Gillespie County Texas

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David Treibs

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This is a meeting place for conservatives in Gillespie County, Texas.

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David Treibs

January 9, 2022 11:56 am

Can Texas go to the border and just turn back every single person who crosses the river and turn them back into Mexico? US Rep Chip Roy, interviewed by Angela Smith and Matt Long of the Fredericksburg... View MoreCan Texas go to the border and just turn back every single person who crosses the river and turn them back into Mexico? US Rep Chip Roy, interviewed by Angela Smith and Matt Long of the Fredericksburg TEA Party This is an edited transcript. I tried to capture what I thought the speaker said or meant, not every utterance. David C Treibs, 12-18-21 US Rep Chip Roy In our state immediately return illegals that are caught back to the country of origin. That was the main question. And then that then kind of launches into a bigger question; the issue generally. What I would say is that, let me start with one overarching and that is where we can kind of rock and roll. But let me start with one overarching principle that I think kind of guides the way we as Texans should be thinking about this. Under the Constitution, we remain a state, a people who have a sovereign duty to protect ourselves. Under the United States Constitution, that remains true. I take it a step further at some point. And I believe very much in the rule of law and following the Constitution always. It's the one thing that's the glue that holds us together, and we have to do it and keep fighting the fight under it. However, our fundamental duty of a human being, in my case, as a husband and father, our families, what we're doing is to protect our loved ones, our communities--that comes first. And Texas is under siege. We're under attack. The cartels, the dangerous narcotics, fentanyl, the sex trafficking, human trafficking, the impact on our economy, all of the things that endanger people, the ranches, that endanger people in their homes. All of that is very real. It's in our communities, and it's happening. And we have an obligation to stop it. Now, what happens is our obligation to stop it is running up against the constitutional order, as it has been applied, both rightly at times or wrongly at times, which has led to this idea that the federal government has 100% control over the border. I think that is overstated, number one; and number two, it's certainly no matter how you view it doesn't mean we don't have an obligation, Texas, to do what we have to do to preserve and protect our communities. So, specifically under the Constitution. If you look at Article One of the Constitution, section 10, it gets into and recognizes our sovereign power to respond. So when the federal government fails to fulfill its duty, that Article One Section 10 language guarantees our ability to repel an invasion and defend the citizenry. It's something in the realm of, I don't have the language right in front of me. But, that guarantees our ability to repel an invasion and defend ourselves from, I think, it's imminent danger. So if you start with that, you say, okay, that to me should be our guiding principle and just basically frame everything we do, think, and say, as Texans about this issue. To answer your question about why, at least in theory, why it's tough. And on that question, why can't Texas immediately return illegals? And I responded to you that it's complicated. It's simple on the straightforward question of, We just need to secure our borders and go do it. It's complicated, because of the resources necessary to do it. Number one, we'd have to take extraordinary measures. I'm not saying we shouldn't. In fact, I think we should. But we would have to take extraordinary measures, which is expensive, and would take our ability to marshal all the forces necessary, and then start acting to do so; number one. Number two, then that rubs up against, where do we return them to? Okay, we take people and they tell us that from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, whatever, which we're at 90% of people coming right now are coming from; do we fly them back? Under what expense all of those complications? So, again, I'm speaking from Texas' perspective. Then then you have to figure out, if we're going to return them under the policies we were following under the Trump administration, properly, in my view, we were returning to Mexico, under the MVP protocols, return to Mexico, President Trump, rightly and forcefully being a strong commander in chief, strong executive, he used the threat of trade issues with Mexico to say, Hey, guys, you're gonna let us return folks to Mexico. So we started doing that. We started literally immediately taking them and putting them right back over in Mexico. And then that drove the numbers down precipitously, because we had had that big surge that was caused--there are a whole lot of reasons--it was caused it was that the family unification issues, all that stuff. But we had a big surge, and the President said, Hey, we got to do something about it. And he was getting all the push back from the Democrats who are perfectly fine with open borders, they don't care about our security and health and safety. So between Title 42, using the pandemic, in particular, but Title 42 helped him, plus, Return To Mexico was returning them. So, why don't we do that as Texas? Here's the problem. I'm not saying we can't, I'm just saying that what rubs up against is we, then, Texas, if we say you know what, we've decided today, we're done. We're going to end this. Let's say we conscript a bunch of Texans and we say, All right, we're going to go get 20,000 Texans, and we're going to go line the border. And, by the way, these are things that I think we might oughta consider doing. I'm just saying, you got to go through this process, you got to get those people, you got to train them. We've got to figure out what we're going to do and how we're going to get them back. And, let me pause for a second. I've gone to the border so many times, I can't count, to go meet with ranchers with Border Patrol agents--not the higher up bureaucrats--the people on the line. And then I've gone and spoken with the migrants, every single time I go there, I go down straight to the river I talk to the people as they are coming across in my broken Spanish, but, I talk to them. For the most part, the people that we're finding the ones coming across to seek asylum, even though it's a false use of asylum, these are good people. And, as Christians, what you and I, the three of us, and anybody that's listening to this, if this gets posted, that believes in caring for the least among us, and those that are struggling and suffering, and humanity, these are good people that we have a duty as a human, to go figure out what to do with, humanely, when we get riled up in Texas because we're going to wait we're under assault. And, we are. People lose sight of the fact Yeah, but we have to create a system that's going to properly deal with these human beings who are often children, often moms, often young guys that are with families. Because what's happening is the bad guys that are coming into our country, however many that is, and we have to estimate those numbers, usually come in between the ports of entry. And they're not these masses that we're dealing with at, McAllen, right there, coming in from Reynosa under the bridge. So why do I give all that background? Because now you have to deal with that issue. Angela So you have a humanitarian issue. Chip Roy Correct. When when you hear people say, Guys, why don't we just go down there with guns and start shooting? Because neither you nor I, nor Matt or anyone else I know who's a caring human being is going to shoot a family coming across the river. So what we do, what the tension is, we have to go down and say, Okay, we're gonna line the borders and say: Enough. All right, now somebody comes across. What do we do with them? We're operating under law. So, if you're operating under the current federal law as it's being applied, if the federal government is saying, we're not going to apply Title 42, which is the limit on saying, we're going to turn you immediately back because of health reasons. And if current federal law being applied by the federal government as, we think these are all asylum seekers, and they need to have a full hearing. So we'll give them a hearing. But we don't have enough judges to give them a hearing. That's not accurate, by the way, they're not actually seeking asylum, you can make that determination immediately. Also, title 42 is supposed to short circuit that and say, Guys, you can't come here right now because of pandemic. But the feds are saying that. And then at the feds are saying, Hey, by the way, we don't have a return to Mexico agreement right now. So we have no place to put them. Then, if Texas is going to act on that and say you know what, enough. And I believe Texas is in a position now where we need to act on that, then you're going to have to basically step up and say, This is the actual application of the Constitution, the United States under Article One, Section 10. This is the application of the Constitution of the United States in the sense that we're defending, we're in imminent danger, and we're defending Texas. And oh, by the way, we believe it's consistent with the Constitution, but also the federal law. Because title 42 says that there's a pandemic, we also believe it's consistent that we can work and come up with our own deal with Mexico, and say that we're going to return people to Mexico, that's when Texas steps up. And Texas would have to take extraordinary steps to say, hey, there was Mexico, we're Texas, and every road, that a port of entry coming into Texas, where you send hundreds of millions of dollars of goods and services up into the United States has to come through Texas, and we're shutting those roads down, unless you work with us to create facilities where we can house people. So if I were doing it, what I would be recommending is Texas needs to say enough for shutting the road down. Texas needs to send our own massive group, before it forces, to secure the border, select people, and then take those people and then return them to Mexico because we work out an agreement with Mexico. I think we should work with non-governmental organizations, church groups, Samaritan's Purse, whoever it is some groups and say, create facilities on the south side of the Rio Grande, that we know will be safe. But if you come here to the United States, and you have come illegally, which is almost everybody that's coming, you're going to be put right back in those facilities across the south side of the river. And that's the end of it. And there's no more, and then the flow would stop. And then literally the flow would stop, if that started happening. Now. The problem is, what happens if the feds and the state conflict? And then you actually have a standoff down at the river where you have some sort of conflict or defense. Right now you have border patrol, they're all set up down there to process all these people. So what happens when there's a conflict between Border Patrol and whatever we want to do as Texas. Those are the complicated things that we would have to work through to figure it out. But the short answer for why the Feds aren't returning people is because they've chosen not to. That's a simple answer. It's not because they can't. It's because they won't. Then they'll say, We can't because Mexico won't take them. No, you can't because you haven't pressed Mexico, or forced Mexico to take them. Now, do I think we ought to have better organized efforts with non-governmental organizations to make sure there's an encampment on the south side of the Rio Grande that is safe? For the--call it two weeks, two months of--transition, where people have been coming up flowing up to the border, and they think they can get in. And we start, we finally wake up and say, Hey, nope, no, you can't, the flow stops, but it takes a minute for the water in the pipe to stop flowing. We should have non-governmental organizations over there to ensure their safety and security so the cartels don't abuse them, we should secure the border, we should send them back to Mexico, put them in the camps, and stop the flow. That's what we should do as a country. But Biden won't do it. So if Texas is going to step into the breach, all of that stuff I laid out, and some other stuff in and around that, is what you have to work through. And all of this, by the way, flows from--when you go down the river and I know, Matt, we've talked about you joining the next time if I go down--is, there's signs down on the trees at the Rio Grande that say "asilo," "a-s-i-l-o," "asilo," with an arrow, I can send you a picture that I took of those signs, I'll do that when we hang up. And then there's an arrow pointing to the processing facility. "Asilo," three miles or "asilo," one mile, whatever. Go this way. And then there's little arrows, and those are all printed on Homeland Security stationery and a little sign. And they're pointed to the processing facility under the bridge in Reynosa. Technically, McAllen, on our side of the river. But, by the way, that means we're prejudging: oh, you're claiming asylum. Go this way. Well, 90 plus percent of these people are not actually qualified to get asylum under our laws. And we're sending a message to people that they can just come into our country, because they want economic opportunity. That's not true. You can, you can come here, and you can claim asylum, if you're fleeing religious persecution. Or if you're fleeing some specific kind of persecution, even then there are some requirements and standards that you have to be processed under asylum. But these aren't even close. And so, what we're doing is we're creating this environment and causing people to come up here and claim asylum, which they're not actually able to do under our laws. But we're just taking all these numbers, and then we process them and we release them into our country. And they don't really come back. We don't get them back for hearings to determine whether or not they're actually qualified for asylum. So we need to reform our asylum laws. We need to reform our catch and release laws. Literally pass new laws to change those and tweak them to make clear what they mean. We need to change our laws. And a lot of these are in response to some of the judge-made rulings and laws under catch and release, the Florida settlement, and some other things that I can get into the details. But, bottom line is you got to structure all these things. But the immediate health implications of the flow across the border are so legitimate, you really don't even have to get to those questions because under Title 42 You say look, what a pandemic, just stop. Angela Smith: Let me go back to the part that what happens if the Fed in this state clash? It looks like they have chosen not to do their job. They've not pressed Mexico. What happens if the feds and the state conflict? We do train people, and we know that we have a humanitarian problem, and we start with physically, practically, whatever, start this process. Does this mean that the Border Patrol is going to stand there with weaponry and say you're not going to do that? What could happen? Matt Long Towards Texas troops, right? Federal versus Texas? Angela Smith Yes, Texas starts moving. What, what are we looking at that could potentially happen? What could that look like that we might be fearful of? US Rep Chip Roy: It would depend on the process of how this is all carried out as to what might occur. But remember, it gets to the heart of the practical reality of how Texas inserts into it. If Texas takes an action, somebody is going to challenge that action in court. They'll go straight to a federal judge to get an injunction to say the action being taken by Texas is illegal, or unconstitutional. That'll be the challenge. That will happen. So if we have Texas forces go down, or Texas forces are in agreement with Mexico, or Texas takes some action, or we go take 10 or 20 or 50,000 Texans and we go line the border--and by the way--I act like that's a simple thing to do. But that's just for hypothetical purposes. Even if they were trained, and you have DPS, and you have the law enforcement from the AG's office, and you had a bunch of Sheriffs that are trained. Then you go down. The last thing you want is a trigger happy idiot to shoot an innocent family-- I say "innocent" loosely here--coming illegally across our border, but who believe they can get asylum. And some cartel guy floats them across, or the cartel guy sometimes doesn't come across, he just says, Hey, I brought you to the river, here's your inner tube, go over the River and walk over to processing. So, often we're just getting a big mass of family members? We don't have "the bad guy" with them, because "the bad guy," the cartel guy, is off somewhere, or the bad guy is the guy that's gonna meet them. And then knows they are coming, and we'll go find them and hold them for ransom in America. Or the bad guy is, frankly, our own federal government making policies that are encouraging it. So now let's just assume for the sake of argument, we could have a well trained group of individuals sitting there in McAllen, and then they start to act. So what would they do? They would try to intercept these people before the Border Patrol. Assume you've got our guys down there--Texans--and they go intercept someone who come to comes across the river, a family, however they get down there. Assuming they can get down to that part of the river. And we intercept. Now, what do we do with them? Okay, are we going to get our own buses when they go take them up to the bridge, and then ride them back across or take them up, and then walk them back across the bridge and say, go back to Mexico? And let's say, let's say we can successfully force Mexico to reach an agreement with us? Someone will sue, before we get either very far at all, or before we even start, to go to court and say "injunction:" Texas is forbidden under federal law ABCDEFG. Now, some judge somewhere in going to enjoin Texas, until that can be sorted out. And, however long that takes to go up the courts to say, Wait, those Texas have the power to do that we would claim we do under Article One, Section 10. We would claim we do under other theories of law. And we would say we have the ability to defend ourselves, and so forth, and so we're doing it. But now you're in court, if you abide by that. Unless Texas says I don't know what you think you're going to do under an injunction under the federal courts, but we're going to say under the Constitution and our application of it; we're defending Texas, sorry, we're in imminent danger, we're taking action. The second kind of level of what happens is: what happens if Border Patrol or is some other federal authorities join the Border Patrol, FBI otherwise and say, you Texans, whoever they are, they might be DPS officers, or they might be a sheriff, they might be just a Texan. Then the feds come in with some authority and say, no, no, you're violating federal law. I'm arresting you, or I'm right. Then there's that potential conflict, like Border Patrol under their courts. They could exercise some authority; I don't know what their authority is to do; I'd have to go look at that, like who has the authority to do that sort of thing. But there's a conflict there. Say, you had federal officials under order from the federal government. There's a court injunction saying Texas can't do this, and Texas is doing it anyway. So then what happens. There's that whole flow, and so forth and so forth. And we can keep going down those hypotheticals, but those are the kinds of conflicts that would arise. And, immediately, the left's going to go into court if Texas takes some action on its own that is contrary to the Biden administration's application of federal law at the border, they'll go into court to get an injunction, and almost certainly will get one. They will get an order by a federal judge to say, Nope, you Texas can't do that. And then we would have to figure out how we were going to act under that; just keep letting the feds have a wide open border, or is Texas going to say, Nope, sorry, guys, you want to litigate that out in court, be my guest. But I'm not letting any more of this come through and distract our border patrol and make things so dangerous for Texas. To me, the biggest danger we have as Texans is not the family units that are coming in, per se, that's a danger because it overwhelms our social welfare state and overwhelms our system, and overwhelms our schools, and it creates a magnet for more. The imminent danger comes more--I wouldn't say that there's not a danger from those family units, there is some. But the danger comes more especially because of pandemic and COVID and other things--health reasons when you have that many people coming in--but it comes more from those coming in between the ports of entry, potential terrorists, gang members, the reach of significant cartels, and fentenyl and dangerous narcotic coming up into our state. That, to me, is the imminent danger. Angela Is there any other...when we talk about, for instance, Colorado who said, We don't care if y'all think weed, marijuana, is considered illegal, we're legalizing it in this state, and they are doing it. Is there any comparison to that whole idea of just saying we're safe, we have state sovereignty, and this is what we're gonna do. Chip Roy There is a comparable philosophical comparison, it is comparable. But, it is also not comparable. It is comparable philosophically. And then you see the result. Now, the feds are starting to back off with the processing of crimes with respect to possession of marijuana, etc, in those states. And in fact, I voted for better or worse, people in district may agree or disagree with me, I think most agree. But I voted to agree that the Department of Justice should use prosecutorial discretion to say we're not going to go prosecuting marijuana possession violations in states where those states have chosen to legalize. I'm not a "legalize weed." I don't think that's good for society as a general matter. However, I'm a Federalist. So there's a tension there. I have voted against a few other measures, because I think they go too far too fast and violate principles, and we don't need to get to that here. But my point is, there is a philosophical similarity. However, the difference is, under the Constitution, the United States, there is an empowerment of the federal government on issues involving immigration and the flow across the board. And of course, that's a natural place for the federal government to act. They're supposed to secure our border. In a normal universe, the first order of government is to secure the border of a sovereign nation. And of course to deal, then, with the immigration flow in at least conjunction with the state or states in question. But in this case, the feds are abdicating their responsibility to protect. What do we do? That's a different structure than marijuana bans. It's the actual duty of the federal government, and they're not upholding it. So now the state is stepping in, and, remember, Arizona versus United States, I think is what the style of the case was. Remember that the court--it was a five to three, I think, at least one of the bills. There were several bills in question. And I think it was five to three, Anthony Kennedy. But I have to go back and look, I'm sorry, I'm a little rusty. But were effectively, the Feds stepped on Arizona's attempt to enforce federal law. Federal immigration law in Arizona. Now that got to them checking driver's licenses at stops in Arizona, checking if they are illegal or not, and then going and take them to the border patrol or taking them to ice and processing and so forth. Right? And the court said you can't do that. And of course there were some scathing dissent by Scalia. I don't want to misspeak here. I'm going to go back and reread. But that the rough gist is, that's correct. The courts basically said, yeah, sorry, you can't stage, you can't go act as an agent of the essentially federal law and carry out enforcement of the federal immigration law. Now, I think that court case or cases, plural, I think they got it wrong. As you know, I agree with the dissent, but again, in this world in which we live under judicial review, and under the rule of law, as we interpret it, as the court interprets it, then there's where the conflict would be. So we'd have to decide as Texas, Texas is going to say Sorry, we're enforcing these laws, then it might run square into that Supreme Court decision of a few years back. Now, we have different court now, different circumstances. This is Texas, we're actually just stopping the flow of the border. We're not stopping people at random stops in Texas. We want to stop at the border. But regardless, I think at the end of the day, we're getting to that critical juncture, where states have got to start deciding, in this case, Texas, Arizona as well, New Mexico and California too, but they won't do it. We have to decide, are we going to protect our communities, yes or no--no matter what. Do we do we believe that article one section 10, or that the Constitution generally, as instructions, posits that we have a sovereign right, to defend our communities and ourselves? I think ultimately, we do. It defies all logic and reason to say, Oh, sure, the federal government can just allow, for example, a Mexican army or militia to come plowing into Texas, and we can't repel it. So you say, That's not this. Hold on a second. By continuing to allow this flow of individuals across our border, and then, therefore, leaving our whole border wide open and exposed because border patrol's processing it, and you guys aren't providing resources, you're effectively abandoning your post. And as a result, Texans are dying. So to h___ with you, we're gonna step in and solve the problem. But that's the level of action that would be required in Texas. Now, to be clear, I favor that level of action. I think that's where we are. I think it is time, now; we had 188,000 intercepts in May. That now takes us over a million for this fiscal year. It takes us I think it's over 900,000, even just this calendar year; I need go back and look at the numbers. These are extraordinary numbers. And, and that doesn't account for the getaways and so forth. And we've been capturing more fentanyl than we've ever taught before etc, etc. Angela I want to add one other thing. One of our Tea Party members sent me a picture of a bus in Center Point. This was on Thursday of last week. A picture of a bus in Center Point which is just right outside of Kerrville. And about 50 people in pajamas, and new fanny packs, got off the bus in Center Point. She has a video, and she has the company. And these people, apparently, are being dumped off in our back yard. I said who allowed even that to happen? I mean, once you even get to the point of bringing them into Center Point is there anything we can do; or for Fredericksburg or Kerrville, to say, No, you're not going to drop them here. They just drive in and they don't even let the city officials know and they just drop them. Chip Roy I do think this is one of the things that we need to get answers to right now. And this is another thing that I've had my staff trying to press on. And I'm trying to figure out how to make it more of a public fight over: where is everyone going? Where are they taking everybody? And we're trying to press to get that information? as well, we're trying to get any kind of a hearing. Of course, we never get it. And so they never respond to any of our inquiries. So we're trying to figure out a force some of those questions. We have some possible ways we can do it, but we're trying. Angela Smith So anyway, thank you very much for the conversation and the information. Texans really are where you are saying where we are. We're just done. And I think if we don't do something, then we really are going to have what I'd call a powder keg. I think we'd be better for us to do something proactive than for us to just sit around. And I feel horrible for the sheriffs and the people living in the border region. I mean, it's just unbelievable what they're having to go through. Chip Roy I agree with you, and there's so many important issues. But this is the most important issue right now for me, in terms of its direct impact on Texas, and Texans. And so we're trying to figure out how to elevate it at every turn, every possible way. The biggest thing has been to shine a light on it. And to move more Republicans to understand that we have to do something. I think we've succeeded in that. It is a front burner issue here. But we've got to figure out now how to turn that into action. And we have to figure out what our demand is and request is appropriately for the state. I always try to be very careful as a federally elected officer, to tell Texas legislators or the governor what to do. But I try to rattle about it or put things out there where I think it's appropriate. For example, when businesses and wineries and breweries and distilleries and all the stuff were being shut down last summer, fighting and raising Cain, about that, the thinking that Texas should be better than that. I think we're getting to that place now. I'll let the governor's race play out however the governor's race is gonna play out. Right now we have to demand that Texas stand up. And we've got a lot more that I think we need to do. Angela Smith That people are needing this kind of information and these kinds of answers so that they can press on elected officials right now. I don't think they even know what to ask them. Chip Roy I think the simple thing that what I've been telling everybody to do, in order to do it, is to get us information, to get us examples of what's happening, number one. And number two, it's to demand very clearly of every Texas legislator in this special session right now to say, Look; and [to demand] of the governor, the call. So I would be demanding that we have a call for Texas to take some additional action, additional funding, additional laws, whatever. And then specifically, the governor, that Texas take action right now to secure the border. I guess the most important thing that can be done. It doesn't have to be specific. Literally just say, provide the resources right now today to secure the border. And then be very specific: when you have this many people, you can't go down and arrest people and go put them in jail, we'll fill up our Texas jails, you got to have an actual plan to secure the border. So, go do it. Just say, Enough. We don't want any more of this. And say, No excuses. And there's one other thing I want your help with, I want everyone in the district to give me examples. And I've put it up on my websites; there's a place for it. So I'll send this to you guys. But I want people to give me examples of border security issues, but also woke issues like critical race theory in schools, other issues that are hot, election fraud issues. I've created a place on my website to try to capture examples that I can then go use. And so I'll send that to you to try to encourage people to get that around so they can provide those examples.

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