TRANSKRIPTIO 🔗
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We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United
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States undetected, undocumented, unchecked.
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And complete the dang fence. This bill that we will
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sign today is not a revolutionary bill. Cast down your
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bucket where you are.
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We come from France. And I am, you know, adamantly
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against illegal immigrants.
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They're coming in by the thousands, just unbelievable.
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A wall is an immorality. Who are you rooting for?
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Those masters of the universe are at it again.
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They're not sending their best. You maniac! You blew it up!
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Welcome to Parsing Immigration Policy, the podcast of the Center
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for Immigration Studies. My name is Mark Krikorian, Executive Director
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of the Center. And today we have a special guest
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in the studio, John Fabricatore, who is a special advisor
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at the Office of Refugee Resettlement. within Health and Human
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Services Department. And we're going to be talking, among other things,
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about the issue of unaccompanied minors, unaccompanied alien children. UACs
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is the shorthand. We've talked about it some before, but
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there's been some news where under the new administration, they've
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been putting a lot of effort in trying to find
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the hundreds of thousands of people that the Biden administration,
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in effect, lost. They placed them with sponsors and then
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never were able to follow up and see what happened.
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And so this administration is doing a lot of work
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on that. And John is the tip of the spear
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or part of the spear or something on that effort. So, John,
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thanks for coming in. Could you first tell us a
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little bit about yourself? How did you get you were
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in immigration enforcement matters before?
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Yeah, I was. Thanks for having me on again, Mark.
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I really appreciate it.
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So, you know, my journey really starts in the United
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States Air Force. I Joined the Air Force right out
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of high school, was with security forces. And then after that,
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became a federal officer with Federal Protective Service. And then
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I got on with INS in the late 90s. And
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that's how I started my journey there with immigration. So
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I started out with INS in Denver, Colorado. Went through
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9-11 when we became ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement. Rose up
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through the ranks, through the supervisory ranks. Was a supervisor
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for Fugitive Operations Unit. with ERO, then became an assistant
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field office director, deputy field office director, and then finally
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a SCS field office director for all of Colorado and Wyoming.
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I retired in 2022, ran for Congress in CD6 in Colorado,
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lost badly to Jason Crow. And then after losing that
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congressional battle, I was asked to come back to the administration.
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I had retired, like I said, in 2022. They asked
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me to come back to the administration.
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And help out The new administration. The new administration.
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Yeah, with the Trump. I left during the Biden administration.
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Couldn't handle it anymore. I had my 30 years in
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2022 and said, you know, this is it.
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I'm done.
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Can't deal with the Biden administration. They were letting in
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millions of illegal aliens and we weren't doing, you know,
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what I thought we should be doing at ICE. So
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when I retired in 2022, ran for Congress, you know,
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after that was over, didn't really know what I was
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going to do. And I had the opportunity to come back.
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and work for the Trump administration and help out in
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finding these 400,000, over 400,000 unaccompanied alien children that the
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Biden administration had lost. So when they asked me if
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I would like to come back and work on that,
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right away, I said, yes, let's dive into this and
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see what we can do.
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So on that, John, would you have preferred to go
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into ICE? In other words, did they ask you to
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do this particular thing? Because- Office of Refugee Resettlement obviously
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is
Load full transcript
different from ICE. It's not an enforcement operation, even
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though the law requires unaccompanied minors to be handed over
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to them. It's a somewhat different thing that you did
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than you did in ICE, right? Yeah, absolutely.
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So what happened was Tom Holman reached out to me,
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Borders R. Holman. He had known me from ICE. He
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knew my work ethic and He had that conversation with me.
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He actually said, you know, John, I know you probably
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want to come back to a position in ICE.
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Right.
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But I'm asking you if you could please go over
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there to HHS and take a look at what's going on.
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They had already selected a HSI special agent in charge
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to be the acting director, Angie Salazar.
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She's awesome.
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Great leader. They asked her to go over there as
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the director. And then asked for me to come over
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as a senior advisor to really kind of help her
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out in some aspects, and especially in the things that
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I know with ERO, enforcement removal operations. So it was
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a good way to have HSI and ERO together with
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this agency and really kind of looking at some different
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points of view and really getting the job done.
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So under the Biden administration, it was over 450,000 unaccompanied
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minors came in. And they were handed over to Office
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of Refugee Resettlement and then delivered to sponsors, so-called. So
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when people say that some significant number of them were lost,
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what does that mean? What were they not able to
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do so that those people were considered lost?
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Yeah, it's actually a lot when we look at it, Mark.
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So when these unaccompanied alien children were coming in, and
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most of them were older teenagers that were coming in.
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When we actually look at the numbers, over 60% were
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over 16 years old. So a lot of them were
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older teens. But what they didn't do under the Biden
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administration is really vet the sponsors. They didn't check up
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on the addresses. They didn't care what kind of photographs
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were coming in when they asked for IDs. So there
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was a lot of fraud that we identified, and a
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lot of it was in identity documents. So when we
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go back and we look at those identity documents, there
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was manipulated photographs. There was address fraud. There was even
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fingerprint fraud. There was failure by sponsors to disclose who
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was actually in the household. There was a lot of
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misrepresentation of age, of how old the UACs actually were.
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So we started to see a lot of that fraud.
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And then looking at to where these UACs actually were now.
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We couldn't identify that. The addresses that we were looking
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at were horrible. They came back to parking lots, to factories,
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to abandoned addresses.
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It was a mess.
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So the first thing that we had to identify is
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what we didn't know. And we didn't know a lot.
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The information was garbage when we got back here under
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the Trump administration. And we had to really tear that
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apart and really start to build everything back up because
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what the Biden administration left us, we couldn't work with.
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So in some of these cases, I mean, as I
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understand it, the follow-up part, of course, was the problem.
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I mean, you were talking about how they were delivering
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people to addresses that didn't exist or fake addresses or whatever.
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But the follow-up part is they're supposed to call on
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the phone and check at some point after they've placed
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the kid. you know, how's it going? What's up? Now,
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in a lot of those instances, the calls never went through.
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So the reason I'm bringing this up is that, in
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a sense, part of your challenge is to distinguish between
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those instances where the sponsors are just illegal aliens and
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didn't want to talk to the government, right? As opposed
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to the sponsors being up to no good in.
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Some
And you're very right about that. So, you know,
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the Biden administration gave a lot of kids to illegal aliens,
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which is still to this day. You know, I look
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at that and I'm like, so someone broke into the
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United States. They illegally entered. We don't even know who
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they really are. And we're just going to hand kids
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over to them. And that's what the Biden administration did.
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And a lot of times their own parents did. So
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the whole idea of their being unaccompanied is basically a
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legal fiction.
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It is. It's entirely legal fiction. So we know that
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a lot of them were their parents. They admitted it,
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that they were their parents. Their parents came forward. And
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this is what led us to find out what the
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cartel was actually doing. So the cartel was breaking these
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families up on the Mexican side of the border on purpose.
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So they would get the parents into the U.S. It
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was a lot easier to just smuggle the parents across,
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get the parents settled down. you know, wherever that they
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were going to wind up. And then they would drop
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the kids off at the border. They had certain border
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points that they knew if they dropped the kids off,
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the border patrol was going to respond very quickly, pick
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the kids up, turn them over to ORR care. Under
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the Biden administration, the administration and especially Secretary Becerra had
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a memo that was put out and had some rules
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that they had set forward that they wanted these kids
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out of their care within seven to nine days.
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That's what I was going to ask is why was
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the push?
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It was an assembly line, Mark.
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Unbelievable.
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That's exactly what it was. They viewed these kids as
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like a commodity. They didn't want the American public seeing
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the thousands of kids that they had in care, 22,000
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kids a day in care. Right now under the Trump administration,
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we have 1,600 kids in care. Under the Biden administration,
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they had 22,000 a day.
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And where, before they deliver them to sponsors, I mean,
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ICE gives them to you guys. Yes. You all deliver
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them to sponsors. Where do you keep the kids in
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the interim? Where does ORR house kids when they're in
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their custody?
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So we have contracts with various NGOs who provide care
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centers for these kids. And it's a full service care center.
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They get meals, they get medical care. They get education benefits.
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They are well taken care of in these shelters. It's
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an environment where they have gym activities, they have reading activities,
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they have computers, all these things, because these are still kids.
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We're dealing with kids and trying to figure out exactly
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what's going on with them. So there are these centers
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that they go to. And again, Biden just had these
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kids leaving within seven to nine days to lightly vetted
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or unvetted illegal aliens or even other people that they
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just didn't know who these people were. They weren't taking
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DNA tests. It was just horrific when you really look
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at it. And then on top of that, to even know,
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you mentioned that there were calls coming in about these kids.
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There were 65,000 notices of concern, calls that came in
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to the Biden administration during the last few months that
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the Biden administration was there, 65,000 calls.
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Calls from whom?
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These were calls from UACs, from people that had observed
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some things that were going on with unaccompanied alien children,
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that no one even took those calls. So when we
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came in with the Trump administration, that was our first priority.
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We kind of triaged everything that was going on, saw
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that these 65,000 calls had come in, And as we
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were listening to them, some of them were pretty horrific
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with kids claiming to be sexually assaulted, in danger.
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Calls
came in and the Biden administration didn't do anything
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about them? Nothing. Nothing.
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They had one person monitoring all those calls that came
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in and that person just gave up toward the end.
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Yeah, it was Lucy and the chocolate factory. Yeah, it
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was bad.
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So with those 65,000 reports, like 30,000 of them we
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determined were safety concerns where where a kid was actually
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calling for help. 9,000 of them were allegations of human trafficking.
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About 9,000 were reports of abuse or neglect. About 1,300
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were reports of sexual abuse. And 1,300 were medical emergencies.
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Out of those calls that we were investigating, that 65,000,
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we found 37 children deceased. out of those calls as
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we investigated those. Some had died of drug overdoses, some
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from gang violence, just a lot of different things. So initially,
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that was our initial drive. That was our number one thing,
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clear up those notices of concern, figure out where those
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kids were. It took us a few months to do that.
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We had a whole of government approach on that. We
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brought in other federal law enforcement agencies, got everybody together.
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And our main focus was just going out, finding those
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kids and figuring that out. And we were able to
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clear that up in late 2025. And now, you know,
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we've been looking at other kids to go out and find. And,
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you know, since the Trump administration came back in, we've
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located 160,000 of the over 400,000 that came in under Biden.
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So not to give HHS, you know, under Biden any
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excuse for them. But when you're letting in, when the
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border is open, if you only have one person answering
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those calls of concern, it's really not the bureaucrat's fault
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who has to take the calls because what are they
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supposed to do? So in a sense, you're being able
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to catch up on this as possible because at the border,
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you now have dramatically fewer entries.
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Yeah, you have dramatically fewer entries, but you also have
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different leadership, Mark.
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Well, the entries are because of the leadership as well. Absolutely.
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We have lower entries because of President Trump. Through President
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Trump's leadership, we have a whole of government approach to
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identifying human trafficking, sex trafficking, labor trafficking. We are looking
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at this a lot differently than the Biden administration did,
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where they were just letting in millions of people over
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the four years. including over 500,000 kids. So the Trump
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administration definitely takes a different look at this. And because
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of that, we're able to investigate the sex trafficking and
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the labor trafficking a lot better because we've shut that
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border down. So just to your point, when you have
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millions of people coming in, they were trying to sweep
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that all under the rug. So they just didn't have,
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or maybe they didn't even want to really investigate a
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lot of this. They just wanted people getting into the country,
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but it's not like that under the Trump administration.
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So has anybody, has Javier Becerra been called to account
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on any of this? I mean, which really is on
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his watch. I mean, the secretary now is Bobby Kennedy
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and you know, he's responsible for the whole department, but
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Becerra was responsible for this department. I mean, it's just- Yeah, absolutely.
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It was a failure of leadership. It was, you know,
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abysmal leadership by him. No, he has not been held
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to account for that. And, you know, the leadership difference
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is so different with Secretary Kennedy. You know, he gives,
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you know, all the resources he can over to ORR
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in identifying this problem. It's been an issue that's been
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heavy on his heart. since he took over as a
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secretary of HHS. He asked for daily briefs on it.
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He's very much concerned and aligned with wanting to make
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sure that this does not happen again. For me, coming over,
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--> 00:15:47.169
like you mentioned earlier, I'm an ICE guy. I spent
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my time as an officer on the street working for
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DHS and coming over and then working for Secretary Kennedy
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has been great. He's a good leader. He really wants
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to make a difference. And the difference can be shown
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just in what we're doing over.
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There at ORR. Has the morale of the career staff changed?
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I mean, it's not a huge office over there, but
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you do have career people. How's that been going? Yeah.
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When you show them exactly what was happening and why
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we're doing what we're doing now, I think that there's
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been an awakening there. So you know, I was a career. Look,
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you know, I spent 30 years in government service, you know,
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military service with FPS, with.
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INS, with ICE.
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You work through multiple presidents, you're given your orders, you
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do your job. And, you know, sometimes you just do
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your job without really thinking, you know, about everything that
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goes into why you're doing what you do. And, you know,
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I think a lot of the careers, you know, at
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that Biden time just felt that they were you know,
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given these orders and they were doing exactly what the
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administration asked them to do. And they really weren't thinking
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past that. And, you know, now that they see, you know,
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what happened because of what was occurring under Biden, you know,
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we've had many meetings where, you know, many of the
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careers are just shocked that, you know, finding these situations
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that these kids are in and what was actually allowed,
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you can see, you know, that it's a it's a
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different outlook that we have under the Trump administration and
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looking at immigration and looking at, you know, how we
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deal with unaccompanied alien children. And the careers are definitely
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taking that to heart now.
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Good to hear. So a lot of the cases, like
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I had said, they're just illegals who don't want to
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be found. And so in other words, the kids aren't
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being abused necessarily, but there are a lot of instances
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of real problems. You have a few, I don't know,
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horror stories, I guess I'd call them. I mean, the
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I'm not trying to do kind of inflammatory stuff here,
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but there are real instances of real abuse, right?
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Yeah. And listen, the listeners can Google any of this
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that I'm going to talk about. The DOJ under the
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Trump administration has been really good at putting these cases
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out there. We've had numerous cases where sponsors have been
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taking kids and using them in labor trafficking. We had
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one case this summer, one woman from Guatemala sponsored over
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40 kids, and it was not discovered under the Biden administration.
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We discovered it under the Trump administration.
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How hard can that even be? I mean, you just
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have a computer thing, it flags up once you get
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to the second. But it didn't.
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The computer system that they had, you could not trace
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phone numbers and addresses, if multiple addresses were being.
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It was horrible. Wow.
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We have instituted a whole new computer program. We built
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a whole new program that can be searched much easier,
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that gives you alerts if an address has been used before,
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if a telephone number has been used before. All the
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things that you would think should have been happening under
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the Biden administration, but were not. So yeah, we had
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adult males claiming to be the brother of In one
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case off the top of my head, the brother of
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a young girl. And they just let this girl go
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to this guy. And it wasn't her brother. He raped
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her multiple times. She was one of those notice of
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concern cases.
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And I'd called in.
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HSI was able to identify, go in, rescue her. And
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our government under the Biden administration had placed her with
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this male who was not her brother. And like I said,
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had sexually abused her. There were many cases of labor trafficking.
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Even the New York Times knew this. I was going
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to say, the New York Times did a big, high-profile story.
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You'd think at least the Biden administration would read the
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New York Times. Right, exactly.
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The New York Times found that all this labor trafficking
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was going on. So there was really no excuse for
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it under the Biden administration. They had to have news.
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What was occurring.
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They had to have known that these kids were just disappearing.
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And like you said, a lot of them were going
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to illegal alien parents. But I want to make one
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point clear, Mark. Every single one of those parents smuggled
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their own kids across the border.
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I'm not excusing you.
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No, I know you're not. I know you're not. This
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is more for the listener. I know you understand that point,
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but maybe some of the listeners don't. When you come
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across that border, you're paying the cartel. It doesn't matter
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who you are. So everyone's paying the cartel. And the
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cartels chose to make a bigger profit off of families
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by breaking the families up, charging a payment for those
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parents and then charging an additional payment when the children
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were dropped off to the parents. So the Biden administration
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acted as a third leg of this smuggling operation by,
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in essence, moving the kids from these shelters to the
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parents and finishing off the smuggling operation. that the cartels
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wanted to occur so they could get their final payment.
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A federal judge even had in rulings even said specifically that,
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that the federal government was essentially acting as a partner
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with the cartels smuggling illegal aliens.
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And they absolutely were. And, you know, when, when you
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go back and if you go on, on X or
381
00:21:09.089 --> 00:21:11.349
it was Twitter back then, or, you know, and any
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of these, you know, social media platforms, there were plenty
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00:21:15.130 --> 00:21:17.769
of people in, in these social media platforms that were
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down at the border and, in airports viewing this happening.
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They were watching these transportation firms moving these kids throughout
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the US. There were reports of airplanes landing in the
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middle of the night at airports and offloading dozens of kids.
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There were all these reports coming out from citizen journalists
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that were identifying this happening. And the Biden administration just
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kind of tried to hide it as much as they can.
391
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They did it under the cover of darkness. They did
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00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:50.759
it behind closed doors in airports. And it was definitely occurring.
393
00:21:51.400 --> 00:21:55.680
So one news story that the media have really jumped
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all over was this idea, supposedly, that one-year-olds are being
395
00:22:02.019 --> 00:22:05.339
herded into court without lawyers. And so the image you
396
00:22:05.400 --> 00:22:07.619
imagine is a little kid kind of walking around and
397
00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:10.589
there's a judge looking at him. So what was the story?
398
00:22:11.089 --> 00:22:13.819
What's the actual story with that? Yeah.
399
00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:18.059
So number one, 2%, under 2% of all the kids
400
00:22:18.099 --> 00:22:19.960
we have in care are under five years old.
401
00:22:20.180 --> 00:22:20.380
Right.
402
00:22:20.480 --> 00:22:22.819
So like I said, most of them are older teenagers,
403
00:22:22.859 --> 00:22:26.380
but we do have some younger kids. Those younger kids
404
00:22:27.430 --> 00:22:30.710
hardly ever arrive by themselves. So the one-year-old that was
405
00:22:30.750 --> 00:22:35.170
in the news article recently had a 17-year-old UAC mother
406
00:22:35.190 --> 00:22:38.630
that she wound up at the border with. That 17-year-old
407
00:22:38.730 --> 00:22:45.539
UAC mother had a 24-year-old illegal alien husband that was
408
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:49.460
already inside the United States. So, you know, these things
409
00:22:49.619 --> 00:22:53.160
happen this way. And I mean, you know it, you've
410
00:22:53.180 --> 00:22:56.460
seen it. A lot of these girls have these younger kids.
411
00:22:56.500 --> 00:22:57.960
They try to get them into the U.S. or they
412
00:22:57.980 --> 00:22:59.940
try to make it into the U.S. to have a kid.
413
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:00.299
Right.
414
00:23:00.619 --> 00:23:03.900
You know, we've had UAC's young women come in and
415
00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:06.829
have children, you know, at our care facilities who are
416
00:23:06.849 --> 00:23:08.029
now United States
citizens.
417
00:23:08.210 --> 00:23:08.410
Right.
418
00:23:08.890 --> 00:23:12.430
The media loves to focus on the one-year-old and ignore,
419
00:23:12.970 --> 00:23:15.490
you know, the 17-year-old gang member that we have in
420
00:23:15.549 --> 00:23:18.309
our care who's 17 and we can't turn over to ICE.
421
00:23:18.710 --> 00:23:19.690
Or says he's 17.
422
00:23:19.690 --> 00:23:23.359
Or says he's 17. We've got thousands of cases. where
423
00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:26.109
we believe that they're actually 19, 20, 21 years old
424
00:23:26.160 --> 00:23:30.549
and claiming to be 17. And yeah, so this happens
425
00:23:30.609 --> 00:23:33.630
all the time. So with this last case in June,
426
00:23:33.690 --> 00:23:36.809
it was a CBP encounter. It was a 17-year-old mother
427
00:23:36.829 --> 00:23:42.099
near Naco, Arizona with the one-year-old. Of course, the media
428
00:23:42.170 --> 00:23:44.839
focuses on the one-year-old in the story and never even
429
00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:48.579
identifies that her own mother smuggled her across the border
430
00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:52.130
and her own father smuggled paid for both of them
431
00:23:52.150 --> 00:23:55.279
to be smuggled across the border. So they're trying to
432
00:23:55.299 --> 00:23:59.339
tug at heartstrings. And we want these kids to have
433
00:24:00.019 --> 00:24:05.240
legal representation. We absolutely do. The prior legal representation that
434
00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:09.200
was there, a group called Acacia, was saying that they
435
00:24:09.220 --> 00:24:10.380
were legally representing.
436
00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:12.140
This is an NGO that- It was an NGO. Contracted
437
00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:12.759
with you guys?
438
00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:16.480
Yeah, they contracted through the government to provide legal representation.
439
00:24:17.059 --> 00:24:19.920
And we were finding out that they were only representing
440
00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:23.210
anywhere between 40 to 70% of the kids, give or take,
441
00:24:23.509 --> 00:24:26.450
different weeks of the month. So we were going through,
442
00:24:26.470 --> 00:24:29.349
we were looking some weeks, there was hardly any representation
443
00:24:29.410 --> 00:24:32.369
for them. Other weeks, there was up to 70% representation
444
00:24:32.410 --> 00:24:35.130
for them. We couldn't get answers from them on who
445
00:24:35.150 --> 00:24:39.109
they were representing. We asked for A numbers. They refused
446
00:24:39.150 --> 00:24:41.630
to give us the alien– which is the alien registration number.
447
00:24:41.650 --> 00:24:42.849
To identify who the kids are.
448
00:24:42.890 --> 00:24:45.920
Yeah, which identifies them, which we give. The United States
449
00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:49.759
government gives to illegal aliens coming across the border. But
450
00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:54.019
Acacia refused that saying it was attorney-client privilege. refused to
451
00:24:54.059 --> 00:24:56.839
share information with us. So we decided we were going
452
00:24:56.859 --> 00:24:59.259
to end that contract. If they're not willing to work
453
00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:01.759
with us, we don't know why we're paying them. And Mark,
454
00:25:02.059 --> 00:25:05.779
we paid them a billion dollars over four years, Mark.
455
00:25:05.819 --> 00:25:07.480
This is a Biden-era contract too.
456
00:25:07.579 --> 00:25:11.269
Yes, a Biden-era contract, a billion dollars. And we think
457
00:25:11.309 --> 00:25:15.529
they may have represented about 30,000 kids in total, a
458
00:25:15.569 --> 00:25:19.869
billion dollars for 30,000. So we decided to go a
459
00:25:19.910 --> 00:25:21.609
different way, look to see if we could find a
460
00:25:21.650 --> 00:25:25.990
different contractor that could be available for these kids. Of course,
461
00:25:26.029 --> 00:25:29.349
there's been a little bit of growth in that because
462
00:25:29.390 --> 00:25:32.339
we ended one contract. We're bringing up another contract. We've
463
00:25:32.359 --> 00:25:35.680
got a grant in place. There are still some cases
464
00:25:35.740 --> 00:25:38.759
in which Acacia says that they are the representative of
465
00:25:38.799 --> 00:25:41.500
the child. So we're trying to figure that out because
466
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:44.299
we can't put another attorney in there until we transfer
467
00:25:44.339 --> 00:25:45.099
that case over.
468
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:45.200
Sure.
469
00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:48.279
So we've had an organization appearing as a friend of
470
00:25:48.299 --> 00:25:51.140
the court. They've been there. They've been sitting in the
471
00:25:51.180 --> 00:25:54.450
back of the courtroom. They're there observing the case, waiting
472
00:25:54.509 --> 00:25:58.130
to have an initial consultation with that child. So yes,
473
00:25:58.210 --> 00:26:01.750
in some instances, and the media finds out when these
474
00:26:01.869 --> 00:26:04.869
are because they've got their little birdies who tell them, oh,
475
00:26:04.890 --> 00:26:08.000
there's going to be a two-year-old in court. And we
476
00:26:08.039 --> 00:26:10.079
don't think there's going to be an attorney for this two-year-old.
477
00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:13.180
So we don't want that to happen. Obviously, we want
478
00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:15.500
to make sure that these kids are represented. Look, Mark,
479
00:26:16.160 --> 00:26:18.940
We want to find the cases where kids are in trouble.
480
00:26:19.589 --> 00:26:22.029
We want to find the cases where kids have been
481
00:26:22.250 --> 00:26:26.569
sexually trafficked, where they've been labor trafficked, where they've been harmed.
482
00:26:27.549 --> 00:26:29.849
It's hard for us to do that when we've got
483
00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:33.119
tons of other fraud occurring and we've got all these
484
00:26:33.339 --> 00:26:37.079
older male teens coming in for economic reasons to find
485
00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:40.160
jobs so they can send remittances home so they can
486
00:26:40.200 --> 00:26:43.180
send billions of dollars outside of the U.S. back to
487
00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:43.930
their countries.
488
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:46.960
Because people, I mean, this is a kind of difference
489
00:26:47.019 --> 00:26:50.240
in perspective. I mean, if you're 16, even 15 years old,
490
00:26:50.660 --> 00:26:54.339
you're working age in Central America. I mean, you're going
491
00:26:54.400 --> 00:26:57.220
out to work. They're coming here to hang drywall or
492
00:26:57.259 --> 00:26:59.640
whatever it is they're doing. They're regular illegal aliens. And
493
00:26:59.660 --> 00:27:05.549
they're essentially kind of gaming or leveraging the difference between
494
00:27:05.589 --> 00:27:10.200
what we consider underage and what in their own societies
495
00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:11.640
is considered underage.
496
00:27:11.660 --> 00:27:13.549
You know, Mark, for people to kind of get an
497
00:27:13.589 --> 00:27:16.450
idea of just what you said, because it's brilliant. That's
498
00:27:16.490 --> 00:27:22.349
exactly the truth. Over 200,000 Guatemalan teenagers have left Guatemala
499
00:27:22.430 --> 00:27:24.750
in the last four years to come to the United States.
500
00:27:24.869 --> 00:27:25.069
Right.
501
00:27:25.210 --> 00:27:30.319
Over 200,000. That just shows you that, like, look, this
502
00:27:30.380 --> 00:27:32.559
is a thing where these teens know they could get
503
00:27:32.619 --> 00:27:34.660
to the United States. They can hang drywall. They can
504
00:27:34.700 --> 00:27:37.940
work for landscape crews. They can send home $ 300 or
505
00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:41.049
$ 400 a week of money that their parents want to see.
506
00:27:41.569 --> 00:27:45.630
So you're 16 years old in Guatemala. Your parents are
507
00:27:45.650 --> 00:27:47.589
kind of looking at you like, hey, why aren't you
508
00:27:47.609 --> 00:27:51.089
in America yet? Sending money home to us when the
509
00:27:51.130 --> 00:27:52.970
kid across the street has been in America for the
510
00:27:53.019 --> 00:27:55.740
last two years. And look what his parents have. They
511
00:27:55.759 --> 00:27:58.140
have a new car. They're building their home. They're doing
512
00:27:58.160 --> 00:27:59.940
all this stuff.
513
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:01.259
Why aren't you in America?
514
00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:05.420
So there's been this influx of kids that come here.
515
00:28:05.880 --> 00:28:08.500
But that influx is also because of a certain law.
516
00:28:08.660 --> 00:28:10.099
Yeah, I was going to ask about the law. So
517
00:28:10.119 --> 00:28:11.039
let's talk about it.
518
00:28:11.059 --> 00:28:14.400
Let's talk about it, Mark. Let's talk about TVPRA. Let's
519
00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:18.039
open that monster into the room. Let's let it in.
520
00:28:18.539 --> 00:28:23.049
So the TVPRA, which is the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act,
521
00:28:23.329 --> 00:28:27.289
and I know you've written extensively about it, Mark. You've
522
00:28:27.369 --> 00:28:30.109
talked about it on how it's not good for the
523
00:28:30.150 --> 00:28:32.569
United States, the way that that law was written. So
524
00:28:32.710 --> 00:28:36.289
inside that law- It allows us to return kids from
525
00:28:36.349 --> 00:28:40.589
contiguous countries. So Mexico and Canada. Right. And we have
526
00:28:40.630 --> 00:28:43.890
to put into care and release kids that come from
527
00:28:44.049 --> 00:28:51.150
non-contiguous countries. So Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, we have
528
00:28:51.190 --> 00:28:51.839
to let them in.
529
00:28:51.859 --> 00:28:53.539
So even if, in other words, even if the kid
530
00:28:53.559 --> 00:28:57.799
is 17 years old, he's obviously not being trafficked or
531
00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:01.740
harmed in any way, you guys can't or ICE can't
532
00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:06.049
work with the Guatemalan- consul or whatever it is and
533
00:29:06.130 --> 00:29:09.890
have the kid return to Guatemala. Legally, they're not allowed
534
00:29:09.930 --> 00:29:11.829
to do that. They have to hand them over to
535
00:29:11.890 --> 00:29:12.670
your agency.
536
00:29:13.089 --> 00:29:15.130
Yes, they have to be handed over to ORR. They
537
00:29:15.170 --> 00:29:17.130
have to be given a notice to appear in front
538
00:29:17.150 --> 00:29:20.519
of an immigration judge where you know they all claim
539
00:29:20.920 --> 00:29:26.079
asylum fraudulently. They claim that their parents abandoned them so
540
00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:31.200
they can get SIJ visas. They claim all sorts of things, Mark,
541
00:29:31.259 --> 00:29:34.079
fraud to remain in the United States, work and send
542
00:29:34.099 --> 00:29:34.299
money home.
543
00:29:35.410 --> 00:29:39.859
So obviously, I mean, Congress has trouble passing, you know,
544
00:29:39.940 --> 00:29:43.099
naming post offices nowadays, but it seems to me this
545
00:29:43.160 --> 00:29:46.819
would be sort of near the top of an agenda
546
00:29:47.240 --> 00:29:52.089
for congressional change, because this is a relatively small thing.
547
00:29:52.849 --> 00:29:56.950
I don't really see how the Democrats would be super
548
00:29:57.009 --> 00:30:00.069
enthused about defending the way the law is now. In
549
00:30:00.509 --> 00:30:02.829
other words, I don't even see how this really serves
550
00:30:02.869 --> 00:30:06.539
their purposes. It seems to me that if it were
551
00:30:06.619 --> 00:30:12.599
possible to return, especially older teenagers without a lot of folderol,
552
00:30:12.660 --> 00:30:16.599
just as regular illegal aliens, would kind of serve everybody.
553
00:30:16.619 --> 00:30:19.299
It seems like a bipartisan thing, but the law would
554
00:30:19.339 --> 00:30:23.339
have to be changed. Do you guys follow any efforts
555
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:25.359
like that to change the law? Yeah.
556
00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:29.460
So there have been some efforts, mostly from immigration groups
557
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:32.119
like your own, who have brought it up to Congress
558
00:30:32.420 --> 00:30:37.099
and trying to get those changes made. But unfortunately, Mark,
559
00:30:37.140 --> 00:30:41.420
the Democrats don't want to change it. So we haven't
560
00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:46.740
seen any bipartisan effort to identify by them that this
561
00:30:46.869 --> 00:30:51.990
is an issue. And we've got these Central American countries
562
00:30:53.299 --> 00:30:58.500
that are abusing TVPRA to send their near-adult teenagers to
563
00:30:58.519 --> 00:31:02.440
the United States because, Mark, they're making billions of dollars.
564
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:07.240
These countries are getting billions of dollars back in remittances
565
00:31:07.549 --> 00:31:12.170
where it's– Guatemala, it's like 19% of their GDP is
566
00:31:12.230 --> 00:31:15.289
remittances from Guatemalans that are inside the United States.
567
00:31:15.349 --> 00:31:20.180
It's billions of dollars. So the border is obviously big.
568
00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:25.630
Mostly controlled. It's probably under better control than– Absolutely. I
569
00:31:25.650 --> 00:31:28.609
think it's probably have less illegal, fewer illegal entries than
570
00:31:28.690 --> 00:31:31.089
any time since the 19th century. Easily. Just because we
571
00:31:31.130 --> 00:31:34.089
now know what's happening, whereas back then, who knows who
572
00:31:34.130 --> 00:31:37.450
was crossing. But there's still some people crossing. Illegal immigration
573
00:31:37.509 --> 00:31:40.529
never ends at all. So what is the flow of
574
00:31:40.710 --> 00:31:42.730
unaccompanied minors looking like now?
575
00:31:43.099 --> 00:31:46.220
Yeah. So, you know, we've knocked it down a lot, Mark. So,
576
00:31:46.339 --> 00:31:49.170
you know, in care right now, we have only 1,600
577
00:31:49.170 --> 00:31:53.440
unaccompanied island children in care right now. And our average
578
00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:56.039
length of stay is like over 200 days. Oh, really?
579
00:31:56.059 --> 00:32:00.240
Yes, yes. Is that because of trouble finding a sponsor
580
00:32:00.339 --> 00:32:00.940
or something?
581
00:32:01.339 --> 00:32:04.049
A little bit because we've increased our vetting. Sure. So
582
00:32:04.089 --> 00:32:06.230
when you increase the vetting, you don't have the illegal
583
00:32:06.289 --> 00:32:09.589
aliens coming forward because they know that they're not going
584
00:32:09.609 --> 00:32:13.130
to pass the vetting. Right. And they shouldn't because– Or
585
00:32:13.150 --> 00:32:15.529
the sex traffickers or the labor traffickers. Yeah, or the
586
00:32:15.549 --> 00:32:18.720
sex traffickers or the people who are– You know, labor
587
00:32:18.759 --> 00:32:21.000
trafficking kids. Right. They're not going to come forward. So
588
00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:24.259
we haven't had those come forward. And also the ones
589
00:32:24.279 --> 00:32:26.920
that are still coming are still the older teens.
590
00:32:27.000 -->
00:32:27.240
Right.
591
00:32:27.359 --> 00:32:31.160
So they're coming in without identifying a sponsor. Those are
592
00:32:31.180 --> 00:32:33.950
what we call our cat four. Say they don't have
593
00:32:33.990 --> 00:32:37.009
a sponsor coming forward. They just come in and they say,
594
00:32:37.150 --> 00:32:40.329
I'm 17 years old. I cannot go to ICE custody
595
00:32:40.890 --> 00:32:42.809
and I will be 18 in four weeks.
596
00:32:43.390 --> 00:32:45.190
So in other words, they're not coming with the address
597
00:32:45.230 --> 00:32:48.150
and phone number of their illegal immigrant parents here. No.
598
00:32:48.230 --> 00:32:50.589
Which does happen or used to happen a lot.
599
00:32:50.630 --> 00:32:53.619
Well, it still does. But these older teens will just
600
00:32:53.650 --> 00:32:57.579
wait it out. So they say, you know, I'm 17
601
00:32:57.579 --> 00:33:00.599
and will be 18 in a month. And we take
602
00:33:00.619 --> 00:33:03.240
their word for it because there's no identity documents and
603
00:33:03.259 --> 00:33:05.039
they're just saying that.
604
00:33:05.099 --> 00:33:06.819
What do you do with them when they turn 18?
605
00:33:06.819 --> 00:33:07.680
We release the mark.
606
00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:09.529
You don't send them back to ICE?
607
00:33:09.539 --> 00:33:09.640
No.
608
00:33:10.470 --> 00:33:10.730
Really?
609
00:33:10.910 --> 00:33:15.119
No, Flores, Mark. I mean, we have all of these
610
00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:19.900
other litigations that are out there that keep us from
611
00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:22.869
transferring them to ICE when they turn 18. We need
612
00:33:23.430 --> 00:33:25.990
the losses. We have to put them in the least
613
00:33:26.289 --> 00:33:31.470
restrictive setting. We can't turn them over to ICE. So
614
00:33:31.529 --> 00:33:34.579
what happens is we release them and they disappear. So
615
00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:38.779
we don't even know. They come in with limited identity documents,
616
00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:41.180
number one. Now, all of a sudden, they turn 18
617
00:33:41.180 --> 00:33:45.140
a few weeks later. They get released and they disappear.
618
00:33:45.519 --> 00:33:46.980
And what do you think one of the first things
619
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:50.400
they do, Mark, when they get wherever they're going? They
620
00:33:50.420 --> 00:33:51.440
get a new set of ID.
621
00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:53.880
Yeah, right. They take IDs and drop. Yeah.
622
00:33:53.900 --> 00:33:56.859
I mean, that's still part of this whole system. They
623
00:33:57.460 --> 00:34:02.119
obtain fraudulent identity documents. They get some United States citizen
624
00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:06.130
social security number. they get some ID that they've stolen,
625
00:34:06.190 --> 00:34:10.550
they become a new persona, and we then have trouble
626
00:34:10.610 --> 00:34:14.510
finding them until they're someday arrested and their fingerprints are
627
00:34:14.550 --> 00:34:17.989
taken and the records match
up together because we took
628
00:34:18.010 --> 00:34:18.469
their fingerprints.
629
00:34:18.489 --> 00:34:20.650
Not to commit a crime or a drunk driving accident
630
00:34:20.670 --> 00:34:22.929
or something. Well, we're a little over half an hour.
631
00:34:22.989 --> 00:34:24.960
Just my last question, it's a small thing actually, is
632
00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:27.599
these are mostly Central Americans we're talking about, right? In
633
00:34:27.619 --> 00:34:31.179
other words, are there Do you get kids from sort
634
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:32.840
of more far-flung destinations?
635
00:34:32.900 --> 00:34:36.519
Yeah, Mark. We still do get kids who need help.
636
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:40.320
So we still get kids from Ukraine. We still get
637
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.449
kids coming across the border from China, from Russia, who
638
00:34:44.590 --> 00:34:50.510
are seeking real asylum, Mark. And this is what the
639
00:34:50.550 --> 00:34:53.690
system was meant for, right? I mean, for those real
640
00:34:53.769 --> 00:34:58.090
cases that we can identify and work on and investigate
641
00:34:58.170 --> 00:35:00.739
and help those kids. But it's hard to do the
642
00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:03.440
good work, the work that we should be doing under
643
00:35:03.480 --> 00:35:07.539
these laws when you have thousands of other kids, you know, adult,
644
00:35:07.579 --> 00:35:11.030
near adult teenagers coming in for economic reasons to find
645
00:35:11.050 --> 00:35:11.340
a job.
646
00:35:11.590 --> 00:35:13.550
In the same way, the Border Patrol wasn't able to
647
00:35:13.590 --> 00:35:16.730
patrol the border because they were being basically serving as
648
00:35:16.769 --> 00:35:19.690
Walmart greeters at the border. And so they couldn't do
649
00:35:19.730 --> 00:35:23.230
their actual job. The same idea, again, the same idea
650
00:35:23.289 --> 00:35:28.219
with asylum adjudication. Judges are having one after another phony case.
651
00:35:28.659 --> 00:35:32.309
The people who actually warrant it, don't get the attention
652
00:35:32.349 --> 00:35:34.329
they need. So it's the same kind of situation.
653
00:35:34.349 --> 00:35:37.750
Yeah. And again, I want to make sure that people
654
00:35:37.769 --> 00:35:41.030
understand we are here to help kids. This is what
655
00:35:41.070 --> 00:35:43.469
we want to do. There are kids who are in
656
00:35:43.570 --> 00:35:47.090
trouble and who need help. But again, with all the
657
00:35:47.260 --> 00:35:50.360
fraud we have going on, it makes it harder for
658
00:35:50.440 --> 00:35:51.460
us to actually do that job.
659
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:56.039
Well, that's good. Thanks, John, for coming in. John Fabricatori,
660
00:35:56.079 --> 00:35:59.539
Special Advisor at the Office of Refugee Resettlement. part of
661
00:35:59.840 --> 00:36:03.159
Health and Human Services, dealing mainly with this issue of
662
00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:07.980
unaccompanied alien children. In other words, minors,
people under 18
663
00:36:07.980 --> 00:36:10.690
who come supposedly unaccompanied and how to deal with it,
664
00:36:10.699 --> 00:36:14.420
how to clean up the mess that the Biden administration
665
00:36:14.460 --> 00:36:17.780
left after four years of dysfunction. So thanks for coming
666
00:36:17.860 --> 00:36:23.139
in and good luck in, you know, continuing the cleanup work,
667
00:36:23.239 --> 00:36:25.800
as it were, that you've been tasked with. Thanks, Mark.
668
00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:26.599
I appreciate you having me.
669
00:36:27.530 --> 00:36:30.070
And finally, just wanted to draw your attention to a
670
00:36:30.670 --> 00:36:33.789
news item about something that we've talked about both on
671
00:36:33.809 --> 00:36:37.289
this podcast as well as written about frequently here at CIS,
672
00:36:37.349 --> 00:36:41.280
and that is U visas, the letter U, which is
673
00:36:41.579 --> 00:36:45.119
a kind of visa for illegal aliens who are victims
674
00:36:45.179 --> 00:36:50.739
of certain crimes and are helpful to police in investigating
675
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:54.889
those crimes. And I guess as a purpose to it,
676
00:36:54.949 --> 00:36:57.409
although I'm not clear what it is. The problem, of course,
677
00:36:57.590 --> 00:37:01.750
is that it has become a major avenue for fraud.
678
00:37:02.610 --> 00:37:06.050
Of course, almost every visa program is riddled with fraud.
679
00:37:06.650 --> 00:37:10.610
The thing we just talked about with John Fabricatore, the
680
00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:16.300
unaccompanied minors, enormous amounts of fraud there too. This particular
681
00:37:16.360 --> 00:37:19.960
kind of fraud came to my attention just because of
682
00:37:20.019 --> 00:37:24.619
a news item where somebody was sentenced to federal prison
683
00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:30.570
for organizing and staging fake armed robberies so that the
684
00:37:30.610 --> 00:37:35.289
supposed victims could then apply for a U visa as
685
00:37:35.349 --> 00:37:39.170
a crime victim. And so what would happen is this guy,
686
00:37:39.570 --> 00:37:42.809
in this particular instance, over a couple of year period,
687
00:37:43.449 --> 00:37:46.769
a guy named Parth Nayi, it doesn't say, he sounds
688
00:37:46.809 --> 00:37:49.079
like he might be Indian national, it doesn't say, it
689
00:37:49.139 --> 00:37:52.679
doesn't really matter. He staged not just one or two
690
00:37:53.420 --> 00:37:59.489
fake armed robberies, but hundreds of staged armed robberies at
691
00:37:59.590 --> 00:38:04.090
businesses in Chicago and in the surrounding suburbs, which the
692
00:38:04.289 --> 00:38:08.699
supposed victims of these crimes paid to be staged. They
693
00:38:08.760 --> 00:38:10.059
paid him from $ 5, 000 to $ 30, 000 to have him come
694
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:18.949
with a gun to their whatever, the gas station or
695
00:38:18.989 --> 00:38:21.170
the liquor store or the coffee shop they work at
696
00:38:21.789 --> 00:38:25.570
and pretend
to, you know, do a stick-up. I don't know, actually.
697
00:38:25.590 --> 00:38:27.289
It doesn't say here whether he actually took the money
698
00:38:27.329 --> 00:38:29.289
or he just waved his gun around and then ran away.
699
00:38:29.989 --> 00:38:34.210
And then the people, the supposed victims, would then wait
700
00:38:34.250 --> 00:38:36.030
a few minutes to make sure he got away and
701
00:38:36.070 --> 00:38:38.730
call the police and say, oh my gosh, you know,
702
00:38:38.769 --> 00:38:40.789
I've been a victim of crime. I really need to,
703
00:38:41.309 --> 00:38:43.429
I want to apply for a U visa. I mean,
704
00:38:43.469 --> 00:38:45.219
it's kind of funny when you think about it, but
705
00:38:45.739 --> 00:38:49.489
it's an outrageous thing. abuse of the immigration system. This
706
00:38:49.550 --> 00:38:51.809
guy was only, we'll put the link into the Justice
707
00:38:51.849 --> 00:38:54.550
Department announcement, but he was only sentenced to two years
708
00:38:54.630 --> 00:38:58.280
in federal prison and $ 50, 000 fine. It seems to me
709
00:38:59.000 --> 00:39:04.320
should be a much more significant penalty than that. It's
710
00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:08.599
interesting though, of course, this was happening in the Chicago area.
711
00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:13.469
This kind of thing happens nationwide, but I suspect In Texas,
712
00:39:13.510 --> 00:39:15.329
at least, it doesn't happen as much as it used
713
00:39:15.369 --> 00:39:17.510
to because there's a story from a number of years ago,
714
00:39:17.550 --> 00:39:21.719
a real thing, where one of these fake armed robberies
715
00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:25.389
was staged at a gas station. And the illegal alien
716
00:39:25.449 --> 00:39:29.250
working at the gas station paid this guy to come
717
00:39:29.329 --> 00:39:32.519
and stick him up. up and wave a gun around
718
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:34.960
and demand money. And the point was then he would
719
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:38.510
run off and the guy would apply for his U visa. Well,
720
00:39:38.889 --> 00:39:41.750
this is Texas. So a guy with his pickup truck,
721
00:39:41.929 --> 00:39:44.489
gassing up his pickup truck, has a gun with him.
722
00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:48.789
And he saw this armed robbery taking place, and he
723
00:39:48.849 --> 00:39:53.389
gunned down and killed the scammer, the one who was
724
00:39:53.489 --> 00:39:57.860
staging this fake armed robbery for immigration purposes. Frankly, he
725
00:39:57.900 --> 00:40:00.579
got what he deserved, and it was a much more
726
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:04.659
fitting punishment than two lousy years in jail and $ 50, 000 fine.
727
00:40:04.739 --> 00:40:09.150
But nonetheless, it's clear that the Justice Department is cracking
728
00:40:09.190 --> 00:40:12.269
down on this kind of fraud, and there's much more
729
00:40:12.789 --> 00:40:14.949
that could be done. We've written about this. We'll have
730
00:40:14.989 --> 00:40:18.230
a link to... a podcast we did at the beginning
731
00:40:18.250 --> 00:40:21.530
of this year on the issue of U visas. But
732
00:40:21.590 --> 00:40:25.719
this really just shines a light on one corner of
733
00:40:25.780 --> 00:40:30.619
the immigration system and how completely riddled with fraud that
734
00:40:30.780 --> 00:40:33.579
one corner is and how much, how riddled with fraud
735
00:40:33.599 --> 00:40:37.500
the entire immigration system is. That's it for this episode
736
00:40:37.719 --> 00:40:42.679
of Parsing Immigration Policy. Next week is, um, Election day,
737
00:40:43.059 --> 00:40:44.940
whoever you want to vote for, do your civic duty
738
00:40:44.980 --> 00:40:47.460
and vote. If you haven't already done it, I voted early.
739
00:40:48.219 --> 00:40:53.639
And we will have a post-election podcast, probably not next week,
740
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:57.059
but the week after to see if there are, you know,
741
00:40:57.119 --> 00:41:00.909
what the immigration implications, if any, of what the results
742
00:41:01.050 --> 00:41:04.050
of the election are. But for now, that's it for
743
00:41:04.110 --> 00:41:08.980
Parsing Immigration Policy. Thanks to John Fabricatori for coming in
744
00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:12.539
and enlightening us about what they're doing in finding these
745
00:41:12.639 --> 00:41:17.230
lost UACs. Thanks to Brian Griffith, our producer, for making
746
00:41:17.269 --> 00:41:19.809
this whole thing work. And thanks most of all to
747
00:41:19.849 --> 00:41:21.449
you all for tuning in, and I hope you tune
748
00:41:21.489 --> 00:41:21.849
in next week.