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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd Puts the Border Crisis in Context and Suggests How to Fix It

National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd Puts the Border Crisis in Context and Suggests How to Fix 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 special guest Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol to the show to talk about the crisis at the border and what the Biden administration can do to fix it.

Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line by Brandon Judd who is the president of the national border patrol Council. This is a labor union set up back in 1967. It represents eight border agencies and support staff on the United States border patrol. 18,000 members. They endorsed Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020. Brandon, according to Jen Psaki the press secretary for Joe Biden, there’s a challenge at the border. But not a crisis. Do you agree or disagree?

Judd: Oh, you have to look at it historically speaking. You have to put it in context. We have dealt with these numbers on different occasions. When I joined the border patrol and was patrolling the border back in 1997 we were dealing with numbers that that were a little bit bigger than what we’re currently dealing with.

Now, then you go to 2014, 2019 it’s definitely a crisis at this point. And the way I define a crisis, again when I patrol the border if I don’t have the resources to deal with what is commonly crossing the border illegally, it is a crisis if our resources are being overwhelmed and if we have to pull agents off the line and put them in processing.

Or we have to put agents off the line and we have to be in the holding cells because we just have too many people that we’re holding then we’re in a crisis. And we are there. We don’t have the resources that we need to do the job that we need to do to protect the American public, to protect the border. So absolutely were in a crisis.

Leahy: How any illegal aliens are crossing the border like every day since Joe Biden became president of the United States?

Judd: So in February, we had over 100,000 apprehensions. That’s just what we apprehended. You have to remember there’s an awful lot of people that cross the border illegally that get away, especially when our resources are in fact overwhelmed. If you look in the Tucson sector and that’s where I work if you look in the Tucson sector in the last five and a half months we’ve had 40,000 people that have gotten away that we were able to detect but that we were not able to apprehend. So again, I mean where we’re headed right now, we are on pace in this calendar year to apprehend more people than we’ve ever apprehended in the history of the border patrol.

Carmichael: When you apprehend them, what happens to them?

Judds: (Chuckles) That’s the that’s the problem and that’s why so many people are crossing right now. because the Biden Administration has changed Title 42 how we apply Title 42 and because they got rid of the migrant section protocols what we’ve done is we’ve effectively gone back to the catch and release program.

We reintroduced the magnet that the last administration was able to do away with that. And that magnet is what draws people here. And that is catch and release. if people know that they can cross the border illegally just to be released into the United States, Of course, they’re going to cross the border. There are no consequences for violating our laws and that’s what we’re seeing today.

Carmichael: From a practical standpoint. What’s the difference between someone who is apprehended in someone who is not apprehended?  don’t they both end up in the u.s?

Judd: There’s there’s very little difference. the only difference is that we know that you’re here in the United States. If you don’t show up to your court appearances, we know we have fingerprints. We have that different data. That’s the only difference. But ultimately you’re in the United States and the chances that you’re going to be deported are slim to none.

Carmichael: So what you’re saying is in February there were 100,000 apprehensions and maybe 30,000 who were not apprehended? Is that a reasonable guess?

Judd: So the ones that were not apprehend? Yeah, that would be my would have to look at the stats nationwide on the border. But yeah, that’s absolutely reasonable.

Leahy: Brandon, let me ask you this and this is just from afar. I’m not an expert on this. We just write about it at the Tennessee Star. But it looks to me like the Biden administration actually wants to encourage illegal entry into the United States by illegal aliens. Do I have that right or wrong or what’s the reality of it?

Judd: So I’m not going to go as far as saying that they want to encourage. But what I can say and what I’m very very confident in saying is that the Biden administration is pandering to the hard left. And what’s very interesting about that is President Biden was able then-candidate Biden was able to defeat Bernie Sanders because the vast majority of the Democratic caucus did not want to go far left and they wanted him to stay in the middle.

Yet since he’s been president he has gone extreme left in an awful lot of areas. But let’s just talk about immigration because that’s what I’m an expert in. From an immigration standpoint and especially from border security and illegal immigration he’s going to the extreme left and that’s not what the public wanted him to do. So, I don’t know that he necessarily wants to encourage people to cross but he is definitely pandering to the extreme left right now.

Carmichael: When you say catch and release we’re talking about now adults without children. At least that’s what I’m asking about. So they’re caught and they are released. Where do they go?

Judd: So not all adults are released. That’s going to be the smallest segment of what gets released. The numbers of people are being released right now are mainly family units because we’re still able to put adults into Title 42 and expel them immediately. The problem is the Biden administration has opened up different classes.

And so if you’re not going to expel Haitians, if you’re not going to accept Cubans if you’re not going to expel Venezuelans, that’s where you’re going to see the people coming from. And so once you create classes, of course, those are the people that you’re going to see crossing the border illegally. But to answer your question when we release them, they go everywhere.

They go everywhere in the United States. Just to give an example back in the late 90s early 2000s when we were getting flooded with people from Brazil the vast majority of those individuals that were coming across were either going to Georgia or Boston. We see them cross the border illegally and they go throughout the United States. You name it and they’re going there.

Leahy: Brandon Judd the President of the National Border Patrol Council. The labor union of 18,000 border patrol agents here that serve the United States border patrol. What is your recommendation to solve this crisis and will the Biden administration follow your suggestions?

Judd: So it’s pretty simple. This isn’t rocket science. All you have to do is look at what the Trump administration was able to do. Once you get rid of catch-and-release if people know that they’re not going to be released into the United States they’re going to stop coming. President Trump was able to drop illegal immigration to 45-year lows twice during his presidency at different points.

What the Biden administration needs to do is they would set up courts if they would hire immigration judges and they would hold people in custody pending their asylum hearing this would stop. The vast majority of people come across the border and claim asylum. They do not qualify for that asylum relief here in the United States and so they should be going back.

But because judges don’t hold them in custody and send them back immediately that’s that magnet that brings them in. So we have to hold them in custody. We have to put them through their asylum proceedings. And if somebody does in fact qualify for asylum, then we need to let them into the United States, but if they don’t they must be removed.

And if we do that, we will stop we will get rid of that magnet. It will be done once and for all. And then border patrol agents will be able to focus on the criminal element that’s on the border. The cartels the drugs that are coming across the special interest countries of aliens are coming across the criminal aliens that are coming across. We will be able to focus on that and we will be able to protect the American public.

Leahy: Last question. We’ve got one minute here, Brandon Judd will the Biden administration do what you suggest?

Judd: I am confident in Secretary Mayorkas. He does know this issue. Whether the Biden ministration is going to listen to their own secretary. That’s another question. We’ll have to see.

Leahy: Well come back and tell us in a few months whether or not they’ve followed your advice. Brandon Judd the President of the National Border Patrol Council. Thanks so much for joining us.

Judd: Thanks for having me. Have a good day.

Listen to the third hour here:

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