WEBVTT - An Open Gate & Powerful Incentives.  Todd Bensman Talks to A&G

0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.760
<v Speaker 1>From the Abraham Lincoln Radio studio at the George Washington

0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.000
<v Speaker 1>Broadcast that Armstrong, Armstrong and Jetty Show. In a statement

0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.120
<v Speaker 1>on the situation in Del Rio this afternoon, Texas Governor

0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.520
<v Speaker 1>Greg Abbott said, in part quote, the Biden administration is

0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.160
<v Speaker 1>in complete disarray and is handling the border crisis as

0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:27.240
<v Speaker 1>badly as the evacuation from Afghanistan. So it's not getting

0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.200
<v Speaker 1>near enough news coverage. But there are well that hasn't

0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.880
<v Speaker 1>gotten near enough news coverage for years, or the last year,

0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:35.760
<v Speaker 1>or the last six months, or the last month, or

0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.040
<v Speaker 1>the last twenty four hours. We now have ten thousand

0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.919
<v Speaker 1>immigrants under a bridge in the heat. Over half of

0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.120
<v Speaker 1>them are from Haiti. It's a number one story if

0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.599
<v Speaker 1>you're on Fox or The Washington Examiner. It barely gets

0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.080
<v Speaker 1>covered at all if you're on other channels. Whenever we're

0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:52.960
<v Speaker 1>on this topic, we often go to the Center for

0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.400
<v Speaker 1>Immigration Studies to talk to somebody. In this case, it's

0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.920
<v Speaker 1>gonna be Todd Benzman, who's a senior National security fellow,

0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:01.640
<v Speaker 1>to talk about what's going on with the border and

0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:04.760
<v Speaker 1>the bridge and everything else. Todd, welcome, How are you, sir?

0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.160
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing quite well. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.400
<v Speaker 1>So how desperate is the situation at the border? Describe

0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.840
<v Speaker 1>it for us? We know we've been there. Yeah, I'm

0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:19.160
<v Speaker 1>actually on the International Bridge right now in Del Rio

0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:25.120
<v Speaker 1>and spent huh much of yesterday among the immigrants who

0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:30.240
<v Speaker 1>are now crossing in very very significant numbers and establishing

0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:36.040
<v Speaker 1>this unprecedented beachhead on the U. S side. There are

0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:41.200
<v Speaker 1>ten thousand. Uh. It's started at two thousand in on

0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:45.880
<v Speaker 1>Monday and by yesterday it was ten thousand, just to

0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:50.200
<v Speaker 1>give you an idea of scale. And they are mostly Haitians.

0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.960
<v Speaker 1>There are some Cubans I met in there, and there's

0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:55.960
<v Speaker 1>probably some Central Americans, but it looks like it's they're

0:01:56.000 --> 0:02:01.640
<v Speaker 1>mostly not from Central America or Mexico. And they are

0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:08.560
<v Speaker 1>crowding in because they are being given UH tickets to

0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.119
<v Speaker 1>process into the United States. So they're basically being waved

0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:18.880
<v Speaker 1>through UH and they'll get legal permission to enter the

0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.720
<v Speaker 1>United States probably forever, all of them, And that's why

0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.680
<v Speaker 1>they're coming, because they're being allowed to come and and

0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.240
<v Speaker 1>all being paroled into the United States within a matter

0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:36.200
<v Speaker 1>of days. Normally in this case, UH, it won't be

0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.720
<v Speaker 1>that quick because there are so many that they've overwhelmed

0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.560
<v Speaker 1>order patrol. There's not enough of them to process these

0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.440
<v Speaker 1>people in, so there might be a two or three

0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.760
<v Speaker 1>week wait. You know. One of thee confusing thing to

0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.079
<v Speaker 1>me is Kamala Harris said don't come. So I don't

0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:55.240
<v Speaker 1>understand why people are continuing to come because she said

0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.760
<v Speaker 1>clearly don't come. But we share a many thousand mile

0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.720
<v Speaker 1>border with Mexico. Understand how those people get here and

0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:03.600
<v Speaker 1>then from Central America, you know, you can look at

0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.000
<v Speaker 1>them happen. How are the people from Haiti getting to

0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:10.120
<v Speaker 1>the border. Well, most of these Haitians, I would say

0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.600
<v Speaker 1>all of them actually are not from Haiti. They have

0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.600
<v Speaker 1>been living for years and years in Chili and Brazil,

0:03:18.639 --> 0:03:22.359
<v Speaker 1>whose government who have the strongest economies in Latin America,

0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:27.160
<v Speaker 1>and whose governments gave them residency and work authorization, and

0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.320
<v Speaker 1>so they've been living in secure, uh you know, South

0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:37.240
<v Speaker 1>Hollow or Santiago for many years already and earning good

0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.840
<v Speaker 1>livings and no persecution or anything. But they saw that

0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.080
<v Speaker 1>the border was open under Biden, and so all of

0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.640
<v Speaker 1>those populations in Chile are now on their way here.

0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.200
<v Speaker 1>That that's who these people are, That's why they're usually

0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:55.480
<v Speaker 1>well dressed and have cell phones and all that and

0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.080
<v Speaker 1>can afford the smuggling fees. Policy wise, what's different now

0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.440
<v Speaker 1>than it was a year or two ago. Is it

0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.160
<v Speaker 1>just word got out in Central America, South America or

0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:11.360
<v Speaker 1>are there policies specifically causing this. Yes, there are specific

0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.320
<v Speaker 1>policies and they all hear about this on the on

0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:19.960
<v Speaker 1>their Internet. The main thing was the elimination of wait

0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.040
<v Speaker 1>in Mexico. That was a Trump policy that was highly

0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:29.880
<v Speaker 1>highly effective at deterring illegal entries. That meant that you

0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.600
<v Speaker 1>would be pushed back into Mexico to make your asylum

0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:40.080
<v Speaker 1>claim there, not inside the United States, because the game

0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.880
<v Speaker 1>being that if you make your asylum claim inside the

0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.440
<v Speaker 1>United States and lose, you're still inside the United States

0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.280
<v Speaker 1>and you're not leaving. They're going to have to come

0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.520
<v Speaker 1>hunt you down. And that never happened. So we're having

0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.800
<v Speaker 1>to to lose your asylum claim while you were in

0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.480
<v Speaker 1>Mexico was like not the point, you know, So they

0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.479
<v Speaker 1>stopped coming just for that. And then the other thing was,

0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.080
<v Speaker 1>you know, deportations back to the to other countries to

0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.760
<v Speaker 1>make their asylum claim in these other countries. Biden administration

0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.720
<v Speaker 1>got rid of all of those and then decided to

0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:20.440
<v Speaker 1>allow all families and unaccompanied miners to enter and win

0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:26.320
<v Speaker 1>parole inside the United States immediately. And so when the

0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.840
<v Speaker 1>world heard that families were being allowed in, like these

0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.880
<v Speaker 1>ones here at the bridge, Uh, they every family that

0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:40.440
<v Speaker 1>could muster themselves and smuggling fees, we're coming because they

0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.440
<v Speaker 1>were getting in. And that's why we've had hundreds and

0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:49.200
<v Speaker 1>hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of immigrants just being allowed in. Well,

0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.560
<v Speaker 1>I'd like to remind listeners that a Harvard study showed

0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.479
<v Speaker 1>that about two thirds of Americans preferred those Trump policies,

0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.120
<v Speaker 1>about two thirds, and that was a couple of months ago, all,

0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.760
<v Speaker 1>but it's higher now or certainly after this weekend. If

0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.960
<v Speaker 1>you're you're, you're they're looking at the crowd. Is it

0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.520
<v Speaker 1>mostly adults? Is that families and all men are what?

0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.560
<v Speaker 1>What's the makeup of the ground. It seems to me

0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:13.240
<v Speaker 1>that it's mostly families. Uh, there's also a lot of

0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.880
<v Speaker 1>single adults, but lots of children of all ages, you know, infants, Uh,

0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.920
<v Speaker 1>lots of lots of children, lots of pregnant women and uh,

0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.600
<v Speaker 1>you know, families, they're coming in because they you know,

0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.240
<v Speaker 1>like I said, everybody knows that families get a free

0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.360
<v Speaker 1>pass right into the United States. Don't pass go within

0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.719
<v Speaker 1>three or four days. Once they cross and turn themselves in,

0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.600
<v Speaker 1>they get they get on a bus and they drive

0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.560
<v Speaker 1>to portline or whatever and settle all over the country.

0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:46.040
<v Speaker 1>That's just too powerful, uh and incentive or around the

0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:50.120
<v Speaker 1>world Uh to resist. Nobody can resist that. It's like

0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.679
<v Speaker 1>an open gate. Uh. And if you're a single adult,

0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.880
<v Speaker 1>you you you're not going to get that. But but

0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.680
<v Speaker 1>the border patrol is so busy processing in those people

0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:04.159
<v Speaker 1>that you can just walk in and just run and

0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.440
<v Speaker 1>get in anyway and disappear. Because the other big policy

0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.040
<v Speaker 1>that people forget about that Biden did immediately was he

0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:17.400
<v Speaker 1>eliminated all deportation. There is no deportation in America. I

0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.200
<v Speaker 1>don't think you are listening to me. Earlier the Vice

0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:26.320
<v Speaker 1>President said, don't come, so it seems to me. And

0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.400
<v Speaker 1>and tell me if you agree or disagree. I'm scanning

0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.040
<v Speaker 1>the big papers even as we're chatting and h The

0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.840
<v Speaker 1>New York Times has this story fairly prominently. The Washington

0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.640
<v Speaker 1>Post kind of medium, but the verbage being used in

0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.360
<v Speaker 1>the journalism is surprisingly critical. Do you feel like there's

0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.640
<v Speaker 1>a growing awareness of the disaster on the border. I

0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.000
<v Speaker 1>don't really know. I mean my feeling. I know, the

0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.720
<v Speaker 1>New York Times was here yesterday in the Washington Post,

0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.360
<v Speaker 1>I saw those reporters. Uh. Normally, though I spent a

0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:58.520
<v Speaker 1>lot of time on the border, I never see any

0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:03.400
<v Speaker 1>media anywhere. Ever. There's usually nobody down here. And and

0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:09.000
<v Speaker 1>it's striking because the drama is intense. There are thousands

0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.400
<v Speaker 1>and thousands of people just being waved right over the border,

0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.080
<v Speaker 1>right up into the interior of the country, these families,

0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.080
<v Speaker 1>and I mean, there's a lot of drama. I'm just

0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.960
<v Speaker 1>surprised that it's not a bigger story. This thing is

0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.600
<v Speaker 1>attracting the New York Times in the Washington Post because

0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:31.040
<v Speaker 1>it's really unusual that ten thousand people we in a

0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:35.120
<v Speaker 1>makeshift settlement on the U. S. Side at one time.

0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.400
<v Speaker 1>I don't think that's ever happened. I think that's the

0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:43.520
<v Speaker 1>first time that anything of this proportion has developed on

0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.280
<v Speaker 1>the U. S. Side of the border. And that is

0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.880
<v Speaker 1>really going to be a problem that the Biden administration

0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:54.320
<v Speaker 1>has to deal with. Remember they the administration put these

0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.560
<v Speaker 1>policies in place, is what caused this to happen. All

0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.239
<v Speaker 1>of these people are here because as of those Biden policies,

0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.400
<v Speaker 1>and they'll tell you that, yeah, that's a good that's

0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.640
<v Speaker 1>a good place. That's a good place for us to end, Todd,

0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.720
<v Speaker 1>great report, Todd Benzman, Senior National Security Fellow with the

0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.040
<v Speaker 1>Center for Immigration Studies, and will probably be checking back

0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:14.520
<v Speaker 1>it in with you because I don't think this story

0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:16.960
<v Speaker 1>is going away. Yeah, well done, Todd, thanks a million,

0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:19.760
<v Speaker 1>all right, thank you. Yeah, And that was a good

0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.119
<v Speaker 1>way to end. You gotta remember it's there are policy

0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.160
<v Speaker 1>decisions that were made that caused this to be what

0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.920
<v Speaker 1>it is. And I point out once again the Harvard

0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:36.000
<v Speaker 1>study anyway, two thirds of Americans preferred Trump's policies. Right.

0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.319
<v Speaker 1>You know, there's a misperception about the Haitians that I

0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.120
<v Speaker 1>made myself. I assumed they were fleeing the recent national

0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.000
<v Speaker 1>disasters and and the assassination and the rest of it. No,

0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:49.440
<v Speaker 1>they fled the earthquake, and as uh Todd mentioned, they've

0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.960
<v Speaker 1>been living quite well in South America, but saw the

0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:58.320
<v Speaker 1>door swing open. We're such a weird culture country right now.

0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:02.439
<v Speaker 1>We're doing things. I just don't know if any country

0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.240
<v Speaker 1>or empire has ever done, has any empire ever gotten

0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.480
<v Speaker 1>just so kind of lazy and comfortable and taken care

0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:12.720
<v Speaker 1>of that millions of people are coming in. You're just like, yeah,

0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.560
<v Speaker 1>I wish that wouldn't happen, but there's something good on

0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.040
<v Speaker 1>TV and a right, I don't want to be a racist,

0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:20.920
<v Speaker 1>and I'm kind of for the guy in the White

0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:23.200
<v Speaker 1>House now, so I gotta pretend it's not happening. And

0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.240
<v Speaker 1>and I think most I think there's just a lot

0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.120
<v Speaker 1>of it is just we're just all so comfortable and

0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.880
<v Speaker 1>everything's okay. I don't know, I'm sorry. What did you say.

0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.120
<v Speaker 1>I was watching TikTok videos on my phone, right, Uh,

0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.640
<v Speaker 1>we gotta take a break, and uh, if you've got

0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.400
<v Speaker 1>any comment on that, our text line nine five k

0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:42.040
<v Speaker 1>f TC