Q: I’d like to address Steve and Ed. First of all, thank you for being here and being so frank with us. How are you going to — with the new Republican Congress, how are you going to get the Administration to start the fence-building and enforce these laws?
Steven King: Well, I’ve said that I’ve now had almost eight years in Congress. And I’ve spent a lot of those eight years seeking to embarrass the Administration into enforcing immigration law. I have been challenged publicly by people who will say Congress needs to do something to enforce the law. And I have to go back to the separation of powers and identify that we pass the laws we appropriate to the executive branch. Their job is to enforce the law. In fact, that’s the President’s Constitutional oath, is to take care that the laws are faithfully enforced.
So, that sounds like a bit of a duck. But it really isn’t, in that we need to continue to turn the pressure up. And we need to continue to advance these ideas that are so important. One thing that I do is I applaud the states stepping up, like Arizona has. And I support in this country, down to the county level, enforcement of our immigration laws.
I’m looking at some things we might be able to do to highlight this and continue this debate. One is holding hearings, informing America, moving legislation that puts more pressure on the administration to enforce immigration laws. One is to address anchor babies in this country. That’s about 340,000, maybe as many as 750,000 babies in America — either one in a dozen or two in a dozen, depending on whose numbers you want to take. That’s something we can do by statute. And it would be litigated, but the clause subject to the jurisdiction thereof in the 14th Amendment, I think, makes it clear that Congress has the authority to pass laws [that] enforce the anchor baby issue.
The New Idea Act that I talked about — sanctuary cities are another. And I think we can bring significant pressure to bear in the appropriations process on sanctuary cities.
I grew up in a law enforcement family. I never envisioned, in all of those years spent around uniformed people — either military or law enforcement — as I grew up, that there was anything other than a cooperative relationship between all levels of law enforcement, from the city police officer all the way up to the federal officers. And so I think we’ll have a lot of opportunities to bring amendments to start to reduce funding, and eventually unfund sanctuary cities.
And then — and I want to just briefly mention, before I pass this microphone over to Ed, that Thayer mentioned the spotter locations in Arizona. I’ve gone to those locations, I’ve climbed those mountains. I found out about them when I was walking across the Tahotaotum Reservation with the Shadow Wolves. And they said, There’s a spotter on that mountain, there’s a spotter on that mountain. Of course, I couldn’t see them. But I wanted to go see what it looked like from there.
Later, I came back, climbed some of those mountains, sat in those locations. And then we took a Black Hawk, and we did some operations against them. And it was quite an interesting experience. But we have located at least 100 locations where there are tactical positions taken up on top of the mountains, where they’re overlooking generally intersections of highways, so they can tip off all of our — any time our law enforcement officers are moving on that highway, they know it. We can embarrass them about that, and I intend to do all of those things. And I intend to help elect a President that’ll reestablish the rule of law. And that’s more important [than anything else].
Ed Royce: Well, our first step is going to have to be to defeat the amnesty legislation that Nancy Pelosi’s going to move during this lame duck session along with Harry Reid. Our second step — you know, if you think about the fact that the Social Security Administration admits right now that there’s nine million people using fraudulent Social Security numbers in the United States — we know who they are, and there is a lack of will to enforce that. So one of the easy steps with E-Verify is to move legislation that makes that mandatory. And electronically, you can check. And, you know, that is a quick fix.
Lastly, I would just say we’re going to have to secure our border on our side of the border. I’ve been down to the border on a number of occasions working with Border Patrol agents. One of the interesting occurrences I saw was where, on the Border Patrol’s counterparts, on the other side of the border, a tunnel was being dug. And the fellows showed me how, you know, they were watching as the Mexican officials offered cover for the guys digging the border tunnel.
So we’re not — in that kind of environment, you’re not going to get a lot of cooperation on the other side of the border. We need to complete the double border fence and drive the hearings to do it. Thanks.
Q: One of the things that, I guess, last night we talked about, about our armed forces — how we are overstressed. Unfortunately, the border is really our Achilles’ Heel. The situation is so bad, as you guys have talked about, and there’s so much research that has gone on. I don’t understand why we don’t have troop deployment here. Because this is the most serious war we’re going to fight. Not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq; it’s here. And people are coming through here — al-Qaeda, all kinds of other terrorists. And everyone in Washington is passing legislation when nothing’s happening.
Why can’t we have true deployment here? Why can’t we stop it? We’re not going to get help from the Mexican government. Because money is being funneled to the Mexican government by the immigrants. That’s supporting their economy.
Ed Royce: The short answer is that the Obama Administration just pulled the National Guard off of the Texas border, the California border and the New Mexico border. So they’re headed in the wrong direction.
Mark Krikorian: This is the National Guard, mind you, he just sent before the election. And so now the election is over, the emergency is over, so he’s pulling them off the border.
But I mean, I think to answer your question, one of the reasons you don’t see more use of troops on the border is that legally, Congress would have to, it seems to me, adapt the law to permit the military in a certain range near — which I’m all for. But I mean, [it’s not simple.]
But also, there has been use of military on the border in antidrug patrols. And one — there was one kid, sort of a hapless kid who was herding his family’s goats and had a shotgun to keep the coyotes away, who ended up, you know, in the middle of the night with a group of marines sneaking up, or behind him. He turned around, aimed the gun at them, and they shot him down — that kind of thing that immediately shuts down, really, any talk of it. So, I mean, it’s a politically problematic thing that needs, it seems to me, a legal structure to kind of control it and establish it.
And the final problem is, starting in the Bush Administration, we basically contracted out our immigration policy to the Mexican Foreign Ministry. And the Mexican government is dead-set against any use of American troops on American soil to protect our border. And since they, you know, to some degree have a kind of veto power, both in the last administration and this administration over our immigration policy, you see why it hasn’t happened yet.
Thayer Verschoor: Sooner or later, the public demand is going to be so high. Anybody in here familiar with the term “aztlan”? This is a philosophy held by many Mexicans to retake the western part of the United States through migration, and to repopulate it with their citizens.
In Arizona, we’ve already [ceded] about 60 miles of land to the cartels. We’ve got signs up there saying, Don’t go here. If you do, it’s at your own risk. Because the cartels — they don’t say this specifically, but the implication is the cartels actually control this land now, and we can’t guarantee your safety there. That’s insane for our government to allow that to happen to our border. So we’re just basically giving up that much land right now that we’re saying we can’t control. We do need to change that. And I think the public outcry is starting to grow on that point. And that’s what will change it.
Unidentified Audience Member: May I please say one thing?
Q: First, I want to thank you, Mr. Vallely, for calling this what it is — illegal migration and, more specifically, invasion. Because this is invasion. And all these proposals, all these calls for legislation, all these ideas and everything — great. The President has pulled the National Guard off the border.
Now, he is — he has taken a solemn oath to uphold our Constitution. And if I’m not mistaken, all the congressmen and -women have as well. Am I correct? All that is needed is to uphold the oath, uphold the Constitution. And every time that vow is broken, we need to treat it as sedition and as treason.
It’s very, very simple. We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of our liberty, for ourselves and our posterity. It must be upheld.
And if someone pledges and takes the vow, and takes the oath in the name of God, and his solemn oath, and does not uphold that; and rather, in fact, undermines it and destroys it, he must be held accountable.
Ed Royce: And the most effective way to hold it accountable is to lay out this issue — we’ve got an election coming up — and run somebody on these issues who is going to be in step with the will of the American public and with our Constitution.
Mark Krikorian: One last comment on this that relates to what Congressman Royce said — even on the right, there is dissention on this. And one of the first things we need to do is put our own house in order. And, you know, it’s — Grover Norquist, the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal, Dick Armey, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — are on the side of the socialists on this issue. And that’s where we have to start, even before we start attacking Obama and his minions.
Thayer Verschoor: I’d just say in conclusion that whenever I’ve watched the Statue of Liberty, I’ve never envisioned her as having a voice. But now I do. Thank you.
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