We’re joined by Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council. Brandon, no doubt you were listening to all of this, as Brett said it took 40 minutes or so to get into the immigration issue, what did you think of what you heard tonight?
Brandon Judd: First, I think that he slapped at every American in the face. He didn’t address what, what he could do. All he did was blamed it on President Trump. But look, I have the opportunity to be with President Trump. I know that the reason why he didn’t support that bill has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with the President understands it, from day one he could step into office and do a lot more than what that bill does. He also understands that if a bill were to be passed today, that there would be no appetite to pass a better bill when he’s in office. So he looks at this and says, I can do a lot more than this. I could actually hurt the country if I supported this bill and that’s why he doesn’t. It has nothing to do with politics.
Now, when you look at the reason that we support the bill is, President Biden has put us in this situation. He has put us in the situation that we never thought that we would ever be in. We’re apprehending seven, seven times more people than what we normally apprehend. We have 10x the gotta aways than we’ve ever seen. We got more Fentanyl coming into this country from him we have more than 10 times the god of ways then we’ve ever seen we’ve got more fentanyl coming into this country than what we’ve ever seen before. We’ve got more dangerous criminals coming into this country than we’ve ever seen before. We’ve got terrorists on the terrorist watch list that are coming into the country. He didn’t address any of that.
So, he’s put us in a position that we’re going to accept anything that is better than the status quo, and not bill is better than the status quo. But the President [Trump] disagrees with it because he understands that he can do more than what that bill would do. So it’s, it’s completely disingenuous that he’s talking about a border bill and putting it on Congress, when he has the Executive Authority right now to do more than that border bill would ever do. But he’s not going to do it because if he did something like that he would be admitting that over the past three years it’s been his fault that we have this, this crisis at the border. So, he didn’t announce anything today that is actually going to help us secure the border. So, that was a slap in the face of all Americans.
He says in the speech, the bill would save lives, bring order to the border. It would also give me, as president, new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is over overwhelming. And then he points to your union endorsing the bill. So, what you’re saying is that’s not the whole story.
Brandon Judd: No, of course it’s not the whole story, but he never gives us the whole story. There are certain points. The reason that we supported the bill is because it’s better than the status quo. What we wanted to see, is we wanted to see it go to the floor to be debated, to have amendments put in there to make that bill much better. It is not the perfect bill, we’ve never said it was the perfect bill. But it is better than the status quo. But we have to look at what can a president do right now? Does he have the authority to shut down the border right now, and he does. He does have that authority. He doesn’t need legislation. Does he have the authority to surge asylum officers to the border? He does have that authority. Can he send immigration judges to the borders today? He can do that. He has that authority. All he has to do is work with the DOJ to make that happen. There’s a lot of things that he can do that he refuses to do because, again, he would be admitting that he is at fault for the last three years.
We appreciate your perspective on a big issue tonight, thank you
Brandon Judd: Thank you.
