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Anne Milgram: Congressman,
I was about to introduce you
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and say a little more --
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Will Hurd: Hey, Anne. How are you?
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AM: Hi, how are you doing?
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
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We're so lucky to have you here with us.
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I've already explained
that you're actually in Washington
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because you're working.
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And I was about to tell folks
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that you represent
the 23rd district of Texas.
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But maybe you could tell us
a little bit about your district
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and describe it for us.
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WH: Sure, my district in Southwest Texas
is 29 counties, two time zones,
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820 miles of border
from Eagle Pass, Texas
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all the way to El Paso.
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It takes 10 and a half hours to drive
across my district at 80 miles an hour,
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which is the speed limit
in most of the district.
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And I found out a couple of weekends ago,
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it's not the speed limit
in all the district.
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(Laughter)
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It's a 71-percent Latino district,
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and it's the district that
I've been representing
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for now my third term in Congress.
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And when you think
about the issue of the border,
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I have more border
than any other member of Congress.
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I spent nine and a half years
as an undercover officer in the CIA,
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chasing bad people all across the country.
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So when it comes to securing our border,
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it's something I know a little bit about.
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AM: One of the things I learned recently
which I hadn't known before
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is that your district
is actually the size, I think,
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of the state of Georgia?
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WH: That's right.
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It's larger than 26 states,
roughly the size of the state of Georgia.
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So it's pretty big.
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AM: So as an expert in national security
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and as a member of Congress,
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you've been called upon
to think about issues
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related to immigration,
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and in recent years,
particularly about the border wall.
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What is your reaction
to President Trump's statement
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that we need a big, beautiful wall
that would stretch across our border,
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and at 18 to 30 feet high?
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WH: I've been saying this since I first
ran for Congress back in 2009,
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this is not a new topic,
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that building a 30-foot-high
concrete structure
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from sea to shining sea
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is the most expensive
and least effective way
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to do border security.
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There are parts of the border
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where Border Patrol's
response time to a threat
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is measured in hours to days.
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If your response time
is measured in hours to days,
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then a wall is not a physical barrier.
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We should be having technology
along the border,
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we should have operation
control of our border,
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which means we know everything
that's going back and forth across it.
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We can do a lot of that with technology.
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We also need more folks
within our border patrol.
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But in addition to doing all this,
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one of the things we should be able to do
is streamline legal immigration.
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If you're going to be
a productive member of our society,
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let's get you here as quickly as possible,
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but let's do it legally.
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And if we're able to streamline that,
then you're going to see
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some of the pressures
relieved along our border
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and allow men and women in Border Patrol
to focus on human trafficking
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and drug-trafficking
organizations as well.
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AM: Congressman,
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there's also been a conversation
nationally about using emergency funds
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to build the border wall
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and taking those funds
from the United States military.
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What has your position been on that issue?
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WH: I'm one of the few Republicans up here
that has opposed that effort.
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We are just now rebuilding our military,
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and taking funds away from making sure
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that our brothers and sisters,
our wives and our husbands
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have the training and equipment they need
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in order to take care of us
in far-flung places --
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taking money away from them
is not an efficient use of our resources,
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especially if it's going to build a ...
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you know, I always say
it's a fourth-century solution
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to a 21st-century problem.
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And the reality is,
what we should be focusing on
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is some of the other root causes
of this problem,
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and many of your speakers today
have talked about that.
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Some of those key root problems
are violence, lack of economic opportunity
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and extreme poverty,
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specifically, in the Northern Triangle:
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
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We should be working --
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AM: I was going to ask
what you would recommend
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United States government does
to address the underlying,
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what we call push factors, or root causes
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in those three countries
in Central America?
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WH: One of the things I learned
as an undercover officer in the CIA
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is: be nice with nice guys
and tough with tough guys.
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And one of the principles
of being nice with nice guys
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is to strengthen our alliances.
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We have a number of programs
currently in these three countries
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that USAID and the State Department
is doing to address this violence issue.
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And we know, in El Salvador,
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one of the problems was
that the police were corrupt.
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And so we've worked with the Salvadorians
to purge the police,
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rehire new folks,
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use community policing tactics.
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These are tactics the men and women
in the United States of America
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and police forces
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use every single day.
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And when we did this
in certain communities,
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guess what happened?
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We saw a decrease in the violence
that was happening in those communities.
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And then we also saw
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a decrease in the number of people
that were leaving those areas
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to try to come
to the United States illegally.
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So it's a fraction of the cost
to solve a problem there,
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before it ultimately reaches our border.
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And one of the reasons
that you have violence and crime
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is political corruption
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and the lack of [unclear] governments
to protect its citizens.
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And so this is something
we should be continuing to work on.
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We shouldn't be decreasing
the amount of money that we have
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that we're sending to these countries.
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I actually think
we should be increasing it.
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I believe the first thing --
we should have done this months ago --
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is select a special representative
for the Northern Triangle.
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That's a senior diplomat
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that's going to work to make sure
we're using all of our levers of power
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to help these three countries,
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and then that we're doing it
in a coordinated effort.
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This is not just a problem
for the United States and Mexico,
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this is a problem for the entire
western hemisphere.
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So, where is the Organization
of American States?
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Where is the International
Development Bank?
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We should be having a collective plan
to address these root causes.
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And when you talk about violence,
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a lot of times, we talk
about these terrible gangs like MS-13.
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But it's also violence like
women being beaten by their husbands.
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And they have nobody else to go to,
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and they are unable to deal
with this current problem.
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So these are the types of issues
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that we should be increasing
our diplomacy,
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increasing our economic development aid.
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AM: Please, I want to take you now
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from thinking about the root causes
in Central America
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to thinking about the separation
of children and families
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in the United States.
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Starting in April 2018,
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the Trump administration began
a no-tolerance policy
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for immigrants, people seeking
refugee status, asylum
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in the United States.
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And that led to the separation
of 2,700 children
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in the first year
that that program was run.
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Now, I want to address this with you,
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and I want to separate it up front
into two different conversations.
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One of the things
that the administration did
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was file legal court papers,
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saying that one of the primary
purposes of the separations
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was to act as a deterrent
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against people coming
to the United States.
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And I want to talk for a moment
about that from a moral perspective
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and to get your views.
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WH: We shouldn't be doing it,
period. It's real simple.
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And guess what, it wasn't a deterrent.
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You only saw an increase
in the amount of illegal immigration.
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And when you're sitting,
debating a strategy,
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if somebody comes up with the idea
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of snatching a child
out of their mother's arms,
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you need to go back to the drawing board.
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This is not what the United States
of America stands for,
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this is not a Republican
or a Democrat or independent thing.
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This is a human decency thing.
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And so, using that strategy,
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it didn't achieve the ultimate purpose.
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And ultimately, the amount
of research that is done
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and the impact that
the detention of children has --
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especially if it's over 21 days --
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has on their development and their future
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is disastrous.
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So we shouldn't be trying to detain
children for any more than 21 days,
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and we should be getting children,
if they're in our custody,
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we should be taking care of them humanely,
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and making sure they're with people
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that can provide them a safe
and loving environment.
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AM: I would challenge you
even on the 21-day number,
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but for the purposes of this conversation,
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I want to follow up
on something you just said,
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which is both that it's wrong
to detain children,
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and that it's not effective.
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So the question, then, is why
does the administration continue to do it,
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when we've seen 900 additional children
separated from their parents
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since the summer of 2018?
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Why is this happening?
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WH: Well, that's something
that [unclear] will have to ultimately
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ask the administration.
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These are questions that I've been asking.
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The Tornillo facility is in my district.
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These are buildings that are not
designed to hold anybody
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for multiple days,
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let alone children.
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We should be making sure
that if they are in our custody --
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a lot of times for
the uncompanied children,
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we don't have a ...
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we don't know of a patron or a family
member in the United States,
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and we should make sure
that they're in facilities
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where they're able to go to school
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and have proper food and health care.
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And if we're able to find
a sponsor of family member,
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let's get them into that custody,
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while they're waiting
for their immigration court case.
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That's the other issue here.
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When you have a backlog of cases --
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I think it's now 900,000 cases
that are backlogged --
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we should be able to do
an immigration hearing
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within nine months.
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I think most of the legal community
thinks that is enough time
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to do something like this,
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so that we can facilitate
whether someone, an individual,
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is able to stay in the United States
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or they're going to have to be returned
back to their home country,
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rather than being in this limbo
for five years.
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AM: If we think about
the asylum system today,
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where people are coming and saying
that they have a credible threat,
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that they will be persecuted back home,
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and we think about the fact
that on average,
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it's about two years for someone
to get an asylum hearing,
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that many people are not represented
as they go through that process,
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it makes me think about something
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that they say in the health care
space all the time,
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which is that every system
is perfectly designed
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to get the results it gets.
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And so as you think about this
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and think about how we would
redesign this system
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to not do what we're doing,
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which is years and years
of detention and separations and hardship
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for people seeking --
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and again, asylum being a lawful
United States government process --
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for people seeking
to enter our country lawfully.
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What should we do?
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WH: I tried to increase
by four billion dollars
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the amount of resources that HHS has
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in order to specifically deal,
ultimately, with children.
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I think we need more immigration judges
in order to process these cases,
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and I think we need to ensure
that folks can get representation.
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I've been able to work with a number
of lawyers up and down the border
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to make sure they are being able
to get access to the folks
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that are having these problems.
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And so this is something
that we should be able to design.
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And ultimately, when it comes to children,
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we should be doing everything we can
when they're in our custody,
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in order to take care of them.
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AM: So I have two more questions for you
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before I'm going to let you
go back to work.
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The first is about our focus
in the United States
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on the questions of immigration.
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Because if you look
at some of the statistics,
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you see that of people
who are undocumented
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in the United States,
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the majority of people
have overstayed on visas,
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they haven't come through the border.
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If you look at the people
who try to enter the country
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who are on the terrorist watch list,
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they enter overwhelmingly
through the airports
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and not through the border.
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If we look at drugs
coming into the United States,
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which has been a huge part
of this conversation,
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the vast majority of those drugs
come through our ports
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and through other points of entry,
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not through backpacks
on people crossing the border.
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So the thing I always ask
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and I always worry about with government,
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is that we focus so much on one thing,
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and my question for you
is whether we are focused
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in this conversation nationally
about the border,
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every day and every minute of every day,
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whether we're looking
completely in the wrong direction.
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WH: I would agree with your premise.
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When you have --
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let's start with the economic benefits.
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When you have 3.6 percent unemployment,
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what does that mean?
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That means you need folks
in every industry,
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whether it's agriculture
or artificial intelligence.
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So why aren't we streamlining
legal immigration?
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We should be able
to make this market based
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in order to have folks come in
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and be productive members of our society.
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When it comes to the drug issue
you're talking about,
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yes, it's in our ports of entry,
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but it's also coming in to our shores.
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Coast Guard is only able to action
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25 percent of the known
intelligence they have
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on drugs coming into our country.
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The metric that we should be measuring
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are we seeing a decrease of deaths
from overdose from drugs overseas,
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are we seeing a decrease
in illegal immigration?
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It's not how many miles of fencing
that we have ultimately built.
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And so we have benefited
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from the brain drain
of every other country
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for the last couple of decades.
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I want to see that continue,
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and I want to see that continue
with the hardworking drain.
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And I can sell you this:
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at last Congress, Pete Aguilar,
a Democrat from California, and I
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had a piece of legislation
called The USA Act:
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strong border security,
streamline legal immigration,
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fix DACA -- 1.2 million kids who have
only known the United States of America
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as their home --
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these kids, or I should say
young men and women,
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they are already Americans,
-
let's not have them go through
any more uncertainty
-
and make that ultimately happen.
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We had 245 people that were willing
to sign this bill into law,
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it wasn't allowed to come forward
under a Republican speaker,
-
and also the current Democratic speaker
hasn't brought this bill
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through in something
that we would be able to pass.
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AM: So I want to close,
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and you are, perhaps, most famous --
I don't know if that's fair --
-
but you took a road trip
with Beto O'Rourke
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from your district to Washington DC,
-
and you've become known
for reaching across the aisle
-
and engaging in these
bipartisan conversations.
-
And one of the things
I've seen you say repeatedly
-
is to talk about how we are all united.
-
And I think, when we think
about the language of immigration
-
and we start hearing words
about enemies and militarization,
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I think the real question is:
How do we convince all Americans
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to understand what you say
that more unites us than divides us?
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WH: Crisscrossing a district like mine
that's truly 50-50 --
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50 percent Democrat,
50 percent Republican,
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it's been very clear to me
that way more unites us than divides us.
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And if we focus on those things
that we agree on,
-
we'll all be better off.
-
And I'm not going to get
a perfect attendance award
-
for going to church,
-
but I do remember when Jesus
was in the Second Temple
-
and the Pharisees asked him
what's the most important commandment,
-
and he said to "Love thy Lord God
with all your heart, mind and soul."
-
But people forget he also said,
equally as important,
-
to love thy neighbor like thyself.
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And if we remember that
and realize what it would mean,
-
and what you would
have to be going through
-
to be living in a situation
-
that you may send your child
on a 3,000-mile perilous journey,
-
because that's what you think
the only thing for their future,
-
the only thing that you can do
to make sure their future is bright,
-
if we all remember that situation,
-
and think what we would do
in that situation,
-
I think we'd also be better off.
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AM: Thank you, Congressman.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
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(Applause)