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Jan. 26, 2024 - The Ben Shapiro Show
01:01:33
Mexican Standoff in Texas
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Right now, the United States is experiencing the biggest border crisis in American history.
And I'm looking at the front pages of the biggest newspapers in the United States right now, and none of them are even covering it.
The top headlines over at the Washington Post are all about a UN court, which is entirely irrelevant, ordering Israel to do more to prevent harm in the Gaza Strip, or an Alabama man being put to death with nitrogen gas.
Nothing about the giant wave of illegal immigration on a border that is now spurring a constitutional showdown between the state of Texas and, by the way, 24 other states and the federal government.
Same thing over at the New York Times.
Nothing at the top of the homepage.
Nothing on what is going on at the border.
Why?
Because when it comes to the Democratic Party and their lackeys in the press, they must cover up what is going on at the southern border.
Because if Americans understand what's going on, At the southern border, Joe Biden will not be reelected.
It is that simple.
What is going on at the southern border is a travesty.
So as I mentioned to you, I've been mentioning to you for a few weeks here, near the beginning of January, we actually went down to the southern border in Arizona.
And it is absolutely stunning what is going on at the southern border.
Not merely the numbers of people who are showing up at ports of entry and then being caught and released.
Catch and release is where you claim asylum, they bring you in, they process you, There are no beds for detention facilities, and they're not going to detain you anyway if you come in with a kid for very long.
So instead, they just release you into the interior with a comeback later date, which nobody ever does.
It's not just that.
It is that the drug cartels are in complete control of the southern border.
We have a documentary that is now available at Daily Wire Plus that shows you everything that we saw at the southern border.
We took a giant tour about 25 miles of the southern border in Arizona.
With Brandon Judd, who is in fact the head of the Border Patrol Officers Union.
And it is astonishing, because again, not only is the southern border largely undefended, it is made so by this administration.
This administration has decided that what they are going to do is turn CBP into a busing and processing service.
They're effectively the DMV on the southern border for illegal immigrants.
What you're going to see in this documentary, when you go over to Daily Wire Plus, one of the things that you're going to see is a sign that is at the southern border that literally says to illegal immigrants in spanish push this button for border patrol help this is over at the san miguel gate in arizona which is actually on a native american reservation right at the border there is no border wall over there because the native american reservation does not want a border wall over there so you can literally just step over the border walk into mexico walk back across the border into the united states people are arriving en masse dropped off
By drug cartels.
Drug cartels are literally taking trucks filled with illegal immigrants and they're driving them yards from the border, dropping them off, having people walk across.
Because of Joe Biden's asylum policies, which are different than Donald Trump's asylum policies, people are throwing up their hands, surrendering to Border Patrol.
Border Patrol is then letting them into the country.
That's what catch and release is.
And we are talking about millions of people every year.
Some estimates, low-end estimates, say 6 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States since Joe Biden took office.
High-end estimates put that number all the way up at 10 million illegal immigrants.
And it's not just that.
Because the drug cartels know exactly what Joe Biden has done, they have essentially decided to use this asylum process not only to smuggle more people across the border, because it doesn't require very much, you literally just drop somebody off at the border the same way I would drop my kids off at school.
They don't just do that.
They flood these particular areas of the border.
Border Patrol then has a legal duty to help process all of these people.
And as we show in the documentary, this means large swaths of the border are then unprotected.
We drove for 25 miles long.
America's southern border in Arizona.
Not a single Border Patrol agent.
Not one.
Zero Border Patrol agents.
Why?
They were all over the detention facility, doing processing work, where they take basic information about your life.
Illegal immigrants are coming across the border with phone numbers of people in various cities they wish to visit.
We literally have on tape sheets of paper with phone numbers of people in Denver, in Atlanta, in Houston.
The entire desert is covered in trash over there.
Trash left by illegal immigrants who are crossing that desert to get it.
And again, it's not just that the drug cartels are getting paid for the illegal immigrants that they smuggle in at the border.
It's the drug cartels are trying to gather border patrol agents to the processing facilities and away from guarding the border so that the really dangerous people, not just the illegal immigrants who want to come here and who want to work, some want to be on welfare.
We're talking about the people who are actively dangerous, people with criminal records.
People who are terrorists.
People who want to smuggle drugs into the country.
When the border is unprotected, that's when these people cross the border with the help of the Mexican drug cartels.
How much technical superiority do the drug cartels have at America's southern border?
When we were down there, as we show in our documentary, it's the first episode of a new series we're putting out called The Divided States of Biden.
You should go check it out right now at dailywire.com.
One incident that we observed.
We're sitting down there at the border.
And it's the night.
We're waiting to see what happens.
And suddenly, I hear a buzzing in the sky.
And I look back and there's a drone.
And I turn to the border patrol agent with whom we are sitting.
And I say, I assume that that's an American drone to monitor, you know, the border.
He says, nope.
We don't have drones in this area.
That is a Mexican drug cartel drone flying over American territory, by the way.
This is in American territory.
Flying over American territory and hovering near the car we were sitting.
Why were they hovering near our car?
Because the drug cartels know with such precision which Border Patrol agents are where, that they recognize that this car did not belong.
And so they were hovering to try and establish what exactly that car was.
So I asked the Border Patrol agent, you can see this all in the documentary.
I asked the Border Patrol agent, why don't we shoot it down?
Right?
I mean, that is a foreign aerial surveillance vehicle.
From Mexican drug cartels, from a criminal cartel.
And he says, you have to elevate that all the way to the Secretary of Homeland Security to get permission to shoot that down.
That is what Joe Biden has done on our border.
He has turned our border patrol agents into either sitting ducks or facilitation agents for illegal immigration.
And that is why the state of Texas is now saying, no, no, no, we are going to enforce the border.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Now, here's the problem.
The state of Texas can only do so much so far.
Meaning that the state of Texas can put up razor wire.
The state of Texas can put physical impediments on the border to stop people from crossing over the American border.
One of the big problems with the Trump border wall, which again is a great thing, the border wall is very useful, except you actually have to have people to guard the border wall so that illegal immigrants and drug cartel members don't actually just solder directly through The border patrol wall.
I mean, we actually saw evidence of this.
Again, in the documentary, you will see sections of the wall that have been completely cut through, cut through by the drug cartels.
But one of the things that is amazing, truly amazing, is, again, that not only would Texas have to build more impediments there, Texas would somehow have to come up with a mechanism for expelling people back south of the border.
And that's something that Texas has not done yet.
Not only that, even if Texas were to do that, because of Joe Biden's asylum policy, all that would do is then focus all the rest of the illegal immigration at ports of entry where people would still claim asylum.
That would be better than it currently is where they're just crossing the southern border anywhere and throwing up their hands.
And the drug cartels are literally using them as a distraction technique so they can get fentanyl across the border and terrorists across the border.
It would be better.
But the federal government is to blame for all of this.
The federal government has purposefully left the southern border not only undefended but in the control of criminal drug cartels.
This is not merely people who are straggling across the border one by one trying to get to a better life.
This is being facilitated It is being created by the Mexican drug cartels.
In fact, while we were down at the San Miguel Gate, you can tell all this is happening.
Why?
Because the day that we were down at the San Miguel Gate, which was, again, early January, there wasn't a lot of illegal immigration that day.
Why?
Because the drug cartels were busy having a firefight on the other side of the border with one another.
They were too busy killing each other to actually bring people up to the border that day.
The drug cartels are in complete control down there.
They're in complete control.
And I'm not the only one saying this.
This is a Joe Biden policy.
This did not exist under Donald Trump.
Donald Trump had a couple of policies that made it significantly harder for illegal immigrants to cross this way.
One, remain in Mexico.
Remain in Mexico is the single most important policy that Joe Biden dumped.
And he dumped it day one in office.
And he could reinstate it today.
Again, it is illegal to do what Joe Biden is doing on the border.
The law specifies that illegal immigrants must be detained.
Not that they can be detained.
They must be detained until they have an asylum hearing.
Romania, Mexico changed the law via executive order and executive agreement with the state of Mexico.
That Remain-in-Mexico policy said that, effectively speaking, if you came to the border and you claimed asylum, you had to wait south of the border before you could get your court date.
Well, that radically cut down on the number of people who are arriving at the border and claiming asylum, because if you claim asylum and you are immediately released into the United States within 72 hours, which is what is happening right now, that is a very different story than you arrive at the border, you claim asylum, we tell you, wait in Mexico, you show up for a court date, you don't have a claim for asylum, and you go back to Mexico.
That's a very different outcome.
It's a 100% different outcome.
But the fact is, Joe Biden decided he didn't like the outcome with less illegal immigration.
He is facilitating all this, and it's really, really dangerous.
There's a letter that went out about a week and a half ago from a couple of former members of the FBI and the CIA, a guy named Chris Swecker, who's Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, retired.
And Kevin Brock, who's an Assistant Director of the Directorate of Intelligence at the FBI, at the National Counterterrorism Center, also retired.
And what they point out, and they are totally right, is that this is a massive national security threat.
They say, as former senior executives of the FBI with deep experience combating dangers to the nation, we write to express our concern about a current specific threat that may be one of the most pernicious ever to menace the United States.
The danger arises from the nature of the threat itself.
Wars and espionage and bombings and riots are sadly familiar delivery systems of instability, intimidation, and insecurity.
The country has faced these and more throughout its history and is held together, though not without struggle.
The threat we call out today is new and unfamiliar, and it's modern history.
The United States has never suffered an invasion of the homeland, and yet one is unfolding right now.
Military-aged men from across the globe, many from regions or countries not friendly to the United States, are landing in waves on our soil by the thousands.
It would be difficult to overstate the danger represented by the presence inside our borders of what is a comparatively multi-division army of single young adult males from hostile nations and regions whose background, intent, or allegiance is completely unknown.
In 2021, they say, the demographics of those crossing the poorest southern border started to shift.
Young men from around the world traveling alone and holding questionable motivations dramatically increased in number to become the most common profile of those breaching the nation's borders.
This happens to be true, by the way.
We were told by border patrol agents who shall remain nameless That the number of terrorists who are being captured at the border is completely unspecified.
They have no idea.
Even when somebody is caught on the terror watch list, that doesn't necessarily mean that the person is a terrorist.
Because the terror watch list is really, really vague.
It's the unknown unknowns that are truly dangerous.
Whenever we look at the stats on the Southern border, you have to recognize there's a few different things that are being aggregated together.
One is border apprehensions.
A border apprehension, by the way, does not mean the person is kicked back to Mexico.
A border apprehension or a border encounter means the person is taken by CBP and then processed, which means they end up in the country the vast majority of the time under Joe Biden if they know the magic words.
If they say, open sesame, I want asylum.
I fear to go back to my country.
You're let into the country.
It's that simple.
So that is type number one.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Type number two are people who are gotaways.
Okay, those are known gotaways.
So there is largely Camera coverage of the entire southern border.
Okay, that camera coverage is very comprehensive, but you need to have actual agents who are watching 24 hours a day the camera coverage to see what they can see.
Now, a bunch of those people don't get captured.
They get seen on the cameras and they escape into the interior.
We have no idea who they are.
That number is at least 600,000 last year.
At least 600,000 known gotaways just last year.
How about the unknown gotaways?
How the hell should CBP know?
They have no idea.
They might be able to give some estimates, but they literally have no idea.
I mean, that is an unknown unknown.
So they don't know how many of those.
But what we do know is that if those people wanted to just be released in the United States and for the U.S.
government to know who they were and what they were about, if that's what they wanted, if they just wanted to come here and they wanted to work illegally and then hope for amnesty at some point, they want to come here, get married, apply for a green card.
They want to come here and be on welfare in California or whatever.
If they wanted all of that, the easiest way to do that is to throw up your hands and surrender to CBP.
The people who are crossing as unknown gotaways are people who should not be in the country under any circumstances, not just because they're illegal immigrants, but because they probably have criminal records or drug connections, at a minimum.
And many of them probably have terror connections as well because that's why you're avoiding CBP.
It's one thing back in the olden days when CBP was actually trying to stop everyone from crossing the border to say that many of the people are crossing the border between ports of entry and trying to evade border patrol.
Those people are not criminals in the sense of anything except for the illegal immigration.
And many of those people are, you know, the people who proverbially work in the fields or do the cleaning or whatever the left wants to say they're important for because the left is very racist with regard to a lot of these people.
But With that said, now that it is very obvious that you can surrender to Border Patrol and then move to Houston or go to Atlanta or go to Colorado or whatever, the only people attempting to evade the Border Patrol are people who are presumably dangerous.
And that amounts to millions of people every single year because of what they are doing.
By the way, the drug cartels know this.
The drug cartels know this.
Some of the most shocking footage from the documentary that we just put out at Daily Wire Plus, and again, you should go check it out because it really is shocking stuff, CBP told us that some of the stuff that the drug cartels do, for example, is they literally, if they're being chased by CBP and they are traveling with children, they will literally discard the children.
We're talking about babies.
We're talking about babies, like toddlers or smaller.
Discard the children, hoping that CBP will go and care for the children as they are morally duty-bound to do so they can evade arrest.
So they'll literally take human babies and throw them to the side of the road In an attempt to distract CBP so they can escape into the interior of the country.
They have no regard for human life, the drug cartels.
None.
And this is being, again, facilitated by the federal government.
So as these former FBI agents say, all of this is particularly alarming in light of the Hamas terror attack on Israel last October 7th.
Those of us who have fought terrorism know that historically successful terror attacks invite mimicry.
We know as well that terror leaders intentionally cultivate throngs of young men possessing a certain easily manipulated personality type to carry out atrocities.
It is stark to say so, but having a large number of young males now within our borders who could begin attacking gatherings of unarmed citizens in imitation of 10-7 must be considered a distinct possibility.
That, of course, makes perfect sense.
And what we are watching right now is absolutely unprecedented on our southern border, and the media have nothing to say about it.
The only thing the media can do is yell at Republicans.
Joe Biden has the legal power to close the border today.
No further legislation is necessary.
Joe Biden can do exactly what Donald Trump did.
Joe Biden can reinterpret the asylum laws to require that you make a colorable showing that you will in fact receive asylum before you're released into the country.
Joe Biden can detain people and should detain people when they cross the border.
Joe Biden can renegotiate, remain in Mexico and do that again.
Apparently his aides don't want to do that because they're afraid it'll hand Trump a victory.
So they would literally rather keep the border open rather than hand Donald Trump a victory.
All of this is leading the states at the Southern border led by Texas to actually try and do something about it.
When I say the states at the Southern border, I really only mean Texas.
New Mexico is Democrat governed.
They don't care about an open border.
Arizona is governed by Katie Hobbs.
She's deployed the National Guard back in December a little bit, but I can tell you the border is wide open because I was there.
Katie Hobbs has said nothing, virtually nothing about the Biden administration's malfeasance here.
Greg Abbott, for his part, is trying to set up physical barriers along the southern border.
That's what that razor wire is.
That's why they put barriers in the middle of the Rio Grande, because they haven't come up with a process yet whereby Texas will actually expel people back south of the border, which is what you would actually need to do if you were going to repel the wave of illegal immigration that is currently happening.
Plus, you'd need way more personnel down at the border.
It's not just enough to have razor wire.
You'd actually have to have people who could theoretically arrest people and then Come up with some mechanism for deporting them back to Mexico, because if they get to the razor wire and they get through the razor wire, then the same laws that apply to Borough Patrol still apply.
Presumably.
There's no mechanism in the state of Texas for actually expelling people once they cross illegally.
They can hand them over to the federal government, presumably, but the federal government will then presumably release these people after processing them.
In any case, here is Governor Abbott explaining that he's doing the best that he can over here.
One quick point of clarification, something, Bill, you just said that everybody's saying, and that is that the Supreme Court, you said the Supreme Court said what Texas cannot do.
If you look at what the Supreme Court actually issued, they didn't write any type of opinion.
All they did was to vacate a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals order and to submit back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
It's two sentences.
There was no opinion about anything about razor wire, what Texas is doing or anything like that.
And but that point aside.
Regardless of what federal statute may exist.
The Supremacy Clause means that the Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land.
The Constitution itself provides Texas with a right of self-defense in this case, because the United States has abandoned its responsibility to defend Texas.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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Okay, so the Biden administration is going to be forced to a choice here.
That choice is going to be to either sue the state of Texas for trying to enforce the border and try and force them to open up the razor wire, just actively sue, not to allow Texas to allow border patrol agents to cut the razor wire, but to stop Texas from reinforcing the border, to actually side with vast swaths of illegal immigration.
They're going to have to sue, or they're going to have to acquiesce.
Right now, they're choosing a third path, which is to try to blame Republicans politically.
I do not think that is going to work.
Republican governors all over the United States are backing Greg Abbott's play as well they should.
There are 27 Republican governors in the United States at this point.
One of them is Governor Abbott, of course.
And then every other Republican governor in the country has backed Greg Abbott's play.
If you look at a map, it's every red state, basically.
There are a few sort of exceptions that are red states with blue governors, and the blue governors refused to back Greg Abbott's play.
And as you will see, Arizona and New Mexico are a couple of the states that are not doing what Greg Abbott is doing here.
But many of these governors came out early.
They said, we're sending National Guard troops down to help do what Texas needs to do here.
Here's Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida making that case.
Biden is going after Texas, saying that they must remove fortifications from their border.
They put wire, they put things to keep people out.
Biden's saying you got to take that down to let people come in illegally, which is just crazy.
And I remarked that if the Constitution was originally understood to mean that a state could not protect itself, against an invasion.
If the federal government could force a state to allow an invasion, the Constitution would have never been ratified in the first place.
Texas would have never joined the Union when it did.
And if you look at Federalist 46, which Daniel Horowitz pointed out, James Madison talks about situations where federal encroachment can be mitigated by state action.
So you have Texas here, Okay.
DeSantis, of course, is correct here.
They have every right to fortify the border vis-a-vis an invasion.
And that's Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution.
So so they're on the right.
OK, DeSantis, of course, is correct here.
Louisiana Governor.
Jeff Landry, he also expressed his support for Greg Abbott.
We support legal, not illegal immigration.
We support secure and safe borders, not open border policies that allow criminals, human trafficking, and drugs to pour into this country.
We stand with Governor Abbott and Texas in reminding the federal government that under our Constitution, states are still sovereign and we have the right to protect our citizens.
Meanwhile, both Republican candidates still technically in the race.
Nikki Haley is still technically in the race.
And of course, Donald Trump is the leader in the Republican nomination race.
Nikki Haley actually put out a statement before Trump did.
Here is Nikki Haley's statement yesterday about what's going on at the border.
She said, Governor Abbott is right. The state of Texas has every right to defend itself and its borders.
It's absolutely ridiculous that Joe Biden is trying to stop governors from doing everything
they can to protect their citizens. It's also nothing new.
Biden was part of the administration that sued me when I passed one of the toughest anti-illegal
immigration laws in the country as governor of South Carolina. And the reason I point this out
is because when it comes to the 2024 GOP nomination race, let's be clear about this. There are no
open borders candidates in the race and there really haven't been throughout this entire Republican
nomination race.
Donald Trump did come out late yesterday with a couple of statements on Truth Social.
He said, When I was president, we had the most secure border in history.
Joe Biden has surrendered our border and is aiding and abetting a massive invasion of millions of illegal migrants into the United States.
Instead of fighting to protect our country from this onslaught, Biden is unbelievably fighting to tie the hands of Governor Abbott and the state of Texas so that the invasion continues unchecked.
In the face of this national security, public safety, and public health catastrophe, Texas has rightly invoked the Invasion Clause of the Constitution and must be given full support to repel the invasion.
We encourage all willing states to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of illegals and to remove them back across the border.
Now again, that's an extension beyond even what Texas is doing right now.
Texas is not actively removing people back across the border.
Once they get in, they're presumably being turned over to border patrol.
But that is what Texas will have to do or will have to be will have to make that case to the Supreme Court that they
can do.
All Americans should support the common sense measures by Texas authorities to
protect the safety, security, and sovereignty of Texas and of the American people,
says Trump.
When I am president on day one, instead of fighting Texas, I will work hand in hand
with Governor Abbott and other border states to stop the invasion, seal the border,
and rapidly begin the largest domestic deportation operation in history.
Those Biden has let in should not get comfortable because they will be going
home.
So first of all, great statement.
Obvious Trump didn't write it.
I mean, they added some weird capitalization to try and make it seem like he wrote it, but it doesn't matter.
Again, here's the thing about Trump.
Trump term one, and presumably a prospective Trump term two, the people who make policy in the Trump administration are going to do a pretty good job.
And that is true when it comes to illegal immigration above all other matters.
Again, having spoken to Border Patrol agents, and you can see us talk about it, again, at the DW Plus documentary that we just made about this, that you should go check out right now, become a subscriber, and you can see all of it.
The policy radically shifted from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden came in, he got rid of all the policies, and that is why you have a wide open border.
We'll get some more on this in just one second.
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Meanwhile, it's amazing how Democrats have shifted their own positions on the border over time.
It really is truly an incredible thing.
So, here is Joe Biden back in 2007, talking about sanctuary cities.
Again, when people talk about bipartisan polarization in the United States, something that is worth noting here, the Republican Party has not actually gotten more right-wing on anything my entire life.
In fact, they've gotten more left-wing on a wide variety of issues, ranging from, say, gay marriage to things like federal spending.
The only area where they seem to have even held the line is on immigration.
Democrats are the ones who have had an asymmetric polarization.
Democrats have moved radically to the left on every issue.
Here's a person you might recall from when he was sentient, Joe Biden, talking in 2007 about sanctuary cities.
Would you allow these cities to ignore the federal law regarding the reporting of illegal immigrants and, in fact, provide sanctuary to these immigrants?
The reason that cities ignore the federal law is the fact that there is no funding at the federal level to provide for the kind of enforcement at the federal level you need.
Pick up the New York Times today.
There's a city not far across the river from my state that imposed similar sanctions.
And what they found out is, as a consequence of that, Their city went in the dumpster.
Stores started closing.
Everything started to happen.
And they changed the policy.
Part of the problem is, you have to have a federal government that can enforce laws.
This administration has been fundamentally derelict in not funding any of the requirements that are needed even to enforce the existing law.
So, Senator Biden, yes or no, would you allow the cities to ignore the federal law?
No.
Okay, that is Joe Biden back when, again, he was a sentient person.
By the way, the amazing contrast between Joe Biden speaking in 2007, not just on policy, and Joe Biden speaking in 2024, it's astonishing.
I mean, you watch that back-to-back with Joe Biden speaking now, this is not even remotely the same human being.
It truly is an amazing thing.
We'll get to Joe Biden and the fact that he is like breaking down in real time in a little bit here.
But that's how far the Democratic Party has moved.
They've moved just that far.
It is truly amazing.
So much so that a top ICE official named Patrick Leichleitner actually had his chief of staff meet with abolished borders activists and then had to defend that the other day.
Here we go.
So, I'm wondering why the ICE Chief of Staff met with an Abolish Borders activist earlier this week?
Could you explain, like, is that counter to ICE's mission?
No, thanks, that's a good question.
No, not at all.
So, the ICE Chief of Staff Michael Lumpkin, he's a great partner.
So he came on, he's a great partner with me.
We meet with as many parties on either side of the aisle as possible to get everyone's take on this.
We're mission focused and mission oriented and we support our workforce as much as possible to get the mission done.
And absolutely not, it's not out of the normal to be with various organizations that are more aggressive on immigration or want to be less aggressive on immigration.
It's actually what we need to do.
We need to make sure we understand the dialogue so that we can communicate with folks and explain kind of where we're coming from as an operational component.
That's ridiculous.
I'm sorry.
Abolished Borders activists do not need to be meeting with ICE.
They don't need to be meeting with the Department of Homeland Security.
Their goal is to ignore the law and eviscerate the law.
Again, one of the things we saw down at the border when we were in Arizona Signs of so-called humanitarian groups literally directing illegal immigrants away from law enforcement.
People leaving in the desert bottles of water, by the way, not by the ports of entry, not by the places where only the sort of civilian illegal immigrants are going.
A criminal places where criminally illegal immigrants are the most likely to be actually getting those bottles of water as they run into the country.
Again, nobody wants people to suffer.
Nobody is suggesting anything remotely like that.
But if you want to facilitate human suffering, let the drug cartels continue to do what they are doing.
They are earning tens of billions of dollars every single year via illegal immigration and drug smuggling at these borders.
So Democrats have now been left with a final attempted move here before they have to cave on this thing.
And that is they're going to try to pretend that they are willing to compromise on the border when they really are not.
And there are some Republicans who are willing to help them out in this, Mitt Romney being the most prominent among them.
So here's Kamala Harris making this case.
She says that there's a congressional negotiation going on.
It's been going on for months at this point.
It's a congressional negotiation over a $105 billion bill that will provide $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, military aid to Ukraine, some $14 billion in military aid to Israel, a little bit of military aid to Taiwan, and some border money.
The problem is that all of the provisions on the border are really, really soft.
As Andy McCarthy has pointed out, the Republicans in the Senate have negotiated a truly bad piece of legislation.
According to McCarthy's back in December, he says what's reportedly being discussed is a triggering mechanism that would empower government agents to close the border to illegal immigrants.
Not surprisingly, Democrats do not want border closure triggered until 5,000 aliens have crossed.
That's on average a day.
5,000 illegal immigrants a day.
That's what Democrats were looking for in this negotiation.
Republicans have signaled they would agree to 3,000 border crossings a day.
Let me just point out at this point, 3,000 border crossings a day would be 1.1 million people crossing the border over the course of a year.
That's what Republicans were seeking to do as a compromise with Democrats.
Now again, Joe Biden does not need additional authority to do any of this.
Joe Biden could do it today.
Joe Biden could simply declare that he is going to pursue a Remain in Mexico policy, that everyone who crosses the border will be detained until they actually have a date in court, no matter how long that takes.
He can do all those things.
He's not doing any of those things.
These Republicans have not pursued the stuff that Democrats are unwilling to sign off on include, for example, a provision that requires that if somebody shows up at the border and claims asylum, they have to show by a preponderance of the evidence that they actually will get asylum.
Otherwise, they'll be immediately deported.
Now, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.
You're making a claim for asylum.
It shouldn't be enough for you just to say, I claim asylum.
Like Michael Scott walking into the middle of the office and declaring bankruptcy.
You have to show some actual evidence that you require asylum.
And by the way, it should be pointed out at this point, there is no quote-unquote right to asylum.
That is not a thing.
The federal government has the power to declare who can get asylum and who cannot get asylum.
There's no unspecified right that attaches to foreign citizens of other countries who simply declare things without any evidence.
In any case, here is Kamala Harris pretending that because Republicans are not caving on this border deal, it's Republicans' fault that the border is open.
Joe Biden could close it today.
The first bill that we offered was a bill to fix the immigration system.
And that's when you controlled both houses.
Lies.
And Congress did not take it up.
And I will tell you that This is first of all not a new issue but sadly it has become so deeply partisan and the subject of then political gamesmanship when in fact the solutions are at hand and we offered a solution early on and invited bipartisan work let's work on it to fix this and in fact we have right now a proposal for fourteen billion dollars
So that we can put more resources to address this very situation.
And we hope and are really trying to compel, in particular, some of the Republicans in Congress to participate in the solution.
But sadly, you know, we want to fix it.
They want to run on it.
No, you don't want to fix it.
You want to open the spigot wide.
They want more funding for the border.
What do they mean by that?
They want more administrative law judges to allow people into the country more easily and more resources at the border patrol stations for detention processing.
That is what they want.
They don't want more resources along the southern border so we can actually guard the southern border, for example.
That's not what they want.
But naturally, you have people like Mitt Romney, who are doing the bidding of Democrats on this sort of stuff.
Here is Mitt Romney, who has not yet actually left the Senate.
He needs to go now.
Enough.
Saying that it's really because Donald Trump is lobbying against the bill that the bill is dying.
Now if the bill were good, that would be one thing.
But the bill is not good!
I'd be in favor of some sort of grabbing as much of the law as you can right now, regardless of the election, because you gotta grab what you can grab when you can grab it, because you just don't know how the election's gonna go.
But the bill that is being proposed right now, at least the details that have been leaked out, are bad.
But here's Mitt Romney trying to, I guess, jump on the Democratic bandwagon, Captain Inflation Reduction Act over here.
Jumping on the Democratic bandwagon as per usual arrangement.
Do you think this is what he wants, the issue, Donald Trump?
I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump.
And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is really appalling.
But the reality is that We have a crisis at the border.
The American people are suffering as a result of what's happening at the border.
And someone running for president ought to try and get the problem solved, as opposed to saying, hey, save that problem.
Don't solve it.
Okay, again, the problem is not getting solved by the legislation presented by the Senate, and it will die in the House anyway.
In just one second, we'll get to this purported House negotiations and Senate negotiations in just one second.
First, America, as you know, as we are talking about, is experiencing an unprecedented border invasion.
Millions of illegal immigrants are flooding over our border under the Biden administration's watch, facilitated by the Biden administration.
Texas is shouldering the fight against the surge, but Arizona's governor, Katie Hobbs, she's remained eerily silent throughout all of this.
Now, as I'm telling you, I personally traveled to Arizona to see one of the highest traffic points on the southern border.
It's like the number one place where fentanyl crosses the border.
What we found is absolutely shocking and criminal.
We're sharing the truth.
Others are unwilling to reveal.
The media are just ignoring this whole story.
Take a look at invasion on the southern border.
America is currently experiencing an invasion.
A lot of people coming in from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria.
Is there a fair bit of gang affiliation among them?
Always.
These people are just crossing the border illegally, waving their hands in the air at our cameras, saying, hey, here I am, come get me.
We're no longer the Border Patrol.
We're the Welcome Patrol.
The number one site in America for fentanyl trafficking across the border.
And if Joe Biden remains in office, it's only going to get worse.
I'm Ben Shapiro, and this is the divided states of Biden.
Invasion on the southern border.
Watch now on Daily Wire Plus.
The southern border, as we've been saying, is totally wide open.
The blame is on Joe Biden and Joe Biden only.
You can stop this tomorrow.
Join me on the ground as I bring you the real world consequences of one of the most destructive presidencies in American history.
Watch Invasion on the Southern Border, streaming right now over at Daily Wire+.
So meanwhile, again, the media are trying to drive a sentiment that it's really Republicans who are standing in the way of the border issue.
Joe Biden is the president.
Joe Biden is the guy who's in charge of the border.
It's Joe Biden who's going to war with the state of Texas to keep that border open.
Now again, it is in Donald Trump's political interest for Joe Biden to be put on the defensive.
This is not unusual in politics.
away from negotiations over a border deal, even as Donald Trump moves to scuttle those
talks.
Now again, it is in Donald Trump's political interest for Joe Biden to be put on the defensive.
This is not unusual in politics.
It isn't.
Donald Trump would like for Joe Biden to have to run on his border record.
And he's not wrong.
Joe Biden has the legal authority today.
I'll say this a thousand times because it's true.
He has the legal authority today to close the border and he is not doing any of that.
So you don't need any more negotiations.
You don't need more border law.
You don't need any of that stuff.
Joe Biden could close it today.
He's not doing it.
It is on him.
But they're trying to blame Trump for no more border negotiation or something like that.
The White House is still hopeful a deal could be struck.
On the Hill, negotiators spent a frantic day trying to salvage talks after it was reported on late Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was bowing to Trump's desires to dissolve the border deal.
The following day, McConnell clarified he still supports pursuing border security linked to Ukraine funding, though he and other top Republicans weren't able to entirely assuage murmurs that a deal is on its deathbed.
Democrats were quick to accuse Trump of trying to perpetuate a crisis at the border for political gain.
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee said Senate Republicans are, quote, tanking a border deal for political reasons, but the White House did not join the chorus.
They felt it was imprudent to join the fray.
Well, it is imprudent to join the fray because everyone's just going to point out what I did, which is you don't need a border deal to close the border.
You got all the laws on the books you already need.
The other thing here is that, again, if Joe Biden just caved here, if he just caved, he would get his Ukraine funding, which supposedly he wants.
McConnell, for his part, there was suggestion that he had basically killed the deal himself because he sees there's not enough support in the House to actually pass the deal.
But apparently, on Thursday, he said he still supports a border security deal linked to Ukraine aid.
So, at a tail end of the Senate GOP's last meeting of the week, McConnell removed doubts.
He said he's still forcefully pushing a deal that would pair new border and immigration restrictions with money for Ukraine.
But that's not actually going to solve the problem because it still has to pass in the House.
It's not going to happen today.
We don't even know what this border compromise even looks like at this point.
So before we can make a judgment as to whether Republicans should sign on to it in the House and Senate, we have to find out what it looks like.
And the bottom line is this, even if they sign on to the border compromise, Joe Biden is still responsible for what goes on the border, because again, he already has all the legal authority.
All the legal authority.
Okay, so on to the 2024 race itself.
So, the Republican side of the aisle has already decided it's over.
But, bad luck for the RNC.
The RNC yesterday declared that they were basically going to... There's a draft RNC resolution to declare Trump the presumptive nominee.
That's so stupid.
What is the point of that?
All of this kind of hubbub and melee over Nikki Haley remaining in the race is dumb.
It's really dumb.
Just ignore her if you're Trump.
She's not going to win.
The more attention you pay to her, the more the media is going to pay attention to her.
And Nikki Haley is banging on Trump.
Here's Nikki Haley yesterday, mocking Donald Trump's gaffes, suggesting he's lost a step.
And then Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum.
He pitched a fit.
He was insulting.
He was doing what he does.
But I know that's what he does when he's insecure.
I know that's what he does when he is threatened.
and he should feel threatened, without a doubt.
You know, it's interesting because a few days ago, he was going on and on about me.
I mean, for a while.
On and on about why I didn't send in security to the Capitol on January 6th.
He said it over and over and over and over again.
I mean, somebody's got to tell him I wasn't there on January 6th.
I've never been at the Capitol working at a job like that, but I think he was a bit confused, and so we'll let that pass.
Okay, so again, Donald Trump should just ignore Nikki Haley.
I mean, the more he pays attention to Nikki Haley and the more the RNC tries to preemptively declare the race over, which casts attention, and Nikki Haley, the worse it is for Donald Trump.
Which Trump, I think, knows, which is why he told the RNC to stick it.
He was like, listen, I don't need you to pass a resolution here, guys.
Like, I already know that I have this wrapped up.
Don't need you to preemptively crown me king.
Chip Roy, of course, who's right on most of these issues.
Republican congressman from Texas.
He says, like, it's so stupid that the RNC is attempting to do this.
Just go and earn it.
Like, if Trump is going to win the nomination anyway, why are we doing this?
Well, first let me say that I think, Nicky, with all due respect, he kind of represents that old guard of the Republican Party that I just was kind of lambasting that's big spending and all defense and, you know, endless wars.
I think we need to move a different direction.
I think President Trump represented in 2016 a challenge to the establishment, a, you know, challenge to drain the swamp.
But I don't think we should be coronating somebody.
I went out and campaigned in Iowa.
We don't coronate people.
You know, we don't just choose somebody and, you know, you get anointed.
Go through the process.
Go earn it.
Because it makes you sharper in the general election.
So, you know, if he doesn't think that he has anything to worry about, then don't worry about it.
Go campaign and go win.
He should be able to win in South Carolina based on, I think, the electorate in South Carolina.
So we should proceed with the electoral process.
And if he's ultimately the nominee by votes, then he should be supported as the nominee for the Republican Party.
But you gotta go earn it.
You don't just get coronated.
He's obviously right about all of that.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to be on the campaign trail.
But when I say he's on the campaign trail, I mean they've pretty much like wheeled out his prone body and it's just making noises now.
Like it's very weird.
Here he was just slurring his way through a rally yesterday.
We'll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson.
Don't mess with the middle of America unless you want to get the benefit.
Don't mess with the... We also have some screaming, Joe Biden.
And some more gaffing, Joe Biden.
But it's endless.
I mean, this is like an endless source of a consternation, I think.
It should be to Americans.
It's pretty incredible that this guy is the president.
It cost ten bucks to make it!
Ten bucks to make it!
Okay, people keep pretending that he's not in decline.
Again, I played a clip earlier of him talking about the border.
thanks for the Great Lakes. I wonder why he's coming. My professor, uh, well, I won't get into
my professor. Well, look, my predecessor, though. Okay, people keep pretending that he's not in
decline. Again, I played a clip earlier of him talking about the border. Forget about the content
of what he's saying. I just want to play that again for you.
Because the contrast between Joe Biden 2024 and Joe Biden 2007 is pretty strong for people who do not believe in decline in elderly age for Joe Biden.
And here is Joe Biden, this is again, like 17 years ago.
And this is not the same dude.
The reason that cities ignore the federal law is the fact that there is no funding at the federal level to provide for the kind of enforcement at the federal level you need.
Pick up the New York Times today.
There's a city not far across the river from my state that imposed similar sanctions.
And what they found out is, as a consequence of that, their city went in a dumpster.
Stores started closing.
Everything started to happen.
And they changed the policy.
That is not the same dude, right there.
One of the reasons that he is unpopular, it feels like no one is in control.
That's what it feels like.
But according to Kamala Harris, it's because they haven't taken adequate credit.
This is one of my favorite political lines.
There are certain political lines you hear a lot, like when somebody retires from office for a scandal, they say they want to spend more time with their family.
It's like, nope, you don't.
You're retiring because you were banging a hooker.
And one of the other favorite political lines is, the reason we're unpopular is because people just don't understand what we're doing enough.
Like if only we explained it better.
Okay, explain it to us, Kamala.
So you're right.
We have a lot of accomplishments.
And I think what the American people want most in their leaders is that we actually get things done.
And we have done it.
We haven't taken adequate credit for it, frankly.
And we got to do a better job of getting the word out about what we have accomplished and who did it.
Yeah, that's your real problem is people don't understand you well enough.
I think people understand you.
They just don't like it very much.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are rolling out the big guns in preparation for 2024.
They're rolling out, in fact, their very biggest gun.
Jon Stewart is back.
Now, you may be saying to yourself, isn't Jon Stewart really old?
And you would be correct.
Jon Stewart is now 61 years old.
Jon Stewart is six years younger than my father.
Jon Stewart is like a decade older than Nikki Haley and two decades older than Ron DeSantis.
Jon Stewart is in fact a senior citizen.
And that guy, they're rolling him back out as though he's the voice of a generation over at The Daily Show because The Daily Show has been a crap show ever since Jon Stewart left.
Now, there's something to point out here.
One, they're rolling Jon Stewart out as though he's a trustworthy source.
He's had a show on Apple TV for the last year and it's like literally one of the worst things.
It's just an awful, awful show.
And one of the reasons it's a really awful show is because he doesn't have as good comedy writers.
So, first of all, Comedy Central was a comedy It was a comedy central, right?
It was a comedy network.
And because it was a comedy network, that meant that he had joke writers.
But, his new show is not his old show.
On Apple TV, he actually tries to understand issues and it doesn't go well for him because he just doesn't understand issues.
He's not somebody who spends his life in politics.
Jon Stewart's entire routine, for literally his entire career, has been what we used to call clown nose on, clown nose off.
And that was, when you critique his politics, he would put on the clown nose and go, I'm just a comedian!
You expect a comedian to know anything?
I'm just a comedian, I don't know anything!
Look at these idiot politicians expecting me to know, I'm a comedian!
And then, the minute that he would question somebody, it would be clown nose off.
I have a very serious question for you.
Is it not a comedic one?
A very serious question for you.
And it was really obnoxious and really ugly.
But I want to be clear about something.
Jon Stewart, as a singular media figure, did more over the course of the first decade of the 21st century to destroy actual political media in this country More than anyone else.
More than anyone else.
There used to be a time in this country.
It was funny.
Earlier this week, Lex Friedman, who's a wonderful guy, released a debate that I did with a streamer called Destiny.
I talked about it on the show a little bit earlier.
Stephen Bunnell.
Stephen's a perfectly nice fellow.
He's on the left.
We had a really good, interesting discussion for like two and a half hours.
And it was just us going back and forth on the issues, really sticking to the issues.
And it was conciliatory in mood, but very different in terms of our politics, obviously.
And most of the comments online were things like, it's just great that people can have a discussion anymore.
You want to know who ended the discussion?
It was Jon Stewart.
It really was.
I don't know who recalls this because now an entire generation has passed.
This kind of stuff makes me feel old because I remember when it happened live.
I was 20 when it happened.
And Jon Stewart in 2004 is during the 2004 race between George W. Bush and John Kerry.
And Jon Stewart went on a show that was known as Crossfire.
For those who don't remember kind of media history, Crossfire was a show on CNN that starred Tucker Carlson in a much earlier iteration of Tucker Carlson.
This is bowtie Tucker Carlson versus Paul Begala, who was a Democratic consultant originally for Bill Clinton.
And they would basically get on the air and they would debate issues every day.
And Jon Stewart, who was a comedian playing the clown nose on, clown nose off routine, he goes on CNN and he then proceeds to say that these two are ruining the country for having what was effectively a civil debate about the issues, they were ruining the country.
And here is Jon Stewart wrecking Crossfire.
Again, that was a place where people just had a discussion from different sides of the aisle.
You can't see a show like this anymore.
There used to be lots of shows like this.
There was a show on Fox, it used to be called Hannity and Combs.
Right. A generation ago, Alan Colm's dropped off.
Now it's just Sean Hannity.
There used to be shows on the air all the time.
In which you'd have a member of the right, a member of the left, they would debate.
I believe it or not, when Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe started, Joe Scarborough was more of a Republican and Mika
Brzezinski was more of a Democrat and he used to be more like that.
That has completely disappeared in the modern media landscape.
Why?
It's because of what Jon Stewart did here.
What he did is he lied.
He said that a partisan disagreement is inherently bad, and that it makes the country worse.
And when people air their disagreements in public with one another, and they argue back and forth,
that this rips apart the country.
It's precisely the opposite.
It's when jackasses like Jon Stewart mug for the camera after showing a clip out of context
that the country gets worse.
Instead of actually having to know anything, the entire game becomes show a clip
of somebody doing a dumb thing and then go.
That was Jon Stewart's entire shtick for like 20 years.
And that substituted for actual political conversation.
It substituted for actual political debate.
Nobody got smarter watching Jon Stewart.
In fact, you got significantly dumber watching Jon Stewart's show because his entire shtick was basically a Twitter dunk.
He was Twitter dunks before Twitter dunks were a thing.
Here was Jon Stewart going after Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala.
And basically because of this, again, the notion of like a civil debate
between competing sides of the aisle, which goes all the way back to shows like Firing Line in the
late 60s, early 70s, would be debates between like William F. Buckley and John Kenneth Galbraith.
It used to be people showing up on the show to debate each other, and it would be people
like Malcolm Muggeridge and Bob Woodward.
Or Noam Chomsky would show up and he would be debating somebody like Henry Kissinger, right?
That kind of stuff happened on TV.
It used to actually be an intelligent country, this country.
And then Jon Stewart came along.
And again, it's not as though we were at the peak of television politics.
The Firing Line was a significantly better show than Crossfire.
Because William F. Buckley was frankly much more intelligent than anyone in politics for a very long time, but John Stewart ripping down Crossfire was in fact one of the signal media moments in American history.
Here it was.
I made a special effort to come on the show today because I have privately amongst my friends and also in occasional newspapers and television shows mentioned this show as being bad.
And I wanted to... I felt that that wasn't fair and I should come here and tell you that I don't... It's not so much that it's bad as it's hurting America.
So I wanted to come here today and say... Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.
Just let me hear, here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.
Yeah.
Stop.
Stop, stop, stop.
Stop hurting America.
And come work for us, because we, as the people... How do you pay?
The people, not well.
Better than CNN, I'm sure.
But, you can sleep at night.
See, the thing is, we need your help.
Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations, and we're left out there to mow our lawn.
You just said we're too rough on them when they make mistakes.
No, no, no, you're not too rough on them.
You're part of their strategies.
You're partisan.
What do you call it?
Hacks.
You're doing theater when you should be doing debate, which would be great.
It's not honest.
What you do is not honest.
What you do is partisan hackery.
Okay.
So again, he's the one being dishonest, right?
How do you say, I need you to help the country, right?
I mean, he's, this is a demagogic argument in the disguise of comedy, which is what Jon Stewart did better than literally anyone.
Very talented at it.
Not gonna pretend he's not talented.
He was, he was super talented at it.
But what he is doing in that particular clip is really dishonest.
What he is saying is that you guys, you're, you're just, you're helping the politicians because instead of just having a debate, you're actually helping the politicians by being partisan hacks.
Well, What you are basically saying is that one side deserves defense and the other side deserves mockery, which was actually Jon Stewart's model.
Jon Stewart's model.
And then when he called upon, he said, well, I'm just a comedian.
I'm just a comedian.
So now they're bringing him back from the dead and they're going to have him on, I guess, once a week on Mondays to talk about the election and make the country worse again.
But I think it is worthwhile to point out that nearly all political commentary on cable TV has now become Jon Stewart.
Jon Stewart turned everybody into Jon Stewart.
Virtually every mainstream political commentator on TV Now does this model.
If you pick up a show on CNN, MSNBC, or even Fox News right now, if you watch those shows, you're very unlikely to see in-depth political commentary.
What you're much more likely to see is somebody doing a quasi-comedic monologue with a pick-and-pick where somebody makes a face.
Everyone turned to Jon Stewart because of Jon Stewart.
Did our politics get better or worse?
It turns out that mockery is really bad for politics.
Sometimes mockery is deserved and mockery is funny, and we do some of it on the show.
What we also try to do is actually go through the issues in depth.
Jon Stewart never tried to do that, but he was really successful at not doing that.
Faux ignorance, it turns out, is really a successful, it's a successful strategy.
Being an ignoramus for pay is a great strategy in the modern media.
All you do is say, I don't even know what's going on, man.
I don't even know what's going on.
All I know is that.
That was Jon Stewart's entire model.
And you know what?
It became all of politics.
And that was not good for American politics.
Joining us on the line is Spencer Lindquist.
He's a field reporter for The Daily Wire and he is currently down at the U.S.-Mexico border right now.
Spencer, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you very much for having me.
So let's talk about what you are seeing today down at the southern border.
Where are you at the border?
So I'm right here at Shelby Park.
This is in Eagle Pass, Texas.
This behind me right here, this is the International Bridge leading into Mexico, and this park has been the epicenter of this feud between the state of Texas and Governor Abbott and the federal government.
Of course, we had this Supreme Court ruling just this week, and we've had this ongoing struggle over whether or not the state of Texas can put up razor wire to deter migrants coming in.
So the state of Texas can, in fact, they've not been ordered not to take the razor wire and put it there.
It's just that they can't stop the federal government from dismantling the razor wire.
If Border Patrol wants to go and dismantle the razor wire, then the state of Texas, according to the Supreme Court, has to let them go and do that.
This all seems to be coming to a head because, of course, Governor Abbott has now suggested that he is going to not only continue to erect razor wire, but also maybe take other measures.
The reality is, of course, until Texas comes up with a mechanism for expelling people back to Mexico, That razor wire can only stop people theoretically from crossing the border.
Where is the razor wire?
Is it actually in American territory?
Is it right on the border?
What are you seeing over there?
So we're seeing two different types of wire that they're using here on the border.
And this is right on the banks of the Rio Grande, spanning the entire length of this park.
So they've got shipping containers, and on top of those shipping containers, they have actual full-fledged razor wire.
And then on the ground, they've got something called triple-strand concertina wire, which is similar but a little bit different.
And all this is to serve as a deterrent And of course, what the Supreme Court has ruled, as you stated, is that Border Patrol can cut through this wire.
They are allowed to do that.
But the catch is that the Texas National Guard and the Texas DPS are not allowing Border Patrol into this park.
So the park is sealed off at all the entrances.
It's very tightly controlled.
And really, it's just Texas authorities and certain members of the media that are being let in.
But beyond that, All these entrances are very much sealed by Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety.
So what are you hearing from members of Border Patrol or anyone else over there about that standoff, which really doesn't seem to be at the razor wire itself.
It seems to be at the entry to the park.
Has there been any arguing?
What exactly is happening?
There's been a little bit of confusion because we actually have seen some Border Patrol vehicles entering the park.
And something interesting here is that there's a boat ramp.
So they are allowing limited access to Border Patrol so they can use this boat ramp.
But beyond that, I really haven't seen any interaction between members of Border Patrol and members of these Texas authorities.
So the conflict really does seem relegated to, of course, the media and the courts and this wider political struggle.
But here on the ground, There really isn't too much tension between these two groups.
And we know today that there was an ultimatum, a deadline really, that was set saying that Border Patrol must be given access to the park.
From what I've seen on the ground here, there doesn't seem to be much confidence that the federal government is actually going to be taking much in the way of action if that deadline is not met.
So, have you seen a lot of illegal immigrants at the actual border itself?
What's the status of the actual, you know, what are you seeing there?
So it certainly seems that these fortifications have worked.
I came here in May in 2023 and it was a wildly different scene.
We saw really this was publicly accessible and you could go really almost all the way up to the border and you did see people coming in.
There's videos that have circulated of Dozens, even hundreds of people coming in through this crossing.
But right now we're not seeing very much the wave crossings.
There was recently just a dam that let more water flow down the Rio Grande.
So this increased water, this increased rising water level is suppressing some of that turnout from the migrants.
But at the same time, we do know that the actions from DPS and the National Guard are Cutting back on the number of crossings that they're seeing.
Just last night, I actually obtained a video where a Texas Department of Public Safety and National Guard worked together to apprehend some illegal migrants, and they actually arrested and imprisoned those who came here.
They charged them with trespassing.
So we do know that these tactics have been effective.
So presumably, you know, you mentioned they've been charged with trespassing.
That's a domestic American crime.
Presumably they would be, if convicted, held in a domestic American prison or turned over to the federal government if immigration status was checked, which I assume it will be.
They're not here legally.
And so the question then is what the federal government does with them.
Do you have any status or what is the plan with those particular people?
So that is one of the sticking points right now.
Like you said, these people that are being taken to local domestic jails, domestic prisons.
So we don't know exactly where these people are going to end up, but we do know that They're going out of their way, the Texas authorities that is, to not just hand these people over to Border Patrol.
Because they know that if they do hand them over to Border Patrol, what will likely happen is they'll be processed, they may be handed off to an NGO that will allow them to fly throughout the rest of the country.
So there are specific actions that are being taken by Texas authorities to make sure that these people do not be handed over to Border Patrol for that reason, for the fear that they will just be processed and allowed into the interior.
So obviously this situation continues to be very fluid on the ground.
We're going to have to come back to you for updates as you gain any more information.
What are you hearing from the various sides of this debate on the ground?
You said that there seems to be mostly confusion on the ground.
What are you hearing from Texas state authorities as well as the Border Patrol and the federal authorities?
Well, it certainly seems that Texas DPS and National Guard are set on maintaining their fortifications here.
Just last night, I saw engineers with the National Guard putting up more razor wire.
So, they certainly have no intention of backing down, no intention of taking down this razor wire, and it doesn't seem that they have any intention of letting Border Patrol take control of the park either.
So, it seems that Texas is digging in their heels, and it's certainly going to be interesting to watch how this situation progresses in the coming days.
That's Spencer Lindquist reporting from the border.
Spencer, really appreciate your time and thanks for your insight on the ground.
Thank you very much.
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