Speaker 1: Jerry Dyer, the mayor of Fresno, has issued a statement
Speaker 1: saying that Fresno Police is not going to work with
Speaker 1: the Border Patrol or with ICE agents on any kind
Speaker 1: of deportation raids. This is coming as the Trump administration
Speaker 1: is obviously trying to institute the policies that Trump ran
Speaker 1: on that received that have large popular support for mass
Speaker 1: deportation of illegal aliens and the rhetoric from Dire There's
Speaker 1: some things too, I kind of agree with in some
Speaker 1: things where I'm like, all right, let's let's pump the brakes.
Speaker 1: I must admit on the immigration on a lot of
Speaker 1: immigration enforcement issues, There's parts of me that are conflicted
Speaker 1: with some of the things Trump has done. For one
Speaker 1: of the executive orders that were issued by the Trumpets
Speaker 1: administration was getting rid of certain kinds of protections, saying
Speaker 1: that ICE or Border Patrol agents could not arrest people
Speaker 1: on the grounds of churches or schools. Now, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, there's a part of me that does not
Speaker 1: really like this policy. I Okay, someone might take advantage
Speaker 1: of a church well in order to avoid deportation. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're not going to live at the church, And I'm
Speaker 1: i don't know. I don't like the idea of law
Speaker 1: enforcement being able to come onto the premises of a
Speaker 1: church and arrest someone initiate deportation proceedings just because someone
Speaker 1: happened to go to the church. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: if you've got someone who's like what, you've got someone
Speaker 1: who's a genuinely really bad guy who's taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the fact that churches and schools whatever are kind of
Speaker 1: safe zones or safe havens, that is also not good.
Speaker 1: So I'm a little conflicted on that front. There's a
Speaker 1: part of me that would like protection for this, but
Speaker 1: I think Mayor Dyer's attitude is kind of bizarre, So
Speaker 1: he writes he says this. Dyer said he remains committed
Speaker 1: to ensuring a safe and welcoming place for everyone who
Speaker 1: calls this city home. Why why is that his job?
Speaker 1: Why is he committed to ensuring that Fresno is a
Speaker 1: safe and welcoming place for everyone who calls the city home. Everyone,
Speaker 1: You're not committed to making it a safe and welcoming
Speaker 1: place for criminals? Why are we making it a safe
Speaker 1: and welcoming place for people who are not legally permitted
Speaker 1: to be in the United States of America. My primary responsibility,
Speaker 1: DIYer says, is to ensure the safety of everyone, regardless
Speaker 1: of their immigration status. Wouldn't checking people's immigration status help
Speaker 1: with safety If someone is not legally supposed to be there,
Speaker 1: doesn't that make them more of a I mean, we
Speaker 1: haven't properly vetted them as a result for their criminal history.
Speaker 1: He goes on to be even more emphatic. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Dyer told The Bee that officers are not interested in
Speaker 1: a person's immigration status, but only whether they are involved
Speaker 1: in criminal activity. That was, in twenty sixteen a quote
Speaker 1: he gave to The Bee when he was a chief
Speaker 1: of police in the city of Fresno. Why would the
Speaker 1: police not be interested in someone's immigration status only if
Speaker 1: they've committed crime? First of all, again, being in the
Speaker 1: country illegally is unlawful activity. Secondly, if they are also
Speaker 1: here illegally and they have committed a crime, isn't that
Speaker 1: an even greater incentive to get this person out of here.
Speaker 1: Dyer continues to say, we have worked hard to earn
Speaker 1: the trust of our immigrant community and to ensure that
Speaker 1: they feel comfortable reaching out to law enforcement when they
Speaker 1: need help or to provide information to officers if federal
Speaker 1: mandates require local law enforcement to participate in immigration enforcement.
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear, Presno, will not sacrifice
Speaker 1: the trust we've worked so hard to build with our community.
Speaker 1: All Right. I will admit the question of can the
Speaker 1: federal can a federal agency common deer a state or
Speaker 1: local police agency, or direct the work of state and
Speaker 1: local agencies to insist that they cooperate with federal authorities,
Speaker 1: that that is a tricky question of federalism, quickie, tricky
Speaker 1: sort of con law question. To what extent can the state?
Speaker 1: Can state authorities cooperate? They can voluntarily cooperate, but if
Speaker 1: they don't want to cooperate, to what extent can the
Speaker 1: federal government actually coerce local agencies to work with them?
Speaker 1: I agree it's a disputed constitutional question. I could understand
Speaker 1: maybe a state or local elected official or law enforcement
Speaker 1: official being jealous of rightly jealous to protect this sort
Speaker 1: of constitutional ordering of things, this federalist principle that no,
Speaker 1: the federal government can't tell us to do as far
Speaker 1: as immigration enforcement issues. But I feel like Diyer's going
Speaker 1: way beyond that. I think Diyer's going to the point
Speaker 1: of saying protecting the immigrant community, that our affection for
Speaker 1: the immigrant community is more important than a legal mandate
Speaker 1: to cooperate in immigration enforcement. And I guess I find
Speaker 1: that to be wild. Dyer knows full well what percentage
Speaker 1: of people locked up in California jails and prisons are
Speaker 1: not in this country illegally, or the very least he
Speaker 1: can make a very educated guess on that front. And
Speaker 1: this is what I hate about the immigration debate. I
Speaker 1: the pro I guess, the standard liberal position is just
Speaker 1: totally okay with this situation where million, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people are coming over the border with no vetting whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and yet they want to engage in just these broad
Speaker 1: generalizations and cliches about well, you know, we're a whole
Speaker 1: nation of immigrants, says Margaret Brennan. Was you know, trying
Speaker 1: to explain to JD. Vance and Jdci Okay, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: a nation of immigrants. It doesn't mean we have to
Speaker 1: have the stupidest immigration policy known to man. We're a
Speaker 1: nation of immigrants and these people are just here to work.
Speaker 1: Some of them are just here to work. But you
Speaker 1: have no you have done no vetting to establish that
Speaker 1: that's the problem with this system. You have not vetted
Speaker 1: this person adequately. You don't know. You don't know when
Speaker 1: a person has overstayed their visa, when this person came
Speaker 1: across the border unlawfully, when this person made a phony
Speaker 1: asylum claim and is never coming back for their court date,
Speaker 1: and god knows, you don't know. So this idea that
Speaker 1: dire is taking this posture. We've worked hard to earn
Speaker 1: the trust of our immigrant community and to ensure that
Speaker 1: they feel comfortable reaching out to law enforcement when they
Speaker 1: need help or to provide information to officers. It really
Speaker 1: feels like this Jerry Dyer way of focusing on small
Speaker 1: picture thinking without having any kind of big picture concepts,
Speaker 1: like he wants to be sure that Latinos would feel
Speaker 1: okay calling the police about something, as opposed to the
Speaker 1: bigger picture question of Hey, if all these people shouldn't
Speaker 1: be here, shouldn't be here and are the ones committing crimes,
Speaker 1: maybe you wouldn't have this problem to begin with. Fresno
Speaker 1: will not sacrifice the trust we've worked so hard to
Speaker 1: build without community. Our community. Whose community, what do you
Speaker 1: mean our community? They're not even in the country legally
Speaker 1: and that's specifically who we are talking about. Again, I'll
Speaker 1: admit I'm not crazy about the church and school thing.
Speaker 1: I maybe I've got just a soft liberal heart in
Speaker 1: my old age, or you know, I'm listening to the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church on this. I'm going to talk about the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, by the way, because there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of stories about this that I think are phony with
Speaker 1: regards to the Catholic Church's alleged role in illegal immigration.
Speaker 1: But I find this attitude on the left to be
Speaker 1: somewhat ludicrous of no, no, well, no, this is our community,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make it well if these people have come
Speaker 1: into the country illegally, are we just taking the posture
Speaker 1: of absolutely amnesty for all of them? That's what we want,
Speaker 1: Just absolutely amnesty for everyone who came into the country illegally.
Speaker 1: Absolutely amnesty for everyone, because they might have children, because
Speaker 1: they might have roots in the community in some way.
Speaker 1: After a certain period of time, that all the other
Speaker 1: considerations that are involved with an orderly regulation of the
Speaker 1: immigration process, that all of that goes away, that no
Speaker 1: enforcement is permitted. I just find that to be excessive,
Speaker 1: and I find Dyer's attitude strange. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: he's just kind of committed to this. He's a cop,
Speaker 1: he has a cop. He wanted the immigrant community to
Speaker 1: be able to call the police about stuff, and so
Speaker 1: he wants to maintain trust and make them not be
Speaker 1: afraid that they're going to get deported if they call
Speaker 1: the police. But what if it's someone who should be deported?
Speaker 1: Dire is also, I'll concede working with a complicated legal framework.
Speaker 1: So he's got federal mandates. Well, he's got federal executive
Speaker 1: orders from the Trump administration to do certain things, but
Speaker 1: he's also in California. California has legal mandates on law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies. We are a sanctuary state by you know,
Speaker 1: state statute. California law enforcement agencies are limited in their
Speaker 1: ability to cooperate under state law, limited in their ability
Speaker 1: to cooperate with ice and border patrol and other kinds
Speaker 1: of federal immigration enforcement agencies. And that is something that
Speaker 1: Fresno PD, for example, is required to follow. Some people,
Speaker 1: What do you mean for us to follow state law
Speaker 1: but not a federal executive For local governments and local
Speaker 1: police are creatures of state government. They are extensions of
Speaker 1: state government. They have to follow what the statement, what
Speaker 1: the state mandates. They're local governments don't have the kind
Speaker 1: of independence from state governments the way that state governments
Speaker 1: do from the federal government. Okay, local governments have to
Speaker 1: follow state mandates. It's a very clear precise thing. When
Speaker 1: if you've got a federal executive order telling Fresno PD
Speaker 1: what to do, this is not really a federal versus
Speaker 1: local thing. It's ultimately a federal versus state thing. What
Speaker 1: do these state officials Fresno PD? And that's what they
Speaker 1: are there. Yes, they are a local police department, but
Speaker 1: they are extensions of state government. That that's what this is.
Speaker 1: So Dire is sort of a little bit caught in
Speaker 1: the middle. I think he has to follow state law.
Speaker 1: President ped has to follow state law about not cooperating
Speaker 1: with the federal government. But now we've got these federal
Speaker 1: mandates coming out that are I think of, you know,
Speaker 1: highly disputed. Again, this is a highly disputed constitutional question
Speaker 1: whether a federal immigration agency can sort of command a
Speaker 1: local law enforcement agency a state ultimately a state law
Speaker 1: enforcement agency to do something. And Dire I think is
Speaker 1: clearly realized. I think Dyer is making the strategic decision
Speaker 1: that his bread is going to get buttered more by
Speaker 1: the Democrats in California state government than by the federal government.
Speaker 1: I think Dyer is basically just decided this. He needs
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom to follow through with giving him all that
Speaker 1: you know that two hundred million dollars we're still waiting
Speaker 1: for in downtown Presno infrastructure. He's not going to do
Speaker 1: things to tick off Gavin Newsom. And I'm sure nothing
Speaker 1: with tick Gavin Newsom or Rob Bonta off more than
Speaker 1: Jerry Dyer all of a sudden announcing, oh, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: going to follow this executive order. We're going to do
Speaker 1: what whatever President Trump says. So I guess I understand
Speaker 1: the pressures around Dier and the legal mandates that Presno
Speaker 1: PD are working under, but his attitude is just really aggressive.
Speaker 1: It seems like very this is not a conservative approach
Speaker 1: to immigration that the Dyer is embodying here. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if Dyer has any designs or sites set
Speaker 1: on any kind of higher public office beyond being the
Speaker 1: mayor of Fresno. I don't know that he's ever indicated such,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if he's trying to carve some kind
Speaker 1: of future like that. For himself. I'm not sure when
Speaker 1: we return the humanitarian issues surrounding immigration. On the other
Speaker 1: side of it, the problems associated with unrestricted immigration, that's
Speaker 1: next on the John Girardi Show. I'm going to level
Speaker 1: with you guys that I'm a little bit conflicted about
Speaker 1: what's going on with immigration enforcement policy, probably a lot
Speaker 1: more than most conservative talkers are. I want to take
Speaker 1: the statements of Catholic leaders seriously. I am a Catholic.
Speaker 1: I'm first That's what I try to be, first and
Speaker 1: foremost in formulating what I believe and what I think
Speaker 1: and how I talk about it. And I think that
Speaker 1: one of the things to understand about Catholic teaching is
Speaker 1: that it's not a complete handbook for answering every single
Speaker 1: political question under the sun. The Catholic Church basically gives
Speaker 1: various kinds of ideal and principles, and it's the duty
Speaker 1: of Catholics in the here and now to suss out
Speaker 1: how those ideals and principles apply in our present day situation.
Speaker 1: The opinions of people like bishops, even the Pope on
Speaker 1: those kinds of changing, historically contingent, factually contingent questions are
Speaker 1: not infallible at all. In fact, there are very few
Speaker 1: times when what the Church is teaching is Catholics would
Speaker 1: deem it to be infallible. And it's usually just kind
Speaker 1: of core stuff that's repeated again and again and again
Speaker 1: over the course of the church's history. So it's not
Speaker 1: that every Catholic has to agree on every single issue
Speaker 1: all of the time. But I do want to take
Speaker 1: these things seriously because it's not just like, ah, you
Speaker 1: can just believe whatever you you know, just believe whatever
Speaker 1: you want about this contingent historical circumstance. Well, no, if
Speaker 1: people are being seriously treated unjustly or justly, it really matters.
Speaker 1: It really matters what you think about these things and
Speaker 1: how you fall on these things. Is Donald Trump's Immigration
Speaker 1: Enforcement Grand Plan inflicting serious acts of injustice on large
Speaker 1: numbers of people. If it is, then that's bad. If
Speaker 1: it's not, then that would be good. And I have
Speaker 1: seen I will note in all of this that the
Speaker 1: American bishops have received some criticisms that are fair and
Speaker 1: some that are not fair. First of all, I think
Speaker 1: some of the criticisms about all the Catholic bishops are
Speaker 1: getting rich off of they're getting rich off of illegal
Speaker 1: immigration because they get all these grants for like refugee
Speaker 1: resettlement and stuff like that. Well, yeah, they get grants
Speaker 1: for refugee resettlement or immigrant resettlement that they use on
Speaker 1: immigrant resettlement. They're not getting rich off of this, okay.
Speaker 1: And by the also, when we say the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: or the bishops, we mean a number of different things.
Speaker 1: For one thing, a lot of a lot of it
Speaker 1: is Catholic nonprofit agencies sort of Catholic charities types entities
Speaker 1: type entities in various areas. They have gotten a lot
Speaker 1: of these grants, and a lot of these Catholic charity
Speaker 1: type entities are not always directly under the control of
Speaker 1: a bishop. For example, Fresno Catholic Charities, which does really
Speaker 1: wonderful work with poor people, by the way, is not
Speaker 1: directly under the control of the Bishop of Fresno. It's
Speaker 1: actually a separate corporate entity. So and basically nobody's getting
Speaker 1: rich off of this scheme. Okay. These are non profit
Speaker 1: entities with not highly paid staffs and executives, and the
Speaker 1: money they're getting for immigrant or refugee resettlement is less
Speaker 1: than what they have to spend, so they're not like
Speaker 1: making sweet bank off of this whole thing. I think
Speaker 1: that's a misconception that certain kind of conservative Catholics have
Speaker 1: been trying to promote, just as because they have this
Speaker 1: sort of hostile attitude against bishops, thinking that they're all
Speaker 1: a bunch of liberal squishes, and certainly there have been
Speaker 1: liberal squishy bishops. I don't know that this is necessarily it.
Speaker 1: And I think the attitude of priests and bishops and
Speaker 1: pastors who are directly pastoring churches that are full of
Speaker 1: immigrants is gonna be one of concern. These are people
Speaker 1: that you see at church and whose confessions you hear,
Speaker 1: and babies you baptize, and sons and daughters you marry.
Speaker 1: And to see people in that situation distressed about whether
Speaker 1: or not they're going to be deported, that's a difficult
Speaker 1: human thing to be dealing with. And they have concern
Speaker 1: and a protectiveness towards that. And I can see the
Speaker 1: frustration on the part of Christian leaders to especially over
Speaker 1: the last look at the last six years. We go
Speaker 1: from the Trump administration Trump one point zero, very restrictive,
Speaker 1: not letting a ton of people in, then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden we have this total one to eighty with
Speaker 1: the Biden administration comes in and basically with a big,
Speaker 1: wide open door, everybody come on in. People rely on
Speaker 1: that they come in, and in some cases it's because
Speaker 1: the United States is either openly or tacitly waving them in.
Speaker 1: The ridiculous CBP one app where people are sort of
Speaker 1: pre getting their asylum claim court date in place. I
Speaker 1: mean the Trump administration, the Biden administration just signaling that
Speaker 1: they're not going to take border enforcement seriously. People come
Speaker 1: in based on relying on that, and now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, here comes the Trump administration with the most
Speaker 1: relative to that, the complete one eighty draconian mass deportation policy.
Speaker 1: I can understand the whiplash that someone in those shoes
Speaker 1: might feel, so I get the human side of that
Speaker 1: to see people who are upset. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: and I think I'll dig into this when we return.
Speaker 1: I think the problem is that it should be in
Speaker 1: some sense, it makes sense, it should be the role
Speaker 1: of the position, the attitude of the Catholic Church of hey,
Speaker 1: we're just here to help people. We're here to provide
Speaker 1: them with food or to provide them with shelter, to
Speaker 1: teach them about Jesus Christ to you know, we're not
Speaker 1: gonna be cracking down on the immigration status of people
Speaker 1: we're trying to serve in the midst of our nonprofit organization.
Speaker 1: That's not what we're trying to do. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: even within the context of my Obria clinic that I started,
Speaker 1: I don't want my Obria clinic. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be like I don't need to be the immigration police
Speaker 1: for our patients to see are you here legally or not?
Speaker 1: If they've you know, hey, you can get medical now
Speaker 1: if you're here in the country illegally in the state
Speaker 1: of California. Ah. I don't think that's necessarily a wise policy.
Speaker 1: I think that's a bad incentive. It's a bad way
Speaker 1: to incentivize people to come here. But in the context
Speaker 1: of our clinic, where we're serving lower income women with
Speaker 1: prenatal care, I don't want to have to be the
Speaker 1: one concerned with that. That should be immigration authorities who
Speaker 1: should have taken care of that problem on the front end. Frankly,
Speaker 1: and I can see the position of the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: to say with you know, in response to this executive
Speaker 1: order from the Trump administration that no immigration enforcement actions
Speaker 1: can actually happen at churches or schools. I could see
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church saying, you know what, that that sucks. No,
Speaker 1: we don't want people are here to worship. Maybe they
Speaker 1: did dumb things in the past, maybe they made bad
Speaker 1: decisions to get here, but they're here now and they're
Speaker 1: worshiping here, and we don't want our church to be
Speaker 1: the place where immigration enforcement happens. I completely get that
Speaker 1: perspective from the Catholic Church, and frankly I agree with it.
Speaker 1: Now when don't we return? Though, I want to push
Speaker 1: back against some of the soft Christian attitudes about characterizing
Speaker 1: immigrants as all being wonderful assault of the earth people.
Speaker 1: Many are, but many are not. That's next on the
Speaker 1: John Frodi Show. We've learned over the course of American
Speaker 1: history that a kind of bigotry that sort of pre
Speaker 1: judges has prejudice against a certain group of people, that
Speaker 1: they all have a certain kind of characteristic, they all
Speaker 1: engage in certain kinds of bad behaviors, is something that
Speaker 1: is harmful to broader society. Having a certain kind of
Speaker 1: assumption that all black people are bad, therefore I'm not
Speaker 1: hiring any black people is harmful and malicious and prejudicial
Speaker 1: and bad for society. Having these kind of preconceived notions,
Speaker 1: these kind of preconceived bigotries can in many cases be
Speaker 1: really really harmful. Something that I think is also true
Speaker 1: on the flip side, that is more in the realm
Speaker 1: of rhetoric and political argumentation and sort of pious ideas
Speaker 1: that people believe is characterizing any one group of people
Speaker 1: as all being saints. This often happens with jobs and professions,
Speaker 1: where you'll get some politicians talking about.
Speaker 2: Our teachers are teachers, and they're just all all. Our
Speaker 2: teachers are just the hardest working. We're here to back
Speaker 2: our teachers. You don't support teachers, You don't want to
Speaker 2: support increases in teacher pay.
Speaker 1: Our teachers in California are doing amazing, heroic work, to
Speaker 1: which are respond All right, Maybe maybe a lot of
Speaker 1: teachers are good. But I think, much like any job,
Speaker 1: I think there are some teachers who are excellent. I
Speaker 1: think there are some teachers who suck, and I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of teachers in the middle who
Speaker 1: are okay. And I think that's true of any job.
Speaker 1: Conservatives do the same thing, by the way, with their
Speaker 1: favorite professions. You know, military members or.
Speaker 2: Men and women in uniform serve and protect, so thank
Speaker 2: you for your service.
Speaker 1: And anyone who's been in the military will tell you, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: on a certain level, we've all made a kind of
Speaker 1: fundamental commitment to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the country.
Speaker 1: But there are like people in the military who suck,
Speaker 1: Like there are great military members, soldiers who are really smart,
Speaker 1: guys are smart guys, hard working, good dudes, whatever, And
Speaker 1: there are some people in the military who stink. And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people in the middle. I
Speaker 1: think anyone who's actually in one of those professions will
Speaker 1: actually be one of the first to vigorously nod their
Speaker 1: head and affirm that yeah, not everyone in every in
Speaker 1: my profession is great at their job. I think we
Speaker 1: have a real problem in America that one side's way
Speaker 1: of arguing about the immigration debate is totally dominated by
Speaker 1: that attitude when it comes to immigrants, treating immigrants as
Speaker 1: a whole and refusing to distinguish between people who immigrated
Speaker 1: illegally versus people who immigrated legally versus people makeing a
Speaker 1: phony refugee claim coming under some sort of cover or
Speaker 1: color of law. I think we have a problem that
Speaker 1: the political left, because of their perception that this group
Speaker 1: of people will ultimately vote for them because they'll need
Speaker 1: more social welfare services and they're the party that offers
Speaker 1: more in social welfare services, that the political left is
Speaker 1: going to characterize all immigrants as good. The way that
Speaker 1: people in politics will try to characterize all teachers is
Speaker 1: good for some kind of political end. The way that
Speaker 1: people in politics will characterize all members of the military
Speaker 1: is good for some kind of political end, or all
Speaker 1: the members of the FBI is good for some kind
Speaker 1: of whatever it is. And the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is that if you're coming into the country illegally, you've
Speaker 1: already done one thing that's not great, okay, And so
Speaker 1: much of illegal immigration is connected with crime. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying every illegal immigrant or most illegal immigrants are here
Speaker 1: to murder people, or rob people who rape people, or
Speaker 1: transport drugs or narcotics or whatever. However, So I learned
Speaker 1: this talking to an immigration lawyer who's a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: and he, you know, this is coming from experience working
Speaker 1: and talking with these people. He told me basically to
Speaker 1: get through to the border and dropped off where you
Speaker 1: can be picked up at a border patrol checkpoint. You
Speaker 1: have to pay the cartel two thy five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: to get a coyote or whatever to transport you across
Speaker 1: the border without detection twelve thousand dollars. So, now this
Speaker 1: is just his perspective. He's just one guy, But this
Speaker 1: is a non zero number of a lot of immigrants
Speaker 1: coming to the border are getting there facilitated getting there
Speaker 1: by paying the border patrol by excuse me, by the
Speaker 1: opposite of the border patrol, by paying drug cartels. I
Speaker 1: remembered watching a It's one of these kind of documentary
Speaker 1: type shows, and it's just at a border patrol checkpoint,
Speaker 1: a border checkpoint in Texas. Actually it follows a couple
Speaker 1: of different border checkpoints in a couple of different parts
Speaker 1: of the country, all at the southern border, where they're
Speaker 1: seeing the sort of day to day trials and dramas
Speaker 1: and tribulations of border patrol, you know, finding people doing
Speaker 1: illegal things, and the amount of narcotics that are being
Speaker 1: transported over the border are daggering. The kinds of things
Speaker 1: that they're discovering are in saying, the finding of you know,
Speaker 1: children just being sent by themselves with almost no identifying information,
Speaker 1: just to the borders, walking there by themselves. Some crying
Speaker 1: nine year old who's scared and doesn't speak a lack
Speaker 1: of English and doesn't know who you suppose who he
Speaker 1: or she's supposed to go see. They're scared witless. Also
Speaker 1: not good. So a ton of illegal immigration is facilitating
Speaker 1: the drug trade in this country, a ton of illegal
Speaker 1: immigration is coming from drug cartels getting people over, A
Speaker 1: ton of sex trafficking is being facilitated in the context
Speaker 1: of illegal immigration. All of these things are really really
Speaker 1: bad that when you look at California prisons, the percentages
Speaker 1: of people in California prisons who are illegal aliens is enormous.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm gonna say illegal alien. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: this sort of fiction that got shoved on millennials that
Speaker 1: it was somehow an insensitive and evil thing to say
Speaker 1: illegal alien. Alien is not a derogatory term. It's a
Speaker 1: legal term of art. It just means someone who's not
Speaker 1: from this country, someone who is alien from another country.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a derogatory term. If you are an
Speaker 1: alien who is in the country illegally, I think it's
Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable and used in different places in American laws. Statutorily,
Speaker 1: to call you an illegal alien, it does not mean
Speaker 1: that your very identity as a human, your ontology is
Speaker 1: intrinsically illegal, that that's the sum total of who you
Speaker 1: are as a person, is someone who broke the no
Speaker 1: you still have human dignity. I'm not like denying that.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that illegal aliens should be hung, drawn
Speaker 1: and quartered, but your presence in the country as a
Speaker 1: foreign national is an illegal one. So I think that
Speaker 1: especially with Christian leaders, and there's a debate about this
Speaker 1: within the Catholic Church, where yesterday on Meet the Press,
Speaker 1: Vice President Vance sort of retorted when Margaret Brennan mentioned
Speaker 1: that the United States Catholic bishops were critical of several
Speaker 1: of Trump's immigration policies. Vance sort of retorted that the
Speaker 1: Catholic bishops have not necessarily been helpful partners in pursuing
Speaker 1: a sound immigration policy, and this has led to a
Speaker 1: lot of inter Catholic intra Catholic debate. Is Vance just
Speaker 1: rejecting the teaching of the Church when it comes to immigration, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's necessarily the case. I think
Speaker 1: the broad strokes of Catholic teaching and immigration are fairly generic.
Speaker 1: The broad strokes of Catholic teaching are that countries have
Speaker 1: a right to regulate their borders. Countries should be generous
Speaker 1: in allowing people to migrate, but they don't have to
Speaker 1: let every single person migrate, And they can have some
Speaker 1: concern for the needs of the home country and the
Speaker 1: culture of that home country in regulating immigration. And you know,
Speaker 1: when the church is writing, when the church teaches on
Speaker 1: immigration topics, when popes teach on immigration topics, they're teaching
Speaker 1: not just in the context of America, they're writing in
Speaker 1: the context of the global church. And you know, thinking about, well,
Speaker 1: does Poland have to accept every single Turkish refugee who
Speaker 1: comes in? No, they don't have to. Does Germany or
Speaker 1: France have to accept every single Afghan or this or
Speaker 1: that whatever foreign you know, non Christian refugee that comes in. Well, no,
Speaker 1: if it's going to fundamentally change the culture of the
Speaker 1: home country, then that is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 1: And the resources of the home country have to be
Speaker 1: taken into account. You can't necessarily you don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the resources to accommodate everybody. By the way, when people
Speaker 1: complained about the Catholic church getting federal grants for immigrant
Speaker 1: resettlement or getting money for their donations for immigrant resettlement.
Speaker 1: You know why that is. Remember when Ron de Santis
Speaker 1: brought like a couple of buses of immigrants to New
Speaker 1: York City and Mayor Adams acted like like World War
Speaker 1: III was having when a couple of immigrants came to
Speaker 1: New York City and all of these big city liberal
Speaker 1: mayors started freaking out like, oh, we can't sustain this
Speaker 1: load of immigrants. This is insane, And it was not
Speaker 1: a ton of immigrants like in New York City. A
Speaker 1: couple thousand immigrants is not a ton of people. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: do they really think that Brownsville, Texas can accommodate the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people who poured across the border
Speaker 1: during the Biden administration. Brownsville, Texas has the infrastructure to
Speaker 1: deal with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Texas,
Speaker 1: you know, South Texas has the ability to deal with
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of immigrants. But not New York City,
Speaker 1: not Chicago, not Martha's Vineyard, not all these sanctuary cities
Speaker 1: in the Northeast that have never seen a Mexican before.
Speaker 1: That's where a lot of this money, by the way,
Speaker 1: to the Catholic Church is going. It's going to these
Speaker 1: parts of Texas and the border that cannot possibly sustain
Speaker 1: this level of immigration without immense help. That's where that
Speaker 1: money's going. It's not Catholic bishops living in mansions as
Speaker 1: a result of it. So I guess I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit in the middle. I can't say that I'm thrilled with,
Speaker 1: for example, the Trump policy about allowing immigration enforcement at
Speaker 1: churches and schools, although if you have evidence of bad
Speaker 1: actor illegalaliens deliberately taking advantage of that in order to
Speaker 1: avoid deportation, I guess I could see some exception to it.
Speaker 1: But I do sort of accept on the whole that, Hey,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be the role of the school or the
Speaker 1: church to be the site where to have anything to
Speaker 1: do with this immigration business. Nobody's living at Catholic churches
Speaker 1: to avoid deportation. You know. The church should not be
Speaker 1: the place that has to deal with this. We're here
Speaker 1: to attend to the spiritual needs of these people. Maybe
Speaker 1: they made bad choices in the past. Fully willing to
Speaker 1: grant that that's the whole point of the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: is to be a place to help take care of
Speaker 1: people who made bad choices. Churches are supposed to be
Speaker 1: hospitals for sinners, not a hotel for saints. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I guess I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of after Christian messaging on immigration is coming
Speaker 1: from this sort of painting with a broad brush attitude
Speaker 1: a little that immigrants they're just good people are just
Speaker 1: trying to make it by not in all cases, and
Speaker 1: even if they are, it doesn't mean that we as
Speaker 1: a country have to sustain every single one of them
Speaker 1: who is here all right? When we return my quick
Speaker 1: week one Trump pro life grade next on the John
Speaker 1: Groardy Show. So we've got one week of the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and you know, I being director at Right to Life
Speaker 1: Essential California, here's my grade on the pro life stuff
Speaker 1: for the first week. I would say it's an A
Speaker 1: minus B plus. I think it was really good. He
Speaker 1: pardoned all the people convicted during the Biden administration for
Speaker 1: violations of the Face Act. All of those convictions that
Speaker 1: not really more the sentences were completely ridiculous, and the
Speaker 1: whole presence of face I think it's ridiculous he gave
Speaker 1: a surprise video address to the March for Life, talked
Speaker 1: about increasing the child tax credit, advanced talk about that
Speaker 1: the March for Life supporting the Born Alife Victims of
Speaker 1: Abortion Act, and announced support for various kinds of federal
Speaker 1: abortion funding restrictions. No mention of limiting the abortion pill yet,
Speaker 1: and that's really the biggie. That's something that increased abortion
Speaker 1: numbers by one hundred thousand per year in the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: So hope to see that. That'll do it. John Giorlady Show.
Speaker 1: See you next time on Power Talk.