Speaker 1: All I can do is communicate both to the American
Speaker 1: public and to the individuals seeking protection that they need
Speaker 1: to wait. We are not saying don't come. We are
Speaker 1: saying don't come now, because we will be able to
Speaker 1: deliver um safe and orderly process to them as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible. What point does it become a crisis? Well,
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't think we need to meet
Speaker 1: your bar of what we need to call it. We
Speaker 1: had the Secretary of Homeland Security yesterday conveying it's a challenge.
Speaker 1: We're going to approach this without labeling. We're going to
Speaker 1: approach this with policy, with humanity, uh, and with a
Speaker 1: focus on what we can do to keep these kids safe.
Speaker 1: So I was struck by a level of what seemed
Speaker 1: to me at the time dumbness yesterday of arguing over
Speaker 1: whether something is a crisis or a challenge. Right, But
Speaker 1: then I did see some quotes come forward from people
Speaker 1: that called it a crisis when it was at a
Speaker 1: much lower level when was president, but now say this
Speaker 1: at a much higher level is not a crisis. So
Speaker 1: to discuss the messaging and more importantly, the reality, it's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to welcome back to the Armstrong and Getty show,
Speaker 1: Mark Recordy and the executive director of the Center for
Speaker 1: Immigration Studies Market It's been too long. How are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing very well. I guess we can't transfer germs now,
Speaker 1: you know, over the phone, So I'm happy to come
Speaker 1: back now after a while. Well, the reason we hadn't
Speaker 1: talked to you is the whole immigration thing got solved
Speaker 1: and there was really nothing to talk about. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so hey, Mark, let's start with what is this situation
Speaker 1: on the border and or moving toward the border right now?
Speaker 1: The Biden administration has basically advertised that they're gonna undo
Speaker 1: all of the stuff Trump did. I'm not gonna tear
Speaker 1: down anymore wall with the're not building anymore. And more importantly,
Speaker 1: they're discontinuing these various policies that Trump put in place.
Speaker 1: Since Congress isn't changing changing laws to sick plug some
Speaker 1: of the loopholes that were drawing people, he had to
Speaker 1: do stuff with executive authority, and that means Biden can
Speaker 1: undo it. He is undoing it. The thing is for him,
Speaker 1: he realizes that if he just undoes everything all at once,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have huge number of people just show up
Speaker 1: at the border. So they're trying to slow walk some
Speaker 1: of these changes, and you know what, the illegal immigrants
Speaker 1: aren't cooperating with the Biden administration's agenda. Yeah, exactly, And
Speaker 1: so that's why you end up with these farcical performances
Speaker 1: where the Homeland Security Secretary is saying, no, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a stressful challenge, it's not a crisis. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's ludicrous. Uh, and they just can't admit it that.
Speaker 1: I don't know that they really have much of a
Speaker 1: way out of it, because if people who are coming
Speaker 1: across and you're seeing these people with kids who are
Speaker 1: coming across. A lot of this you've seen in South Texas,
Speaker 1: but not just there. They're you know, given a piece
Speaker 1: of paper and let go, just like it was before
Speaker 1: the catch and release thing. And you know, these people
Speaker 1: aren't stupid. They have cell phones. They call home and
Speaker 1: they say, hey, yeah, you know, it worked, and so
Speaker 1: they're you know, neighbor across the street and the brother
Speaker 1: in law says, hey, you know, maybe we should give
Speaker 1: it a try to And how do you stop that? Um,
Speaker 1: this administration has kind of been a blind I mean
Speaker 1: it's bad for the country, but it is kind of
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like past the popcorn and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, watch these guys twist themselves like pretzels, trying
Speaker 1: to explain this ridiculous situation that they've helped create. So
Speaker 1: I was trying to dig up. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you have in front of in front of you some
Speaker 1: of the numbers that came out in the last few
Speaker 1: days about how many people are trying to come across
Speaker 1: the border, how many kids they now have, they're um
Speaker 1: just I mean, it's it's a huge increase very recently,
Speaker 1: and you're saying that those numbers could go up from
Speaker 1: there almost certainly. I mean the unaccompanied miners, these are,
Speaker 1: you know, people under eighteen, not really on a company.
Speaker 1: They're illegal immigrant relatives in the US. Sometimes their parents
Speaker 1: sometimes other relatives pay smugglers to bring them up to
Speaker 1: the Mexican border, and then they get across and flag
Speaker 1: down the border patrols. Those numbers have gone. They grew
Speaker 1: in January, they were like more than December. In February
Speaker 1: they were like fifty more than in January, and they're
Speaker 1: projecting something like thirteen thousand in May. And I think
Speaker 1: that's low because last month was nine thousand something like that,
Speaker 1: of these so called unaccompanied miners who obviously under law
Speaker 1: have to be dealt with differently rather than just, you know,
Speaker 1: with the way you would deal with an adult. And um,
Speaker 1: it's only gonna get worse. I mean, it's just until
Speaker 1: the Biden administration does something to change what they're doing
Speaker 1: at the border, there's just gonna be more and more
Speaker 1: people coming. And they're not just from Central America. They're
Speaker 1: coming from the Caribbean, but also from Africa and the
Speaker 1: Middle East and all over the place. I appreciate you
Speaker 1: bringing up the stark rise in the numbers of folks
Speaker 1: trying across the border, because I think the unsophisticator, people
Speaker 1: who just aren't news junkies, figure, Okay, you've got a
Speaker 1: more or less constant flow of people who'd like to
Speaker 1: come into the country. Then you have little changes in
Speaker 1: policy and administration to another. But as you point out
Speaker 1: the change in policy, the announcements by the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: those echo deafeningly loudly throughout Central America in the world,
Speaker 1: and the coyotes and the cartels they say, Okay, now
Speaker 1: let's ramp up our operations, let's pour people into the
Speaker 1: US border. They react, and they react quickly, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I mean the you know, January and February are
Speaker 1: months when the numbers of crossings almost always go down.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, you know, it's it's flow. They're
Speaker 1: going up. And there are you know, there are people
Speaker 1: from the people who follow this stuff down in Central
Speaker 1: America are saying that the smugglers are actually marketing Biden's
Speaker 1: you know, policies and the fact that now Trunk has
Speaker 1: gone their marketing that in you know, towns and villages
Speaker 1: in Central America as a reason to get while they're
Speaker 1: getting is good before the green goes changed their minds
Speaker 1: and it's so bad, and we published we posted something
Speaker 1: on this on our website cis dot org yesterday that
Speaker 1: some of the smuggling groups are now um making wrist
Speaker 1: bands like at a water park for the aliens that
Speaker 1: they're smuggling, to make sure they can keep track of
Speaker 1: who's paid and who hasn't because there's so many people there,
Speaker 1: and the different smuggling groups have different color wrist bands
Speaker 1: with logos. They've got numbers on them, their computerized you know,
Speaker 1: have you paid, have you where's your relatives? Live back
Speaker 1: in the Old Country all that kind of stuff, because
Speaker 1: it's it's such a flow that even the smuggling groups
Speaker 1: are having trouble sort of getting a handle on how
Speaker 1: many people there are. Hey, what do you use for
Speaker 1: a number for how many illegals we have in the
Speaker 1: United States? Um, I was watching on Tucker Carlson showing
Speaker 1: Fox here the night he was he did a montage
Speaker 1: of how many people use the number eleven million. It's
Speaker 1: just like became a talking point over many years, and
Speaker 1: he said there was a study out of Harvard and
Speaker 1: m I t I believe it was, and their number
Speaker 1: was more like somewhere between sixteen and twenty nine million,
Speaker 1: with the with the most likely number being somewhere around three. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've looked into it some we're doing a
Speaker 1: deeper dive into it now. And some of the problems
Speaker 1: that Tucker highlighted in that piece on his are real
Speaker 1: problems with the numbers. The thing is, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I do not think it's twenty million people. It just
Speaker 1: isn't now. I don't think it's yea. And one of
Speaker 1: the real you know, the reason people are suspicious is
Speaker 1: because he look the number isn't changing what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's been the same. You know, how can it be
Speaker 1: the same all these years? Well, the fact is new
Speaker 1: illegals are coming all the time, but people leak out
Speaker 1: of the illegal population all the time to some go home.
Speaker 1: But also one out of four new Green card recipients,
Speaker 1: new so called legal immigrants, are illegal aliens were already
Speaker 1: living here. So there's always this churn. There's new people
Speaker 1: coming in, and there's people who were illegals were basically
Speaker 1: no longer illegals one way or another. So you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's twelves, maybe it's thirteen million. Uh, it just
Speaker 1: can't be twenty million. You'd see it in the birth records,
Speaker 1: the death records, the school enrollment. I mean, you can't
Speaker 1: just misplace ten million people, you know what I'm interesting?
Speaker 1: And how many illegals do you need? You know, Mark,
Speaker 1: we've got about thirty seconds left before a hard break.
Speaker 1: But even you're occasionally called anti immigrant, which is ridiculous
Speaker 1: and insulting. Give us thirty seconds on c I S
Speaker 1: is vision of immigration policy in the US. We're a
Speaker 1: think tank as opposed to an advocacy group, and what
Speaker 1: we try to do is make the case for a
Speaker 1: pro immigrant policy of lower numbers, in other words, fewer immigrants,
Speaker 1: but a warmer welcome for those people we do legally
Speaker 1: lead into our country. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: where most people. I think you're right. I think you're right. Yep.
Speaker 1: Center for Immigration Studies Market Correans, the executive director c
Speaker 1: i S dot org. Will have a link in Armstrong
Speaker 1: and getty dot com so you can read and look
Speaker 1: at more markets. Always enlightening. Thanks for the time, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and uh and who do you take? Should be a
Speaker 1: major part of the conversation. Um. I like the philosophy
Speaker 1: We've got enough poor people. Why would we want more
Speaker 1: unskilled poor people? How does that benefit America? Well? How
Speaker 1: does that benefit the poor people? Sometimes got a job?
Speaker 1: Caesar Chavez. That was one of his main points. He
Speaker 1: wanted to stop a legal immigration Excuse me, my allergy
Speaker 1: is going crazy this time here, uh, to avoid undercutting
Speaker 1: the wages of his people.