The Lead with Jake Tapper: Rep. Chip Roy, (R-TX), Is Interviewed About Inhumane Treatment OF Migrants
Interview
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Well, good afternoon, Jake. Good to be on.
And you know, I just want to congratulate the Department of Homeland Security from -- for finally actually acknowledging that there's something going on at our southern border and paying attention to Texas because they sure as hell been MIA for the entirety of my tenure in Congress. And so now they're zeroing in and trying to focus on what Texas is doing in the wake of the complete absence and in fact, the culpability of the Biden administration as being a part of the human migration chain that we saw unfold and that we're seeing depicted in the "Sound of Freedom," the sex trafficking trade, the danger that is, you know, posed to migrants to the 856 dead migrants last year along the Rio Grande and in South Texas and in Arizona, the 53 who cooked in a tractor trailer in San Antonio last August in the district where I represent, the thousands being told in the sex trafficking trade.
You don't have to believe the "Sound of Freedom," you can believe federal Judge Reed O'Connor who issued an order. An order saying, you know what, we're going to upward depart because we need to actually have stiffer penalties because there was an illegal migrant in Maryland who was being threatened by the cartels because they were going to rape his daughter if he didn't give him $21,000 after he'd already paid the money. That is the humanity that we're talking about on the southern border.
The DPS is giving out water. DPS saved lives today, they resuscitated people today. Today they saved a family and a group of migrants in the water drowning. Most of the barriers being put out are being used to push people down the river to a safer place to cross. Water is being given out, no, not to everybody who crosses, but it's 115 degrees and it's not a waste station. We have an obligation to try to stop the flow because it's harming us in Texas and the migrants who seek to come here.
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Well, what I would say is that the state of Texas has appropriated $10 billion, with a b, over the last four years to deal with the crisis that this administration has completely abandoned. And when I hear, I can't remember which reporter it was talked about the lower numbers. Well, how about focus on the one app (ph)? Because right now, I'm getting a whole bunch of information in my hearings and oversight that we've had almost half a million people process through the one app.
So all we're doing is diverting how people are coming to Texas. But we still had 150,000 apprehensions last month, according to the data I got yesterday, which is off the charts high. So, welcome to the party. Again, we're having to deal with the mess.
Now, gosh I see all of these ranchers in south Texas and people breaking down. The people that are the county attorneys that find dead bodies. They have to go get mobile morgues to put bodies in it, and they're just breaking down, crusty old 75-year-old ranchers who find a dead body on their ranch. We're trying to stop that.
We're trying to send a message to the world, you're endangering yourselves, subjecting yourselves to cartels, but this administration is actually culpable in making it happen. Then they want to come after Texas because we're trying to protect our own communities and the migrants. I understand, I don't like razor wire cuts, I don't want anybody getting dehydrated, but it's 115 degrees in Texas, you're going to get dehydrated. These guys are giving them water. They're doing what they can with limited resources because DHS is MIA.
Mayorkas knows it. He's abandoned his post, and the President is all too willing to let him do it.
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Well, first of all, the secretary came before the Judiciary Committee last year and he testified to me that, yes, he had operational control of the border, and I had the statute sitting behind me under the Secure Offense Act, he then later, earlier this year, six months later, he goes to the Senate and he testified, oh, if you think I'm going to follow the Secure Offense Act and have operational control of the border, no one can do that. So which is it?
The fact is he's playing games. He wants to look at Congress and say, we've got to do something. He's got all the laws that he needs to get operational control of the border. But we passed H.R. 2 in April, which would give extraordinary additional power if the President would work with us.
And frankly, a lot of -- that's in that bill is stuff that Barack Obama asked for, stuff that Jeh Johnson asked for in 2016 because they were actually trying to stop the flow. Jeh Johnson said, 1,000 a week was a crisis. You know, Jake, we are so far past 1,000 a week.
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And that's the difference in that administration and this administration.
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God bless, Jake.
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