App. Judd, a Border Patrol agent. National Border Patrol council is. Guest we are the organization that represents the interests of Border Patrol agencies nationwide. We represent them legally and politically in whatever they want us to do. Host how long have you been a Border Patrol agent . Guest 22 years. Host President Trump is meeting with your group. Can you tell us what that is expected to be about . Guest he will be talking about what the policies of the administration has implemented to make our job safer and, two and more importantly, what he has been doing the border more secure for the American Public. Host you have been a Border Patrol agent for 22 years. Under a lot of administrations, give us a sense of how things are under the Trump Administration, for your organization. Guest if you look at the past administration, we felt demoralized. Policiesot due to by the agency, we were not allowed to do our job. When that happens, we just dont feel good. Everybody wants to feel like they have accomplished something when they go home at the end of the day. We were not feeling that way. Under President Trump, we feel like we are actually able to secure the border. The policies he has been implement in cabin working. Such as the aca. These are policies that he has been negotiating with other countries because congress has not helped. Host looking at the numbers, the apprehensions, the illegal alien apprehensions at the southwest border, 2016, 408,000. It absent when he 17. Inrises again it dips 2017. It rises in 2018. Almost one million apprehensions. Whats going on. Certainhey closed loopholes that were inviting people to cross the border, illegally. They exacerbated the problem. That allowed per minot cartel to recruit people to come to the United States and put themselves in their hand. It allowed criminal cartels to create a huge profit in revenue. When that did not work, President Trump went out on his own and he negotiated agreements with mexico, guatemala, honduras and el salvador. These programs have caused an explanation exponential drop in illegal immigration. Congress refused to work with him. Host what do you think is the thatst misunderstanding americans dont know about the work you have faced on the border . Guest what most people dont understand is they believe the only people we deal with are either from mexico or central america. That is absolutely not true. We deal with people from all over the country. I, personally, have a resting group of illegal Border Crossers that were from poland. Host coming from the southwest border. Guest in arizona is where that was. We have been hit with the coronavirus outbreak. We arrested a few chinese in the del rio. Two of the three individuals were sick with high fevers and we had to immediately transport them to the hospital. This was a couple of days ago. Most people think that all we deal with is people from mexico or central america. We deal with people from all over the world. Russia, brazil, china, everywhere. Host has that changed . Guest no. This is what we have seen throughout my entire career. Host tell us about where you are stationed. Have you been there most of the time . Guest i have moved around a lot. Due to what i do, i want a full idea of what is going on at the southwest border, coastal border and northern border. I spent 15 years of my career in Northern California and arizona. I spent three years in maine and now i am in montana. I have spent the last five years in montana. In a couple of months, i am moving back to arizona. Host vastly different extremes is on the montana border and the main border and the southwest border. Guest very different. We are just seeing news from yesterday, he is moving money around the headline, at the washington times, the president will take more funds from the pentagon. It will take another 3. 8 billion to build President Trumps border wall as he wants to get as much construction as possible completed before the end of the year. Tell us what you see happening in terms of the wall being built. How quickly is that happening . Guest it is being built right now. We have added 100 miles of replacement wall. There is a new wall system that helps secure the border, better. I like to go back to my time in arizona. I worked in a 58 mile stretch of border. We did not have any infrastructure or border barriers, there. We were arresting over 100,000 people in this one, small area, a year. We started building walls and the arrests have dropped down to 10,000 per year. Physical barriers in strategic locations absolutely work. You just have to look at anywhere we have built the physical barriers such as san diego, el paso and in arizona. When we have done that, illegal immigration and drugs, that is an important part. Drugs have gone down through those areas, exponentially. It allows us to dictate where illegal crossings will take place, rather than the criminal cartels dictating to us where they are going to cross. Host the cartels are keeping up the pressure. There was a major tunnel discovered in california and arizona. To go we want them underground. What happens is this costs them a lot of money to do. It is cost prohibitive. If they cannot get their products across very easily, they have to start expending money, which puts a dent into their profits and allows us to go after them with our intelligence department. That is where we always want to be. Judd, he isn welcome to your calls and comments. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. Ndependents, 202 7488002 have you ever been in a lifethreatening situation . Guest i have. It can be a dangerous job. One thing that i would like to point out is criminal organizations, they are the ones that are going to be dangerous. They try not to harm Border Patrol agents as much as possible. They know that if they do, there will be a lot of public outcry because of what they have done. There is a lot of pressure. There are sometimes, they absolutely have to go out of their way to give us get us out of the picture so they can get their drugs across the border. More are you feeling clinical pressure from washington . Are you feeling pressure from republicans and democrats . No. T when you look at moderate republicans and moderate democrats, they generally tend to agree that we have to secure the border. There is a lot of agreement in that respect. It is when you get to the outliers. When you talk about the radical left and the radical right, that is when you start getting into dont make sense, policy wise. The radical right wants us to shut everything down to where nobody comes in legally or illegally. Wantadical left just dont Border Patrol anywhere. Neither one of those policies work. It is the middleware republicans and democrats can get along and they agreed that we have to secure the borders. Host have you been down there when members of congress or the president have visited. When they leave, when those members leave those fours, what is your tours, what is your general take away . Guest i have sat with President Trump when he has gone down to the border. He supports our mission. Because of that, the morale goes up, exponentially. When you have members of congress, and i will say her ocortez,xandria ocasi when she says we are concentration camps and we are running a gestapo, morel will go into the tank. She specifically goes after the men and women and that is a huge contrast between President Trump, who supports men and women of the Border Patrol. T how the number of Border Patrol agencies, it has gone up in the last few years. We are constantly in the spotlight. Right now, there is almost 20,000 Border Patrol agents, nationwide. Host there was some military involvement in terms of support for you guys. Is that still happening . Guest we still have the National Guard at the border. They act behind the scenes. They run our cameras. They help with certain detention facilities, which allows us to free up our agents to secure the border. They are a great help. Host do you use the National Government because we need to increase the size of Border Patrol . Guest we dont have enough Border Patrol agents to put our agents in the field. When they have to be in the Processing Centers and process individuals or have to run our cameras or monitor sensors, it takes agents out of the field where we need them in the field to control the border. Host host we will hear from host we will hear from jim, first on the independent line. Caller great job, buddy. When they have that law passed in new york, where they had the lines out of the building, they could have snagged some of these guys. I live where they chopped up some people down the block from me. I can tell you, i am 66 now. 66 years old. I have to call the cops every october from april to because the spanish people from south of the border love to blast the music sohost leesbur. Jim on the independent line. Caller i applied your service. I am a veteran. Illegal immigration and immigration are number two in my book. You have to take care of this immigration problem. Downcomment on shutting the border totally, i wish you could take a pause. The assimilation is not happening. Tv. Ave 1000 channels on they can sit there and watch spanish tv or korean tv all day long. I am a construction. I could be making a dollar or two an hour. I go on these construction sites. Large commercial construction sites building homes for these developers. I can speak to maybe one guy in the whole crew. It is ridiculous. Unemployment should be zero. Every ablebodied man it should be out there working. Man and woman should be out there working. Everify should be fully enforced. I cant remember if it is m. I. T. Or yale study where they run the numbers. Probably over 30 million Illegal Immigrants in this country. Ca . Word on the da youru came here illegally, parents have to go home. I will give you a pass on the kids, but the parents have to go home. Host do you want to address this . Guest we have to separate illegal immigration with legal immigration. I dont think there is anybody in the United States that disagrees with legal immigration. The vast majority of the United States does not want to see people come here illegally and game the system and get all the benefits. The parents are subject to deportation. Daca was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. The parents are subject to deportation. The problem is finding those people that are here in the United States illegally. When we do find those individuals, ice does a great job of doing their portion of work intoting their the immigration debate. Host the change the administration made, the migrant texan protocols. People can protection protocols. People come to the borders and they are told to wait in a border town until the case is heard . Guest but used happen, and this was the major problem, there are certain magnets that draw people to cross the border illegally. The main magnet was the catch and release program. Somebody would cross illegally, claim asylum, get released into the u. S. And never show up for the Court Appearances. They would do it president obama termed disappearing into the shadows of society. President trump says we have to get rid of that magnet. Intonnot release people the United States and not have them show up to the appearances. If somebody comes up and claims asylum, we send them back to mexico pending their asylum proceeding. If they show up to the court proceeding, they have the right to prove they should be allowed to remain in the United States. If they dont have that right, we send them back to their country. Host some pushback related to the violence in the mexican towns. This is to increase access to court hearings. What it is doing is forcing 62,000 plus asylumseekers to wait in a dangerous conditions with no hope they will ever have the opportunity to get a lawyer and virtually impossible chances of winning asylum regardless of the strength of their claims. Guest what frustrates me is just three years ago, if we ever issued if the state department issued a travel warning about going to mexico, everybody would be pushing back on that saying mexico is not dangerous. Mexico ise have extremely dangerous. The mexicans have certified safe towns are perfectly for these migrants to be in their country. Frankly you hear a lot of anecdotal evidence or anecdotal stories that there is violence in these mexico towns but there is no actual evidence or physical evidence that the violence is taking place. Host is there evidence one called for the folks are coming back . Guest absolutely. We paroled them back into the United States for the hearing. As long as they give us an address or a way we can get a hold of them, we bring all of these individuals that are waiting for asylum back in to have their Court Appearance before an immigration judge. Proof this is not a criminal proceeding. The burden of proof is on those individuals to prove they should be allowed to remain. If they cant prove that, they get sent back to their country. Host lancaster, pennsylvania. Vince on the republican line. Caller good morning. I wanted to say thank you for job you all do down at the border. If it wasnt for cspan i know a lot of folks, democrat, republican, independent, or plain old americans would probably never get the right story. It would not be spun like the media does. Whether it is fox or one of the other ones. There are a lot of folks they dont like what is going on. Because this new bill trying to be passed with 44 as far ason board folks that have been kicked out, going through the expense of taxpayers and bringing them back and having them tried, basically opening up all the borders. Pardon me for not remembering exactly what the law is called. Effort and youur cant be discouraged anymore, someone is throwing another pylon you. Pile on you. Other i want to thank you before you comment. We pray for you. Guest let me address the issue of cspan. I absolutely agree that cspan is right down the middle. They look at both sides of the issue. I can personally appreciate that. They dont take up one side or the other. The American Public needs that. We need to have an honest conversation. When we have that honest conversation, at least you know the truth is and you can make up your own mind. As far as the bill he is talking about is hr 8353. Decriminalizee the process of crossing the border illegally. When we talk about the radical left in the radical right, bills get introduced. It will not pass. It has no support. It does not even have the support of the majority of democrats. It is not going to pass. Incentivize people to cross the border illegally, if you do that, people are going to violate our laws. You cannot incentivize. You cannot reward people for violating our laws. If you do that, they will continue to do that and that is what the bill will do. Host i want to play the comments of the subcommittee chair and the House Foreign Affairs on the House Foreign Affairs. Here is what he said. [video] i have long advocated for robust u. S. Assistance to help mexico strengthen his democratic institution, combat corruption, defend human rights, and improve security. I believe mexico and United States have a shared responsibility to reduce Violent Crimes and improve quality of life to those living on both sides of our border. The United States must enact stricter gun laws, dedicate more resources to combating money anddering by the cartels, increase investment in programs to reduce domestic demand for illegal drugs. A sincerepect commitment on the mexican side to reduce this violence. Host brandon judd . Guest i have never seen an initiation work more with the Mexican Government than the Trump Administration has been doing. The Trump Administration has been trying to put as much pressure and give us much aid to mexico as possible to try to help with this crisis on the border. As far as guns, mexico has some of the toughest gun laws in the entire world. Yet they have one of the highest murder rates due to guns. To say the United States has to place stricter gun laws, i just know somebody from another country should be talking about it. Host where do the cartels get their guns . Guest there are a lot of places. They can get there from china, from many Different Countries. Some come from the United States. Host lets hear from jerry from rhode island, independent line. Democrats line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am a liberal. Liberals dont like laws. The democrats have had some great bills obstructed by the republicans that said we need cameras,osts, more more technology, more drones. We should be able to know they are coming and be able to greet them with the proper people. If it is women and children, they get dropped off by the kaylees. We can bring them dropped off by the coyotes. Border, locals put in 500 cameras and they stopped the drugs and put them in the ravines in these places. That is what we need to do. A wall is a wall of hate. If youre dropped off by the coyotes and you go 100 miles to a wall, you have to decide which way to go. The chance is you are going to die. If you do it with the technology and the other way, it is compassionate and a much better way to go. Host are those human traffickers still as active as they have been in the past . Guest yes. They are more active due to the process profits they can generate. What frustrates me is when our policies allow a criminal organization like the cartels to generate billions of dollars of revenue. We should be for legal immigration. We should be for people coming to our ports of entry and presenting themselves and asking for illegal entry. What we should absolutely be against his people crossing our borders illegally. When they do that, they are putting themselves in the hands of very dangerous criminal cartels. They are paying these organizations thousands of dollars each to bring them to our borders and smuggle them into the United States. Host you mentioned your experience as a Border Patrol agent in maine and montana and a lonelier outposts. Where there illegal crossings . Crossings . Re illegal guest we have it on our northern borders, our coastal borders. We have more on the southwest border because it cost less to come up in mexico than what it does to fly into canada and then cross the northern border. As we do a better job on the southwest border, we can see more illegal immigration of the northern border, which is what we have in seeing. Host ashland, ohio. Gary, good morning. Caller i have three questions i would like to ask. Ideal one, what is the population of the United States . Cost ofwo, what is the illegal immigration to the american citizen . Number three, what is the cost of legal immigrats to the american citizen . Guest i would love to be able to answer that question but im a Law Enforcement agent. We dont deal with the cost aspect. What i am an expert on his Border Security and how we can secure our border. Those are absolutely good questions and questions that need to be addressed. Im just not the one to address them. Host when did you get elected . Guest i was just elected again for another term yesterday. I have been the president for the last seven years. Host you balance that . You are a working agent as well . After meeting with President Trump it is back to work next week . Guest i spent a great deal of time represent our agents and in uniform patrolling the border. Host mel in salt lake city, utah. Democrats line. Caller thank you for cspan. Trumpoff the bat i know cut legal immigration. There has to be more illegal immigration. You guys have a totally wrong. The one guy that called before me about sensors and cameras, lets go that route. Walls are totally not needed nowadays. You guys have got it all wrong. 800,000 people came across with a coyote, i dont think so. Effortsll us about what you see daily in terms of technology. What new technologies are being introduced . Guest we have gone the technology route. The last part of the Bush Administration and the first part of the Obama Administration enamored with technology. Technology helps us to tax people. That is what it does. Helps us detect people. It does not help us apprehend people. It is a mixture. Yes, we get enamored with technology. Drones flying in the air tells us there people crossing the border. If i dont have the personnel to actually respond to those individuals, there is nothing i can do. You have to have the proper mixture of technology, personnel and infrastructure. Togetherose three mesh it is pieces of a puzzle. You cant complete a puzzle unless you have all the pieces. Technology is one piece of the puzzle and we are working on that. Host on the walls themselves, we have seen pictures of some that have blown down in the breeze. As we are building those walls that is not a finished wall. Yes, some things like that will happen. You put the wall back up. You finish the construction. We have never had a finished wall low down because of wind. Host susan in glenwood, illinois. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to commend you for your service and congratulate you on your another term as president. In illinois and for over arizona, can you tell the American Public what would happen if all the wall, all the restrictions on the border were removed . What would happen to our nation as a consequence of the action of the radical left . Is if weat i can say did not have the Border Patrol, yes, people would be coming across. We have the laws and the Border Patrol. As you pointed out we apprehended in 2019 almost one Million People that crossed illegally. If you have those laws and a Million People are crossing illegally, i would hate to imagine what would happen if we did not have any loss. Laws. We enforce the Laws Congress passes. We do not go out and decide what we want to do. All we are there for, Law Enforcement officers, border or municipal Law Enforcement enforce the laws passed by whatever authority passes those laws. Host how frustrating is it to see congress failed to pass comprehensive Immigration Reform over the course of now two decades . Guest its extremely frustrating. I go back to the Immigration Reform and control act of 1986. The problem was there was a legalization piece and enforcement piece. They gave a legalization piece but did not follow through on the enforcement piece. Because i did not follow through, it gave rise to the illegal immigration we saw. Because of that weve had to double the Border Patrol on three separate occasions because of the number of people that were crossing our borders illegally. Anytime you intensify i will go back to that. If you intensify crime, it is going to take place. We have laws in this country to protect the American Public. Thatly, it is the laws made this country the greatest nation on earth. If we ignore those laws, we come like any other country. T border have pretensions apprehensions drop. The number has dropped for the eighth straight month following crackdowns by the Trump Administration including forcing asylumseekers back over the border to wait out their claims. 3 if you want to send us a text. Jimbo in bakersfield, california. Independent. Wouldnt it be best to focus on upgrading these locations on the border with a smart wall . Your work more effective under trump in previous administer agent . We have to look at the idea that more drugs are crossing at ports of entry than they do between the ports of entry. If athe same idea tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, doesnt make a sound . Just because you dont detect the drugs that are crossing the border between the ports of entry does not mean they are not crossing. What we can do is we can see how many drugs are in suburban america. You know how much is there based upon how many deaths are happening or the arrests. We know not all those drugs are crossing through the ports of entry. They are crossing between the ports of entry. We have a problem in both areas. We absolutely have to increase the enforcement at our ports of entry. Te more to divo resources devote more resources. I will tell you under the trumpet administration morale from a National Ports o order counsel stand National Border counsel standpoint it is higher. This president supports the work we do. Host a quick followup on drugs coming into the u. S. Is that 70 with a backpack on or a tractortrailer . Guest it depends on what drugs they are bringing across. If it is marijuana, it will be backpacks. If they are bringing across it will be inds, smaller containers. They will bring those through with cars to the ports of entry. At a port of entry i can inspect every Single Person in every single vehicle that comes into the u. S. It does not make sense to bring drug support through the ports of entry. If you go i dont have people, i cant inspect. It makes sense the cartels are going to bring the drugs between the ports of entry rather than through the secured locations. Ist the next caller karen in new jersey. Caller good morning. I have a question on the border crossings. See the focus is on people who are brown and black. Whonted to know how many are not brown or black are crossing the border . What is there apprehension right . Guest it does not matter what color a person is. Whether you are from china, whether youre from poland i citigroup from poland. It does not i arrested a group from poland. We see a camera picture people crossing illegally. When somebody crosses the border illegally, we deploy our agents to the area and we will take those individuals into custody. Personally you i have never arrested somebody from africa. There have been arrests. I have personally not. I have arrested people from russia that were white. People from poland that were white. Yes, we do deal with the majority that what you already the majority are from sukkot or central america. That is undeniable. It doesnt matter for you are from. If you crossed illegally, we will deploy resources and try to take you into custody. Host what was the story with the group from poland . Where did they land . Why were they coming to the u. S. . Guest during the processing we have to try to determine that. They will give us a story. The best we could determine if they flew into mexico city and worked for mexico city up to the border. I think it was 2001. Host today higher eight coyote did they hire a coyote . Guest nobody crosses without paying criminal cartels. You have to pay to work your way up to the border. Host rodney from maryland, independently. Independently. Line. Caller i wonder why no one talks about the real issue in south america. Im a selfemployed mechanic. I repair all kinds of equipment on the construction sites. Forklift and bobcat, that kinda stuff. I have been doing this for 22 years. Over the years ive had quite a who are mostly from el salvador or guatemala. Guys onry rare you find the construction sites from mexico. With, they are building all the houses out there that people are living in. Man they tell me the reason they came to the u. S. Was because they cant make any money where they come from. Yearst know 50, 60 plus we have been allowing american corporations to go south of the whatever build their they want to build, factories and stuff. They pay literally five dollars per day. No one can live on five dollars a day. If we have a universal wage and we required american corporations to go south of the border to make their products to pay the same wage they pay in this country, if you can make 20 in el salvador and in american factory, he would have people coming from the u. S. To go there to work. Host brandon judd . Guest i will first address why people are coming here. The vast majority of individuals coming here are coming here to work. They know that there is a lot more opportunity in the United States. So they will come to the United States. There are specific driving factors that force people to leave the country. There are specific factors that cause people to cross the border illegally. The main factor is we have the best country in the world, in my opinion. We have more opportunity then you will see throughout the world. People are going to want to come here. We want to see people come here legally, not illegally. Host please ask your guest about the everify program and why it does not work. Guest the program does not work similar because it is not being enforced. It is like any law. If you dont enforce a law, it will become a suggestion. If its a suggestion, people will violated. If im driving down the interstate ending of the cops are going to allow me to go 10 miles over the speed limit, i will go 10 miles over the speed limit. I will stay just below with the cops are going to enforce. It is the same thing with any law. If are not enforcing it, people will look at it as a suggestion and blow it off. Host donald in kalamazoo, michigan on the republican line. Caller good morning. I have a couple of questions. I would like to say these people who call and talk about how little money they make in mexico and how much we make here, that is true. But five dollars is a lot more money in mexico that it is in United States. A lot more. As far as separating the children, i would like to hopefully this meant can tell me about the orphan trains. When we had children running loose like stray dogs in the street that were picked up like stray dogs, shipped out west, southwest, and given away like stray dogs. That is separation. Thank you. West what we saw in 2014 is had this huge problem of unaccompanied minors coming up to the border without parents, without any sort of guardian. There was nothing that broke our hearts more than seeing that. You want to talk about misery. When we took people into custody that worked their way up through mexico and they were 3, 4, 5 years old, that will break your heart. That was true misery. That is the idea that we have that if you dont come to united totes, you are not going have the same opportunities. We dont see that anymore because what happens is you deal with issues. He put certain policies in place. We dealt with the issue and we dont see it anymore. Host anthony from staten island, new york on the republican line. Caller there is a reason why foods are not of allowed from Different Countries ended the United States into the data states. Into the United States. Certain bugs can cause major damage to crops. There is a coronavirus and other viruses that are now spreading everywhere. How do you control immigration or you dont know who is coming over the border and what kind of viruses or what kind of sicknesses they might be bringing potentially . There is also terrorism. There is also drugs coming in from the border. If you find yourself in the middle of the desert, how do you know you have actually crossed the border . Im talking about u. S. Citizens and mexican citizens, if there is no physical barrier . Host we have not talked about the coronavirus. What has the Border Patrol been told about keeping an eye on this . Guest we are the first line of defense from allowing viruses to come in or different jesus to come into the United States. We have to be vigilant taking individuals in the custody antimedical screening on these individuals to find out if in fact they are contagious with a certain disease. If we find they are contagious, we immediately transport them to the hospitals to take proper steps. We are the first line of defense, which is one of the reasons is important we do detect at every hand every Single Person that crosses the border illegally. Host have you or your fellow agents gotten help from viruses, illnesses, diseases gotten ill from viruses, illnesses and diseases from immigrants you have arrested . Guest there have been many agents. As we see different illnesses spreading, we deal with that. We dealt with sars and ebola. Now youre dealing with i think it was a week in africa we arrested two chinese we agost a week and half we arrested two chinese. They were sick. We had to determine whether or not they didnt fact have the coronavirus. We are the front line of defense and have to deal with that. Host scott in new york on the independent line. Caller hello. Scott the human. Back if you years ago i was living in louisiana. There were five or six illegal aliens i worked with. Number one, on the west coast, canada to mexico, marijuana is legal. In mexico it is illegal. Have done more damage to the cartels than the dea could think about doing because legal andshould be monopolize on it for our country. Host some final thoughts from brandon judd. Guest as far as drugs, we enforce the law. We dont determine what the laws are. If congress determines it is legal, we will not seize marijuana. When he points out certain states have legalized marijuana, all the cartels do is they Just Transition to another drug that creates more profit. Even if you legalize marijuana, it does mean drugs. They will start smuggling the opioids, the fentanyl. It has increased exponentially. Host brandon judd meeting today with the president at the white house. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Tuesday morning, we will talk about the state of the u. S. Manufacturing industry and trumpet Administration Economic policies with scott paul of the alliance for american manufacturing. As part of museum week, we are live from the National Museum of the marine corps with senior coordinator owen connor and the director to discuss the 75th anniversary of the battle of iwo jima. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 eastern tuesday morning, and be sure to watch washington journal all this week for museum week. Wednesday morning we will explore the Smithsonian Museum of american history. From the ground of George Washingtons mount vernon, we are joined by doug bradburn, the president and ceo of George Washingtons mount vernon on this president s day. First, explain the significance of the moment that is portrayed over your shoulder