Speaker 1: All right back on the big one. It's the average
Speaker 1: American in for the great American on this Monday break
Speaker 1: to have you with us. We are closing in on
Speaker 1: a month down the road from the election. That'll be tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And there's no question that immigration was a huge factor
Speaker 1: in Donald Trump regaining power regaining the presidency. Swing voters
Speaker 1: broke for Trump fifty two percent versus thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: for Harris, and swing voters voters broke late for Donald
Speaker 1: Trump in this election, and among total swing voters who
Speaker 1: ultimately chose Donald Trump, immigration was a key issue, seventy
Speaker 1: seven percent of them believing that it was extremely or
Speaker 1: very accurate to say Democrats are not quote tough enough
Speaker 1: on addressing the border crisis end quote. It is a
Speaker 1: problem with Donald Trump needs to address it, needs to
Speaker 1: address quickly, How quickly, how effective will he be able
Speaker 1: to address it? And what happens when the media, the
Speaker 1: bleeding hearts in the media began showing us pictures and
Speaker 1: writing stories about families being separated in various locations around
Speaker 1: the country, regardless of whether or not there is a
Speaker 1: criminal in that family who came here illegally to do
Speaker 1: God knows what to this country regardless of all of that,
Speaker 1: because the media doesn't get all that wrapped up on
Speaker 1: details what happens when they begin painting that picture and
Speaker 1: how it will it affect about how Donald Trump goes
Speaker 1: about his business. Standing by the way, in as someone
Speaker 1: whose opinion matters greatly on this, we have had Andrew
Speaker 1: Arthur on the show before. He is a law and
Speaker 1: policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, and he
Speaker 1: has carved out some time to spend with us right
Speaker 1: here on seven hundred W welw and Andrew, how are
Speaker 1: you on this glorious day, Ken.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day here in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: The states started to recover and we're getting ready for
Speaker 2: the Christmas season. Though first be warm in the staff,
Speaker 2: not that way today.
Speaker 1: I understand that North Carolina hopefully digging out from the
Speaker 1: devastation of that hurricane. It is a beautiful state. I
Speaker 1: spent a part of last December in North Carolina. I
Speaker 1: just love that state. All right, So you've you've been
Speaker 1: busy on this topic. I just just for a matter
Speaker 1: of I guess clarity. There were studies done on this,
Speaker 1: and there were studies that just basically reinforced what I
Speaker 1: just said. There's no question immigration and the philosophical approach
Speaker 1: to it by the Biden administration was absolutely paramount in
Speaker 1: this election. How long do you think it's going to
Speaker 1: take Donald Trump to undo what Joe Biden and his
Speaker 1: people did to this country from an immigration standpoint over
Speaker 1: the last three and a half years, or would it
Speaker 1: be asking too much to ask Donald Trump to undo
Speaker 1: it in the four years he'll have it the oval office.
Speaker 2: That's a great question, Ken, And you know, to start with,
Speaker 2: let me just say that Donald Trump probably picked the
Speaker 2: best man that he could to be the quarterback on
Speaker 2: his team at the White House on this issue. Tom Homan. Tom,
Speaker 2: of course, was the former Deputy Director of ICE under
Speaker 2: Barack Obama when he headed the Enforcement Removal Operations Unit.
Speaker 2: He was also an acting ICE director under President Trump.
Speaker 2: This a guy who literally came up from the streets.
Speaker 2: He was a cop and then he became a border
Speaker 2: patrol agent, worked his way up through ICE. Really knows
Speaker 2: the ins and outs of this. And you know, can
Speaker 2: remember back to a time when we were actually effectively
Speaker 2: running the border, when we were effectively removing people from
Speaker 2: the United States, and when we didn't leave the back
Speaker 2: door open for any and all to come in. So
Speaker 2: I think that you know, you've probably got the best
Speaker 2: person out of all three hundred and thirty five million
Speaker 2: Americans in charge of this issue. But the question that
Speaker 2: jazz is bigger than that. And when you talk about
Speaker 2: the numbers of people who are here illegally, we can't
Speaker 2: even really get a grasp on it. You'll hear numbers
Speaker 2: anywhere between eleven point three million to about twenty five million.
Speaker 2: We estimate that it's something between thirteen and fifteen million,
Speaker 2: and a lot of those people literally just showed up,
Speaker 2: just showed up in the last four years, so they
Speaker 2: really haven't put down the sorts of roots that you're
Speaker 2: talking about. But can consider the fact that there are
Speaker 2: more than five hundred thousand migrant children in our schools
Speaker 2: right now. I mean, that's a huge number of people.
Speaker 2: And extricating, you know, children from the community, sending them
Speaker 2: back home, that's going to require a lot of political will.
Speaker 2: And I think that you know, when you look at
Speaker 2: the numbers that you just cited, those are from Blueprint Analyzes.
Speaker 2: Blueprint is a democratic organization, so they're looking at this
Speaker 2: with a pretty clear eye. You know, this was a
Speaker 2: major issue, and the American people want something done. If
Speaker 2: you want my honest assessment, though, Donald Trump's not really
Speaker 2: going to be able to to undo just the damage
Speaker 2: in the last four years, during the four years that
Speaker 2: he's going to have, I estimate that it's going to
Speaker 2: take about a decade. It's probably going to cost about
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars to extricate the United States trum this. Now,
Speaker 2: that's not a trillion dollar spent on removing people. Removing
Speaker 2: people is actually a lot cheaper proposition. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to caring for all of those people, you know,
Speaker 2: about eight million people who have arrived over the last
Speaker 2: four years. You know, in providing aid to you know,
Speaker 2: the school districts and the cities and the towns, the
Speaker 2: police forces that are going to need to deal with
Speaker 2: immigrant crime, you're going to rack up a trillion dollar
Speaker 2: bill pretty quickly. And unfortunately, a lot of that money
Speaker 2: isn't going to be paid by the federal government. A
Speaker 2: lot of that is going to be paid by state
Speaker 2: and local officials as they deal with this, try to
Speaker 2: you know, handle and provide for the children, provide medical
Speaker 2: care for people who are This is a mess, And
Speaker 2: I don't even think that the American people appreciate how
Speaker 2: big a mess this is. I think that over the
Speaker 2: next two years, we're actually going to start to see
Speaker 2: some of those costs come do. And the American people
Speaker 2: are you know, just going to support uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the Trump policies even more than they have. But there's
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of pushback in the media. Is
Speaker 2: going to show you a picture of you know, every
Speaker 2: you know, mother and child that ends up getting removed,
Speaker 2: and you know, try to play on the heartstreams of
Speaker 2: the American people. I just don't know how successful that's
Speaker 2: going to be.
Speaker 1: I don't either, And honestly, I think if they're if
Speaker 1: they're smart, what what they'll do it? And you know, I
Speaker 1: think Trump is smart. I think what he's going to
Speaker 1: wind up doing is going after the the the people
Speaker 1: that have entered this country that have committed crimes either
Speaker 1: in this country when they arrived or have a criminal
Speaker 1: past that they might have brought with them from another country.
Speaker 1: I think if he tries to go in and separate
Speaker 1: mother from child and things like that, that's that's an
Speaker 1: that's a that's a non win him. But I think Initially,
Speaker 1: he can stop what's going over the southern border. We
Speaker 1: already see that Mexico really wants to play ball because
Speaker 1: they don't want to be tariffed. Same with Canada as well,
Speaker 1: So you have that. I think he'll physically try and
Speaker 1: finish that border wall, and if he does, indeed have
Speaker 1: fifty three Republicans in con well, he's he's got fifty
Speaker 1: plus his vice president and then three people that you know,
Speaker 1: they may be Republicans, they may not be, Collins and
Speaker 1: Murkowski and McConnell. We'll see exactly where they go with
Speaker 1: these votes. But if indeed can get that wall finished
Speaker 1: and can start extricating the criminals that are in this country,
Speaker 1: I think that will go a long way in curtailing
Speaker 1: a new people coming in and b maybe getting the
Speaker 1: message out to other people they should not be in
Speaker 1: this in this country in the first place. I think
Speaker 1: that's where Homan starts, don't.
Speaker 2: You, Yeah, no, absolutely, In fact, mister Homan has said
Speaker 2: that is going to be where he starts. You know,
Speaker 2: there are hundreds of thousands an estimated you know, seven
Speaker 2: hundred thousand criminal aliens who are in the United States
Speaker 2: who are going to be a top priority. We also
Speaker 2: have hundreds of people who are on the terror watch
Speaker 2: list who are here. We're going to need to get
Speaker 2: those people out. And if you start to move through
Speaker 2: you know those hundreds of thousands of people, the dynamic
Speaker 2: of all of this has changed. You have a paradigm shift.
Speaker 2: It's no longer you know, thought of that you're going
Speaker 2: to be able to come here and live here indefinitely
Speaker 2: and remain here forever. You know, now people are going
Speaker 2: to start to see those criminals taken off the streets.
Speaker 2: They're going to start to see a crackdown along the
Speaker 2: border if they have family members that they're hoping to
Speaker 2: immigrate and they're not going to be able to make it.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean completing the border wall system, which
Speaker 2: is bigger than just defence itself. You know, that's the
Speaker 2: cameras and the lights and the fiber opt to cable,
Speaker 2: all those other things that make that border wall system
Speaker 2: work is going to be a game changer. I think
Speaker 2: you're going to see the number of people entering the
Speaker 2: lead a plummet. We're going to go back to, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen numbers when we saw the first Trump effect.
Speaker 2: We're going to see a lot of cooperations from Mexico
Speaker 2: and Cannon. That's in both of their interests to help
Speaker 2: us out on this, and then we could start to
Speaker 2: address that criminal population, that national security risk population in
Speaker 2: the United States. And you know, you're going to see
Speaker 2: a lot of people go home because that's what happened
Speaker 2: about three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people who
Speaker 2: are here unlawfully can't lead every year, I fig you're
Speaker 2: going to see those numbers pick up. In fact, there
Speaker 2: was an article out of Dalton, Georgia that was talking
Speaker 2: about how people you know there were planning on leaving there.
Speaker 2: There was an article out of Springfield, Ohio about people
Speaker 2: who were looking for someplace else to live because you know,
Speaker 2: they know that they are, you know, in the cross
Speaker 2: heirs of immigration enforcement. So yeah, I mean, really, the
Speaker 2: most important thing that Trump's going to do is change
Speaker 2: the narrative of all this. I think they we're going
Speaker 2: to get back to a lawful immigration system, an orderly
Speaker 2: immigration system. That's in the interesting American people. But you
Speaker 2: know it's you know, the election itself is the biggest
Speaker 2: statement that the American people can make about immigration. I
Speaker 2: think it's going to have a real impact.
Speaker 1: Andrew Arthur our guest. He's with the Center for Immigration Studies.
Speaker 1: He's not only writing and writing well about immigration for
Speaker 1: a long time on CIS dot org. How important was
Speaker 1: immigration in the twenty twenty four election? A really detailed
Speaker 1: study that cites some of the research that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You also writes op eds that appear in a lot
Speaker 1: of different places. I saw this. Texas has spent millions
Speaker 1: placing razor wire along the border. Well, Biden found a
Speaker 1: judge that said that was illegal, and I guess it was.
Speaker 1: The Fed started cutting down the wire. Then wait a minute,
Speaker 1: there was an appeals court ruling against Biden last week
Speaker 1: to block Texas from kenny continuing to place razor wire.
Speaker 1: This seawire up so it can continue. You again, a
Speaker 1: lot of this depends on whether or not Trump gets
Speaker 1: to complete the rest of his wall. But there's no question,
Speaker 1: as you point out in this article, that the razor
Speaker 1: wire is a great deterrent for people coming into this
Speaker 1: country whose first act when they come into this country
Speaker 1: is an illegal act. So I don't sense that that
Speaker 1: was a bad ruling by this latest judge. But it
Speaker 1: does work, does it not?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely. Inact, you can look at the numbers.
Speaker 2: Texas has been running something called Operation Loan Star ever
Speaker 2: since March twenty twenty one. They said troopers down their
Speaker 2: National National Guard troops down there to you know, bolster
Speaker 2: border patrol. And then just before Title forty two ended,
Speaker 2: they started erecting these concertina wire or sea wire barriers
Speaker 2: along the Rio Grande and you know, near population centers
Speaker 2: to prevent people from crossing over and just blending into
Speaker 2: the community and escaping into the country that way. For
Speaker 2: some reason, nobody really knows the reason why. In September
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, CBP under the Biden Harris administration started
Speaker 2: destroying portions of that wire in Maverick County, Texas. And
Speaker 2: you know, this launched a fight. It went all the
Speaker 2: way to the Supreme Court about whether they could tear
Speaker 2: it out or whether they couldn't tear it out. And
Speaker 2: you mentioned the judge that they went to the first time.
Speaker 2: She's actually a very interesting woman, judge of Leah Moses
Speaker 2: down in Texas. She initially said, you know, the Biden
Speaker 2: Harris administration could continue to destroy it, but she talked
Speaker 2: about the political ego and ranker that had brought us
Speaker 2: to this point. She said, look, the immigration system may
Speaker 2: be dysfunctional, but it works when you allow it to work. So,
Speaker 2: you know, her initial decision that allowed them to go
Speaker 2: forward and destroy the wire that's just been reversed, you know,
Speaker 2: was a win for the Biden administration, but it was
Speaker 2: a stunning indictment of the Biden administration and the immigration
Speaker 2: policies that they run down there. And now that this
Speaker 2: circuit you know, has gotten along with that said no,
Speaker 2: you can't do it. This is sovereign state pop property
Speaker 2: and you have to leave it alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I don't think the Biden administration cared about
Speaker 1: what her opinion was. They just said, hey, we can
Speaker 1: cut the wire down. They provided them an optic right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely. But one thing that you'll note, Ken,
Speaker 2: is that ever since the Supreme Court ruled in January
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four that they could go ahead destroying the wire,
Speaker 2: they haven't touched it. Because going into an election year,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're contending that you're doing everything you
Speaker 2: can to secure the border, and then you go destroying
Speaker 2: the only impediment that there is to illegal immigration, you know,
Speaker 2: that's a bad visual. Yeah, And it was a bad
Speaker 2: visual for you know, for Joe Biden when he was
Speaker 2: running for president. It was a horrible one for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: So Texas, Texas won, Texas is still winning on that issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, because if you recall back then, that Senate
Speaker 1: seat Thatsad was still in play, it looked like it
Speaker 1: might have been a flip for the Democrats, so they
Speaker 1: couldn't really go in there and jeopardize that. And again
Speaker 1: they probably thought, well, you know, Texas may be turning
Speaker 1: more purple than we think, and maybe we've got a
Speaker 1: chance to flip Texas in a national election. But you know,
Speaker 1: you're right, that would have if you would would have
Speaker 1: put border patrol agents in between the Texas Rangers and
Speaker 1: and the federal government, you know, wherever they may be
Speaker 1: coming from the army, wherever it might have been, it
Speaker 1: would have been. It would have been horrible. But I
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think it's I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be difficult. It's going to take years, decades probably
Speaker 1: to undo what has happened to this country over the
Speaker 1: last three and a half years. But I sense that
Speaker 1: there are breaks that are being applied. But that won't
Speaker 1: stop you from what you do so well at cis
Speaker 1: dot org, and it's great when you can join us.
Speaker 1: Andrew Arthur, we appreciate your time here and you stay
Speaker 1: well and keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can and best to all your listeners here.
Speaker 1: He is that is a great destination where they take immigration,
Speaker 1: which is a complex topic, and make it understandable. What
Speaker 1: we try to do here don't often accomplish it. They do.
Speaker 1: Tune twenty five News Radio seven hundred WLW.
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