Speaker 1: There's been a push throughout California to get rid of
Speaker 1: at large seats for various kinds of municipal entities, school districts,
Speaker 1: and also city councils. And here to talk with me
Speaker 1: about this change happening in a pretty large municipality within
Speaker 1: the Sanwaquin Valley from the City of Clovis. He is
Speaker 1: a several year now, how many years have you been
Speaker 1: a city council in now?
Speaker 2: Just finish?
Speaker 1: You just finished your seventh year. Okay, in his second
Speaker 1: term as a city council member. Currently the mayor of Clovis.
Speaker 1: My friend Vong Muanatua. Good have you on the show far.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, John.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, so let's let's dig into this. So
Speaker 1: the City of Clovis this week had its city council meeting,
Speaker 1: and among the issues it was discussing was the topic
Speaker 1: of moving the closed city council seat elections from at
Speaker 1: large seats where every member, every citizen of Clovis votes
Speaker 1: for all of the members of the Clovis City Council,
Speaker 1: and shifting to each council member representing a specific geographic
Speaker 1: district within the City of Clovis. So maybe you could
Speaker 1: tell me about why that change is happening and what's
Speaker 1: sort of prompting that change. It seems like it's part
Speaker 1: of a larger trend that's happening throughout California.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is all sort of initiated by the California
Speaker 2: Voting Reiights Act CVRA. So under that act, which has
Speaker 2: been around for a while, and usually the thresholders when
Speaker 2: you reach one hundred thousand, kind of the population mark,
Speaker 2: you sort of transition, and so we've been at one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand for several years. But what prompts it is
Speaker 2: an attorney will usually write a demand letter.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as so much of the world works, so.
Speaker 2: Once they write the demand letter you then it puts
Speaker 2: you sort of in a cycle in which you would
Speaker 2: have to switch sort of like a ninety five day
Speaker 2: but forty five days from when you first receive it.
Speaker 2: You have to respond and said yes, we will or
Speaker 2: you say no, and then he will.
Speaker 1: Most likely you say no, he's going to sue this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we received that from an attorney down
Speaker 2: south who's been doing this all over the states, sort
Speaker 2: of like when the ADA, the American with Disabilities Act,
Speaker 2: all these attorneys was just writing the shows.
Speaker 1: It strikes me as odd that there isn't just a
Speaker 1: clear like dividing, like a hard line rule like you
Speaker 1: pass x population threshold, you have to switch to it,
Speaker 1: as opposed to a system where you're just waiting for
Speaker 1: you know, the sword of damnicles to fault, like like
Speaker 1: some random attorney to sue you to prompt it. And
Speaker 1: I guess did you guys just basically assess that after
Speaker 1: you receive this demand that it was unlikely for the
Speaker 1: city to win an a legal challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there has not been one jurisdiction who has received
Speaker 2: a demand letter and or who has actually contested as
Speaker 2: everyone okay, so that it's sort of a you know,
Speaker 2: financial decision more so than a we want are district?
Speaker 1: Are you going to waste the citizen of clothes the
Speaker 1: citizens of clothes money, Like, let's fight this thing, as
Speaker 1: opposed to all right, well, we seems like this is
Speaker 1: just something we have to do, Okay.
Speaker 2: So the intent of the law, though, is to try
Speaker 2: to get diversity and or get certain sectors of the
Speaker 2: community who are underserved underrepresented. And so, for example, the
Speaker 2: argument has made that since I am mong and I
Speaker 2: ran and I never got in it could be because
Speaker 2: it's at large, so the white population is drowning my
Speaker 2: Mong vote.
Speaker 1: But the irony of it, yes, here you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the irony of it is John, it actually dilutes
Speaker 2: my vote. Really, So if it's at large, I could
Speaker 2: have gotten the Mong vot from every single Mong citizen
Speaker 2: resident in Clovis, but now they actually divide me up.
Speaker 1: Well because it kind of it kind of seems to
Speaker 1: assume that racial ethnic minorities are congregated in like little
Speaker 1: ethnic enclass, almost as opposed to the reality and many
Speaker 1: I'm sure throughout California, which is that, I don't know.
Speaker 1: The Mong community is probably about is. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's probably some neighborhoods where they're more among people, but
Speaker 1: it seems like it's pretty diffused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially in Clovis. Yeah, you will not be
Speaker 2: able to find. Oh, there's the Latino community, there's the
Speaker 2: black community.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we're all, yeah, what's the Mong part
Speaker 1: of town. I don't know. I lived in close my
Speaker 1: whole life. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2: Well, the the the insulting thing about this law is
Speaker 2: that it assumes every ethnic group votes the same as well,
Speaker 2: so they're assuming that all mong will just vote for
Speaker 2: the Mong candidate, all Latinos will vote for the Latino candidate, right,
Speaker 2: and that that is totally absurd.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and it seems like I can kind of
Speaker 1: understand that it's it's rooted in like, you know, the
Speaker 1: there were these historically racist practices in the American South,
Speaker 1: where like you would take the African you know, the
Speaker 1: one African American neighborhood in a Southern city and you know,
Speaker 1: either just have that be one district and all the
Speaker 1: other districts had no Black people voters in it, or
Speaker 1: you take the black neighborhood and divide it up like
Speaker 1: a you know, a bunch of pizza slices to totally
Speaker 1: dilute its power. But I just don't feel like that
Speaker 1: historical context is relevant to California of today, like like that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I you know, the situation of racial and
Speaker 1: ethnic minorities like Latinos or whatever in California is just
Speaker 1: not the same as you know, African Americans living under
Speaker 1: Joe Crow, you know. So anyway, so regardless of that,
Speaker 1: now and then the cynical side of me thinks that
Speaker 1: the idea of this is Clovis is at large a
Speaker 1: very very conservative city, and if you divide it into
Speaker 1: individual districts, maybe there's some thought that Democrats can you
Speaker 1: pick up maybe one or two individual districts if you carve.
Speaker 1: If you carve Clovis up the right way, quote the
Speaker 1: right way, which I'm sure for liberals will mean in
Speaker 1: a way that's politically advantageous for them, maybe you can
Speaker 1: get one or two seats to be controlled by Democrats.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you about the individual proposals
Speaker 1: for dividing the city into city council districts. So the
Speaker 1: two main divisions seem to be one. Should Clovis adopt
Speaker 1: a strong mayor system where we have four city council
Speaker 1: members and a mayor, kind of more analogous to like
Speaker 1: the city of Fresno, where Jerry Dyer is not a
Speaker 1: member of the city council. The current vong you are
Speaker 1: the mayor of clothes, but really you're the premus into paras.
Speaker 1: You're the first among equals. You're you're you're just a
Speaker 1: member of the city council and you as mayor, you
Speaker 1: just direct the meetings.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: The big question before you, guys, is four council members
Speaker 1: with a strong mayor or just keep five council members
Speaker 1: with the mayor just being you know, the president of
Speaker 1: the council. So I want to ask what your thoughts
Speaker 1: are on those two options and and what what is
Speaker 1: your personal preference. I'm curious to hear how you think
Speaker 1: about this issue.
Speaker 2: Well, m you just clarify, with the four plus one,
Speaker 2: it is not a strong mayor system.
Speaker 1: It's not really a strong not so it's.
Speaker 2: Still just five council members. Only that the mayor is
Speaker 2: neglected at large. So that's the only difference.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: To have a strong mayor, we would have to actually
Speaker 2: revamp everything, put new ordinances in to actually empower the
Speaker 2: mayor to have the authorities that we see in Fresno
Speaker 2: really is just one voted at large R four through districts.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, wow, I did I didn't even realize that. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: Well that's that's an interesting difference. All right, Well, I
Speaker 1: guess between those two options, what what would be your pick?
Speaker 2: Well, too, in order to keep some sort of where
Speaker 2: the citizens feel like they are having influence, have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to reach everyone, I'd like the five at large.
Speaker 2: So all five five districts, so that way the mayor
Speaker 2: is rotated like how we have right now, Okay, So
Speaker 2: that way every council member knows they're going to have
Speaker 2: to answer to the whole community at some time. I
Speaker 2: think the biggest fear of Clovis citizens is if we
Speaker 2: do go to districts, we will start only answering to
Speaker 2: our constituents instead of answering to the city as a whole.
Speaker 1: Well, that's always like a criticism in Fresno, like whoever
Speaker 1: represents I think it's District six, which is kind of
Speaker 1: the North Fresnok kind of woodward parky thing. Whoever's there
Speaker 1: is always hit with the accusation you don't care about
Speaker 1: what's happening in South Presny. You just care about all
Speaker 1: the rich fat cats up there. And that is one
Speaker 1: of the I think one of the worst things about
Speaker 1: switching from at lard to at large to individual geographic
Speaker 1: districts is that there is kind of that natural I
Speaker 1: mean maybe there there is to a certain extent, maybe
Speaker 1: a natural temptation towards that, and you you know, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit I mean, if you elect virtuous people
Speaker 1: to office, who have a real civic minded attitude. Who
Speaker 1: who say, yes, I'm elected to represent this district of Clovis,
Speaker 1: but I care about the well being of all of clothes. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you, yes, there are good people like that,
Speaker 1: but sometimes there aren't, and and and and there are
Speaker 1: natural little tribalisms that can develop.
Speaker 2: And that's that's what you just said there, because the
Speaker 2: the rest of the city cannot vote me out right,
Speaker 2: So as long as my little you know, tribe here
Speaker 2: keeps voting me in, right, who cares what old town says?
Speaker 2: Because I'm in close he's here. Who cares what Harlan
Speaker 2: Ranch says now? Because I I'm only from close east.
Speaker 1: Well, and even like for I mean, like for your
Speaker 1: just your most recent election, as an example, how many
Speaker 1: people actually voted for I mean, do you know off
Speaker 1: the top of your head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in almost thirty thousand, so twenty five twenty
Speaker 2: eight depending And that's so you know, that's a large
Speaker 2: increase from when we used to be odd year March elections. Right,
Speaker 2: this is the second and it's a presidential as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're getting only twenty five thousand people to
Speaker 1: vote for you in an at large election. So let's
Speaker 1: divide that by five, you know. I mean, so then
Speaker 1: one individual council member can secure their seat with five
Speaker 1: or six thousand people voting for them. I mean that
Speaker 1: that seems like that makes you a lot less kind
Speaker 1: of accountable. I mean, there's a lot fewer people that
Speaker 1: have to be accountable.
Speaker 2: To and it takes away the rights of the individual
Speaker 2: citizens who are voting. Yeah, off, five make a decision
Speaker 2: that affect you. Sure you can only select.
Speaker 1: One, right, Yeah, yeah, well that's that's true.
Speaker 2: The one positive though, John is Okay, now I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get one hundred and twenty five, one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty thousand people to know my message. Okay, maybe it's
Speaker 2: less expensive to run a campaign. Sure, you have to
Speaker 2: reach fewer people, and so maybe on that end it
Speaker 2: helps someone who has less connections as a city. In
Speaker 2: a city, now you only want to reach five thousand people.
Speaker 1: Sure, but it is still I mean it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, Clovis is not that big. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not like we're talking to city of six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people or anything. Anyway, I digress. So, well, let me
Speaker 1: go through. So in your personal preference, then would be
Speaker 1: five council members, not the four council members with districts
Speaker 1: plus one at large council. That is correct.
Speaker 2: That is your view, okay, and I think that's the
Speaker 2: consensus of the council from this last meeting. We've directed
Speaker 2: and ultimately it's the council who makes the decision, even
Speaker 2: though there's a lot of input from the citizens. We
Speaker 2: did direct the demographer and also made a sort of
Speaker 2: a decision that citizens, unless there is a huge group
Speaker 2: that is submitting mass with a four plus one, we're
Speaker 2: directing citizens to just submit the five district maps.
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, because I had seen I think a week
Speaker 1: or so ago when I first talked with you about this,
Speaker 1: I had seen there were different proposals from citizens that
Speaker 1: were on the website. It seemed like half and half.
Speaker 1: But obviously this is a thing that the council can direct,
Speaker 1: So it's you're sort of settled on five, you know.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you. One of the things with recentmap
Speaker 1: redrawing of the map that happened with the Fresno County
Speaker 1: Board of Supervisors was there was a lot of fighting
Speaker 1: over it, and a lot of the fighting was from
Speaker 1: certain kinds of left wing groups like Dolores Weerta's organization
Speaker 1: was really pushing for a certain kind of map. The
Speaker 1: County Board of Supervisors, excuse me, the County Board of
Speaker 1: Supervisors adopted a different map, which was much to the
Speaker 1: displeasure of the Dolores wwareses of the world. Has there
Speaker 1: been any kind of really politicized map proposals that have
Speaker 1: come to you, guys, or proposals that you've identified as such.
Speaker 2: No, that there are very very strict rules with regards
Speaker 2: to sort of the social economic makeup, the variance within
Speaker 2: the population of the five districts, and so the maps
Speaker 2: that have been proposed the three for the five at large,
Speaker 2: and the variance in population between the five districts, it's
Speaker 2: only about five percent, okay, So the threshold is nine percent,
Speaker 2: and if it goes over nine percent, then that map
Speaker 2: is dead.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, And so there are.
Speaker 2: Strict rules that they try to make it where it
Speaker 2: has the most diverse amount of diverse meaning home types,
Speaker 2: to income, to education, so it has all that breakdown.
Speaker 2: So if you go to the website you actually look
Speaker 2: at the map, the map actually gives you data on
Speaker 2: the back end. If you click the next page, it'll
Speaker 2: tell you Okay, how many of this economic level, income level,
Speaker 2: and so it gives you all that in the right,
Speaker 2: so we try to make it as diverse as possible.
Speaker 1: One way that I feel like the California Voter Rights
Speaker 1: Act has been used is to sort of basically to
Speaker 1: make being Latino being a minority of some sort almost
Speaker 1: it's that is something that can't be broken up when
Speaker 1: I think the real goal of the people pushing that
Speaker 1: is we want more, you know, solid powerful enclaves of
Speaker 1: Democrat voters. Is the real motivation behind that. Have you
Speaker 1: found with any of the map proposals, because you have
Speaker 1: to kind of respect the California Voter Rights X, you know,
Speaker 1: provisions about not breaking up you know, ethnic minority populations,
Speaker 1: although in Clovis, I'm not sure if our ethnic minority
Speaker 1: is the majority. I'm not sure if Latinos are actually
Speaker 1: the majority in Clovis or if.
Speaker 2: All they're the majority. Whites are actually a minority, right.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, some whites have a plurality anyway, Has there
Speaker 1: been any so you haven't really seen with any of
Speaker 1: the proposed maps any kind of shenanigans that are that
Speaker 1: are clearly designed for, you know, just Democrats. To try
Speaker 1: to pick up some seats or something.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, it does give breakdown on registration, and
Speaker 2: so it does give that, but it a couple of
Speaker 2: the maps do show where there is the highest percentage
Speaker 2: of Latino voters, okay, and so it does give that
Speaker 2: sure information. But other than that, it's it's hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Well, it sounds like it's not something
Speaker 1: you guys are thrilled with, but hopefully it's going to
Speaker 1: happen in a way that's you know, at least still
Speaker 1: having somewhat representative council that does represent the citizenry as
Speaker 1: a whole. So, and any last thoughts on the whole time.
Speaker 2: I believe that if Clovis has to do this, we
Speaker 2: can do it better. Sure, And not only that, I
Speaker 2: am encouraging and I am encouraged that the smaller pockets
Speaker 2: of voters will then be able to organize easier and
Speaker 2: actually vote and hold accountable their individual council members and
Speaker 2: so on that end it it'll be easier. So there's
Speaker 2: a smaller group we can go No, we don't want
Speaker 2: you just to represent us. We're voting you to represent
Speaker 2: the entire city. And you've been voting this way, so
Speaker 2: I am hopeful that the citizens will be able to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: So I hope so too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please stay, engage close residents, and please draw your
Speaker 2: maps and come to you have three more meetings, so
Speaker 2: two more map meetings and one final meeting in which
Speaker 2: the council will look at whatever maps are available and
Speaker 2: make that decision, and that'll be on I think the
Speaker 2: adoption meeting is March tenth.
Speaker 1: Okay, so by March tenth we'll kind of know what
Speaker 1: we're doing, all right, Close City Council Member maryor Clovis
Speaker 1: vong Wana twa, thanks so much for being on the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, John, all right, we'll be back
Speaker 1: with more on The John Girardi Show. It really fills
Speaker 1: me with resentment that liberals throughout the state of California
Speaker 1: just bully municipalities like Clovis into changing the structure of
Speaker 1: their city council. So we just had vong wan Atua,
Speaker 1: who's the close city council member, the mayor of Clovis,
Speaker 1: who is discussing all this in the last segment or
Speaker 1: thanks to vong for coming on the show. It just
Speaker 1: frustrates me how cities have to do this now that
Speaker 1: basically you have a city it's got at large elections
Speaker 1: for its city council members, and some left wing lawyer
Speaker 1: who wants to just make a buck suing cities comes
Speaker 1: over and says, hey, you need to change your whole
Speaker 1: elections structure, as if there wasn't some way for California
Speaker 1: just to institute the change. Hey, once you have a
Speaker 1: population that is measured to be over x threshold for
Speaker 1: five consecutive years, then you have to switch to you
Speaker 1: Then you have to switch from at large city councils
Speaker 1: to individual district city councils. Instead of clear guidance like that, No,
Speaker 1: we have to have cities living in fear of litigation
Speaker 1: and be bullied into it by some lawyer sending a
Speaker 1: threatening letter. And it's not just cities that are impacted
Speaker 1: by this. By the way, Clovis Unified School District is
Speaker 1: being bullied into this as well. And I think it's
Speaker 1: even worse for school districts than it is for city councils.
Speaker 1: One for the reason Vong talks about, I mean, in Clovis,
Speaker 1: it used to be that all of the city council
Speaker 1: members were accountable to all of the citizenry of Clovis.
Speaker 1: You had to have broad based support from a fairly
Speaker 1: large population base. Now you you know, he got twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand votes in his most recent election. Now he's
Speaker 1: you know, if he gets five thousand votes as an
Speaker 1: city council member representing a little chunk of Clovis, five
Speaker 1: thousand votes will get him in. Well, that's the same.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's even worse. When you're talking about school districts.
Speaker 1: You're going to be accountable to just the voters from
Speaker 1: this high school, just the voters from that high school,
Speaker 1: as well as the kind of petty regional jealousies that
Speaker 1: can result. I think it's really bad for city councils.
Speaker 1: I mean that has always been the problem. Within Fresdent
Speaker 1: Unified people will always accuse the Bullard representative of oh,
Speaker 1: you just care about all the rich people who live
Speaker 1: near Bullard, you don't actually care about blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Those kinds of petty squabbles immediately happen. So
Speaker 1: it's frustrating to me. How it really is frustrating to
Speaker 1: me how we're being pushed into this change in the
Speaker 1: city of Clovis. And I'm sure it's gonna happen with
Speaker 1: other cities in the salon Kin Valley once they get
Speaker 1: over a certain threshold of about one hundred thousand people,
Speaker 1: that we're going to have to change our whole system
Speaker 1: of city government to something that's not clearly better, but
Speaker 1: something where Democrats think that they can pick up more
Speaker 1: seats and manipulate the redistricting system. When we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about immigration stuff, immigration
Speaker 1: news changes to that the Trump administration is brought about,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about how this works from
Speaker 1: a justice standpoint. That's next on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about changes the Trump administration has
Speaker 1: made with immigration policy, as well as even just the
Speaker 1: change the proposal from the Trump administration the Executive Order
Speaker 1: to change the national understanding of birthright citizenship. Are you
Speaker 1: a citizen just by virtue of being born on American soil.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about these two topics in different
Speaker 1: ways about the course of this segment, all right, I
Speaker 1: want to start just with Trump immigration policy. So Trump
Speaker 1: has obviously changed a lot with immigration enforcement. As soon
Speaker 1: as he comes in, it's going to go back to
Speaker 1: the remain and the remain in Mexico. Policy is going
Speaker 1: to come right back into play, and there's now I
Speaker 1: guess this is one of the terrible things about the
Speaker 1: Biden policy, the Biden immigration policies, is the whiplash for
Speaker 1: the immigrants themselves coming into the country illegally or in
Speaker 1: the weird quasi legal structure that Biden put in place.
Speaker 1: And this is the point I want to set up
Speaker 1: that there is some aspect of what's happening that is,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm concerned about illegal immigration for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, a lot of reasons because it's deeply unfair
Speaker 1: to the citizens in this country, because our lacks immigration
Speaker 1: standards have led to criminals coming into this country who
Speaker 1: commit crimes against our own citizenry, because our lax immigration
Speaker 1: policies lead to just a cheap basically, there's this desire
Speaker 1: to maintain an almost helot like cheap labor force in
Speaker 1: this country that white liberals act as though as some
Speaker 1: kind of virtue. That was the silliest thing from Remember
Speaker 1: the episcopal bishop who was lecturing Trump advance at the
Speaker 1: National Cathedral her the way she was justifying her critique
Speaker 1: of Trump's policies. When it came to immigration was to ask,
Speaker 1: you know, where are people going to come who serve
Speaker 1: us our food and you know, work in our hotels
Speaker 1: and stuff, As if it's like a good thing to
Speaker 1: have this permanent underclass in a perilous non citizen status
Speaker 1: constantly there to serve us, as if that is something just,
Speaker 1: as if that liberal reality, that effect of liberal immigration
Speaker 1: policy is something good, and as if I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: feel like I'm an unjust person for saying, Hey, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think we should allow unrestricted immigration for service
Speaker 1: industry jobs, where we can pay people under the table,
Speaker 1: and pay them under the table in ways that are
Speaker 1: somewhat abusive, because these employees know if they make too
Speaker 1: much noise given their illegal status, they could be their
Speaker 1: employer could ship their rear home with one call to
Speaker 1: ice or whatever. No, that's not a just system anyway,
Speaker 1: I digress. One of the ways in which Biden allowed
Speaker 1: people to get into the country in a legal slash
Speaker 1: illegal way, basically a thing that gave legal cover of
Speaker 1: law to people who were just coming unlawfully, was through
Speaker 1: this thing called the CBP one app. And this app
Speaker 1: basically allowed people people were coming They're coming through Mexico.
Speaker 1: They're coming to a border point, some sort of border
Speaker 1: patrol point to make an asylum claim. The app basically
Speaker 1: allowed people to sort of grease the skids for that process.
Speaker 1: Get all your stuff ready, get you get to an
Speaker 1: immigration checkpoint, you make an asylum claim, we just let
Speaker 1: you in. We give you basically this automatic parole status
Speaker 1: to allow you to come into the country. Well, President
Speaker 1: Trump has basically decided this is an insane policy, which
Speaker 1: it is. They've shut down the CVP one app. So
Speaker 1: now the question is for those people who've been sort
Speaker 1: of released into the United States, what is their status?
Speaker 1: Do they have their court dates set up any more?
Speaker 1: Or are they going to be just shipped back? And
Speaker 1: this is the thing that there's some sort of whiplash
Speaker 1: that this is the one aspect of this where I
Speaker 1: somewhat feel bad for people who come and came into
Speaker 1: the country illegally. Here are all these this population of
Speaker 1: people who is given this green light, come on in
Speaker 1: and they expend tons of time, energy, money, this humongous
Speaker 1: shift in their whole lives to come to a foreign country,
Speaker 1: and now within four years a whiplash totally the other way,
Speaker 1: where now they're going to live in this somewhat powerless
Speaker 1: non legal status awaiting possible deportation. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: it's a bizarre sort of whiplash for those individual people. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say that every single one of
Speaker 1: these individual people deserve our pity or our concern. One
Speaker 1: of the things I've heard from a friend of mine
Speaker 1: who does immigration law stuff is the role that cartels
Speaker 1: can play in getting people to the border. That in
Speaker 1: his assessment, for any person the car, for any person
Speaker 1: who's getting to the border to be picked up by
Speaker 1: the border patrol, they have to pay off the cartel
Speaker 1: about twenty five hundred bucks to get over the border undetected.
Speaker 1: The cartel makes like twelve thousand bucks. That's his assessment,
Speaker 1: not mine. I'm not saying that's the gospel truth necessarily,
Speaker 1: but I mean he knows a lot more about this
Speaker 1: than I do. So, you know, here are people actively
Speaker 1: funding Mexican drug cartels and the cartels playing an active
Speaker 1: role in facilitating people getting over the border. And by
Speaker 1: the way, you've got to think that this is somehow
Speaker 1: you know, the drug cartels are what are they? They
Speaker 1: are cartels for drugs. You gotta think this is contributing
Speaker 1: to or part of the flow of narcotics into the
Speaker 1: United States. So I'm not gonna act as though I'm
Speaker 1: crying big alligator tears for every single individual person involved.
Speaker 1: But there is some real, genuine whiplash with all of this,
Speaker 1: and I guess my hope, my prayer for the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: I want deportations. I want the application of American law
Speaker 1: to be done in a way that's just and fair.
Speaker 1: I want the priority first and foremost obviously to be
Speaker 1: on anyone who's here who had a criminal record in
Speaker 1: Mexico or or there, whatever their home country was, whom
Speaker 1: we never would have allowed into the country in the
Speaker 1: first place, or anyone who's committed any crime here. Get
Speaker 1: them out. I guess my concern is that there are
Speaker 1: real when you get rid of the criminals and you
Speaker 1: shove them aside, there are people who are in the
Speaker 1: country who were here under some kind of cover of law,
Speaker 1: some kind of colorable legal claim that they thought they
Speaker 1: were allowed to come here. And this is maybe the
Speaker 1: biggest injustice of the Biden administration policy. Why did you
Speaker 1: let these people in? Why did you let these people
Speaker 1: in with this perilous legal status. When you know American
Speaker 1: immigration policy ping pong's back and forth between Republicans and
Speaker 1: Democrats every four years. At the very least, the greater
Speaker 1: justice of the Republican sort suite of policies is it's
Speaker 1: just letting people know, don't get involved in this on
Speaker 1: the front end, because we're you know, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: in a perilous state if you come here, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be living in fear of deportation. Don't come in illegally.
Speaker 1: The door is shut. You want to come in, you
Speaker 1: come through a legal process, but the door is otherwise shut.
Speaker 1: No more abuse of the asylum system. You want to
Speaker 1: try and make an asylum claim, you got to remain
Speaker 1: in Mexico, but we're not. The door is not open.
Speaker 1: And that's actually the Trump administration saying that on the
Speaker 1: front end. There's actually a far greater justice in that
Speaker 1: because it deters people from trying to get in in
Speaker 1: the first place. One of the things the Border Patrol
Speaker 1: has been reporting, just in this first you know, we're
Speaker 1: not even a full week into the Trump administration. One
Speaker 1: of the things they're reporting is a massive decrease in
Speaker 1: the number of counters they're having with potential illegal aliens.
Speaker 1: The message. You know, everyone knows what Trump Everyone in
Speaker 1: the Western hemisphere knows what it means when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: selected the illegal immigration door is closed, don't try it.
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of it is. There is a
Speaker 1: closing of the door. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: guess this is my fear. And you know, you might
Speaker 1: say John's a softy liberal. John's not hardcore. All right,
Speaker 1: John is a softy liberal and he's not hardcore. I dislike,
Speaker 1: I strongly don't want to see family separations in ways
Speaker 1: that are unjust. I don't want to see people who
Speaker 1: came into the country, perhaps illegally, have had a difficult time,
Speaker 1: with chaotic lives whatever, getting themselves a kind of stable
Speaker 1: immigration status, who maybe have had kids here, have lived
Speaker 1: here for years and years and years living in fear
Speaker 1: of being rounded up by the border patrol. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: just don't like that. I think that the whiplash effect
Speaker 1: of different administrations signaling different things, and people making large
Speaker 1: scale lifestyle decisions, people with people who don't speak our
Speaker 1: language in some cases, who don't one hundred percent understand
Speaker 1: what's going on. People who have been at various points
Speaker 1: lied to who came into the country on the basis
Speaker 1: of those representations now having to live in fear who
Speaker 1: are otherwise law abiding. I don't know how many people
Speaker 1: that is, but it's not enough. It's not enough. And
Speaker 1: knowing the number of people I do who work with
Speaker 1: various kinds of lower income persons and work with farm
Speaker 1: workers and things like that, I don't want these people
Speaker 1: to live in fear. I hate the whole system of
Speaker 1: how our illegal immigration has set up. I hate the
Speaker 1: false liberal compassion to say that having this permanent subclass
Speaker 1: of illegal, cheap labor who work in our service industries
Speaker 1: under the fear of being deported, that that is somehow
Speaker 1: better than having Americans work those jobs, that that is
Speaker 1: somehow better than having strict border enforcement. It is not fair,
Speaker 1: it is not just, It is not right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the helots in ancient Sparta. Ancient
Speaker 1: Sparta was in many ways an incredibly unjust society, sort
Speaker 1: of five hundreds four hundreds pc Sparta. It was one
Speaker 1: of the major city states of ancient Greece. It was
Speaker 1: fought against Athens. Sparta had this city near it, I
Speaker 1: think it was called Messenia, and they made the citizens
Speaker 1: of that region into a permanent class of slaves, the
Speaker 1: helots whom they subjugated and made them into the sort
Speaker 1: of their permanent slave class for decades, decades, decades, decades, permanently.
Speaker 1: Is that what we want with Latino immigration into this country.
Speaker 1: I don't want. I don't think that is just. And
Speaker 1: that is basically how liberals have said, Well, they're doing
Speaker 1: the jobs Americans don't want to do, so we should
Speaker 1: permanently have this subclass. Even with the H one B
Speaker 1: visa issue. Okay, you know why employers like H one
Speaker 1: B visa employees rather than American employees. One you can
Speaker 1: pay them less. Two if you fire them, they get deported.
Speaker 1: If you fire an American, or you you lay off
Speaker 1: an American or an American's unhappy with their job, they
Speaker 1: can just go work somewhere else. And H one B
Speaker 1: visa holder if they get fired, they go back to India.
Speaker 1: So they're not going to complain about anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's this wildly unjust system where here you've got someone
Speaker 1: here on an H one B visa who's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to complain about any The employer can
Speaker 1: be doing all kinds of unjust, unfair practices, and their
Speaker 1: h one B visa employee will just sit there meekly
Speaker 1: and take it. Your illegal immigrant dishwasher is not going
Speaker 1: to complain about an owner, you know, skimming money or whatever.
Speaker 1: Why because he's afraid he'll get deported if he speaks
Speaker 1: up about anything bad happening. So it's a wildly unjust system.
Speaker 1: And people who have been brought here have been brought
Speaker 1: into this unfair, unjust system in many cases on the
Speaker 1: basis of representations from this country. Yeah, maybe it was
Speaker 1: on the basis of Joe Biden's representations. So I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just nervous about the human toll of all this.
Speaker 1: Do I want criminal illegal aliens to port it? Yes, yesterday.
Speaker 1: It's shockingly evil how the Biden administration sort of allowed
Speaker 1: this to come about. But I also can't sit here
Speaker 1: and act like, you know, total mass deportation of everyone
Speaker 1: with a non legal status is necessarily a good thing,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're talking about people who made large scale
Speaker 1: family arrangements in relative good faith on the basis of
Speaker 1: our country representing things a certain way to them when
Speaker 1: we return. It's the fifty second anniversary of Rov Wade
Speaker 1: a quick thought on that on the John Girardi Show.
Speaker 1: Just a quick thought. Earlier this week, on the twenty second,
Speaker 1: was the fifty second anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and
Speaker 1: there have been some pro lifers. You know, today as
Speaker 1: the National March, was the National March for Life in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Tomorrow is the Big Walk for Life West Coast.
Speaker 1: I'm going up there with a bus full of supporters.
Speaker 1: Some people have said, why are we having all these
Speaker 1: pro life marches still on January twenty second. ROV Wade
Speaker 1: is overturned. Well, ROV Wade is overturned. As a question
Speaker 1: of constitutional law, abortion is not legal. Abortion is not
Speaker 1: part of the fundamental law of the United States of America. However,
Speaker 1: January twenty second represents a massive cultural, ethical, moral shift
Speaker 1: in this country for the worse, and as such, I
Speaker 1: think it deserves to be remembered with sorrow and penance.
Speaker 1: So that legacy of Roe is still with us. A
Speaker 1: million children still being aboarded every year. That'll do it,
Speaker 1: John Giordy Show, See next time on Power Talk