what I mean? There is a great reason for it. But there’s a lot of smaller things that can be changed that some of them the Democrats may go along with.

You put package deals together. Okay, they get some of this. We get these four immigration loopholes fixed. It’s not impossible. The first thing is, you need to get control of the majorities in Congress and get somebody in the White House.

Leahy: Last question. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the chances of fixing any of this over the next three and a half years?

Krikorian: Oh yeah. I mean, pessimistic isn’t a word. There is zero possibility of any of this getting fixed.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.