Fox News Sunday

Interview

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Thank you and good morning to you.

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Yes. And, first of all, to -- you know, to the families, our thoughts, our prayers, and hopefully they'll be able to heal.

Second of all, we need to find out answers exactly what happened here. And, again, we need to find out. There's always a reason why certain people, and there's always -- there's always telltale signs before there's indicators that we should have looked at for.

But, again, to the law enforcement that put a stop to this -- you know, again, I thank them. And we've seen this in Uvalde. We saw that in my district, Sutherland Springs sometime ago, at a church. And it's one of those things that we need to look at.

And again, it's making sure we get at the root problems, and I do agree with the governor. You know, mental health is one of the things. That's why at the federal level, we've added billions of dollars for mental health.

And if people talk about just, you know, making the laws stricter, you've got to look at, you know, in states that are blue, very strict laws, you still get this type of mass shootings. So, it does happen across the nation, and we have to get to the bottom of this.

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You know, surely, we are seeing people coming in, the border is open. There are some policies that in my opinion should have been implemented some years ago. We need to have a very simple thing at the border, repercussions. That is people that are supposed to stay here, should be able to stay under the law.

And if they have to be returned, they have to be returned quickly. You got to have some repercussions because if you don't repercussions at the border, people are going to see the border as a speed bump, and they'll be coming in at this time. So we've got to have repercussions at the border.

And remember, I know a lot of times they say, well, the immigration system is broken. The immigration system is broken. Yes, we do need to have immigration reform.

But keep in mind, President Obama, you know, for the folks that were not supposed to be here actually deported more people than President Trump. So there's a way that you can have law and order at the border and still respect the legitimate -- and I emphasized the word legitimate -- asylum claims.

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Well, look, there are pull factors and push factors.

Push factors, of course, are certain conditions all across the world. In the old days, it was Mexican single male adults who would come in to come work. Then in 2000s, you had Central American countries.

And then lately you had people from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba that know that the U.S. doesn't have a good working relationship with that country, it's hard to send those people back.

And then, of course, lately, at the border, you have over 60 countries that are represented. It's almost like a mini U.N. down there because there's so many people, name the -- Africa, you know, the Middle East, China, Vietnam, they are coming in because, again, there are push factors in those countries but there's also pull factors.

And the pull factors is what I said that the beginning -- if you don't have consequences at the border, it doesn't matter what you do. They're going to keep coming.

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You know, if you look at the last two years, yes, you've had over 4.3 million individuals that have been encountered by Border Patrol. That doesn't include that getaways. So far, as of Friday, we had about a 2 percent increase. At the same time, we've had over -- I think it's about 1.2 million individuals so far, and the fiscal year still not over.

So, people are coming in. And, again, I go back. You've got a make that decision at the border because if you don't make that decision at the border, they are going to come in either taxpayers' dollars like Governor Abbott is doing, or they're going to be flying in or going through other buses.

They're going to come in to the interior. And once they into the interior, and let me talk about New York -- there's about 10 cities who are most of those migrants are going. New York is number one, and when they give those notice to report, that is to ICE, not before an immigration court, in New York City, it's going to be until 2033, 2033. That's ten years --

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-- before they even go to a judge. I agree, I agree, we've got to have consequences.

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Look, let me put it this way -- President Obama did not have immigration reform. He pushed for DACA, which I support. And I support -- I support full immigration reform.

But there were no changes in the laws or under President Obama. He was able to use Title 8, which is the current law instead of Title 42, and he was able to treat people with respect, but if they had to be returned, he sent them back. He had images of airplanes going back.

Right now, the only image that we see is people coming in. No images of people going back. So, yes, the American public is frustrated.

Now, the administration needs to go to the center, and I've asked them to go to the center, and I think some of the policies that they're about to implement brings them to the center, in my opinion, a little bit too late, but at least they're getting policies that will come to the center.

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Look, I haven't called the White House. I called -- I talked to Secretary Mayorkas, Troy Miller and other folks, the border patrol chiefs at the border. I go directly to Homeland because a lot of them are career people, and we've got to make sure that the career people have a say so at the table.

And again, it's okay to listen immigration activists, but you got to listen to the men and women in green and blue from Homeland, and you certainly have to listen to the border communities like Laredo, Texas, because we're taking the brunt of what's happening down here at the border.

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Thank you, Shannon. It's a pleasure.

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