Remarks by President Trump in Roundtable on Border Security | Eastern North Carolina Now

    You also have a .50 caliber rifle. During the inspection at the port of entry, officers, with the use of NII equipment, or X-rays, were able to detect a compartment. That compartment was found in the backseat of a vehicle. Subsequently, with the assistance of our Homeland Security investigative partners and Air Marine, there was a surveillance that was conducted on the vehicle when it went to a undisclosed location. From that location, a traffic stop was conducted, and the .50 caliber rifle was found, sir.

    Now, these three guns that you see, they're gold-plated handguns and with diamonds encrusted.

    THE PRESIDENT: Okay. That says it all. And this is just all recent. This is all very recent. They didn't have to go very far. This is all very recent. Okay?

    MS. LUCIO: Good morning, Mr. President, and welcome to the McAllen Station. I am the (inaudible) in charge here at McAllen Station, and we're very pleased to have you here. $362,000. This was a multi-agency seizure. It actually was detected by a Weslaco Border Patrol Station K-9 handler.

    What ended up happening: There was a suspected currency smuggler who (inaudible) a traffic stop, and resulted in further investigation. He gave us consent into his house. K-9 came in, searched, and this was caught. This suspect was suspected also of marriage fraud. He was an overstay. He also had multi-thousands of dollars of financial transactions, all with illicit activity. $362,000 of many.

    THE PRESIDENT: Wow. That's (inaudible). And the dogs are incredible, aren't they?


    MS. LUCIO: They're a great tool.

    THE PRESIDENT: In terms of finding the drugs but also they find money and drugs. They find drugs.

    MS. LUCIO: They also find people.

    THE PRESIDENT: And they find people.

    MS. LUCIO: People that are hidden away.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, it's pretty incredible.

    MS. LUCIO: And when we get a chance, I have some other things that I would like to call to your attention.

    THE PRESIDENT: Sure, go ahead.

    MS. LUCIO: Yes, absolutely.

    I'll start it from here. Sorry, sir - if you will. So, Falfurrias checkpoint, which is north of here, two suspects that were being smuggled in the trunk of a car. It just so happens, after records checks were run, one of the subjects actually had an Interpol hit. He was actually wanted out of the Spain for murder.

    Here, we've got pictures depicting some seizures of marijuana and firearms. It just so happens, when this multiagency taskforce, Border Patrol included, went to go execute a warrant, the suspects inside the house actually started trying to burn the marijuana, and actually tried to throw it throughout the yard. But we were able to successfully get in, seize the marijuana, and make the arrests, as well as other seizures.

    This here, very sad. Your words resonate with me. It's very dangerous. We've got a vehicle that failed to yield to Border Patrol agents. This vehicle - eventually, the driver lost control, impelled the vehicle onto a pipe gate. A juvenile died in that vehicle. Fifteen to sixteen other subjects seriously injured. All illegal in the United States.

    Here, you're seeing the inside of a horse trailer where smugglers endangered these folks that they were smuggling, again, at the Falfurrias checkpoint.

    Here, this is just a couple miles from here, from where we're standing. This is a tunnel. This is the second tunnel that recently we have located. This is an area that we actually have wall. And we actually have some technology and agents. That piece of area was really important to the criminal organization.

    We are doing such a great job utilizing the right resource in that particular area, that they've become so frustrated they're using other tactics. They're actually digging tunnels. This is about 25 feet long, about two to three feet high. We were fortunate enough that when the station next to us, their boat patrol actually launched in our area and went down. They're very vigilant. They look for new landings. They look for anything that was different the day before. And they were actually able to see - this was very well hidden - but they were so vigilant, they found this. There is no telling what all else was going to come through this. But they were successful.

    Here, this vehicle was actually floated across the Rio Grande River with narcotics. Floated on a trailer with barrels. Narcotics in the bed of the truck. Narcotics in the cab of the truck.

    This is technology that we have here in the McAllen area - making use of. That group is actually along the Rio Grande, but on the Mexican side, getting ready to cross the United States. That technology is so important so our agents have time to go over there and deter that traffic. We got large groups coming in.

    And sadly, this is a deceased subject. Somebody who probably was trying to cross the Rio Grande, who didn't make it. And he died. He drowned.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    You want to go ahead?

    MS. LUCIO: Right here, two juveniles from Mexico trying to smuggle over a thousand pounds here, again, in the McAllen area. They actually rammed the vehicle. They rammed into a Border Patrol agent. That's an assault. They were trying to get away. And two juveniles, over a thousand pounds of marijuana.

    This is a stash house, Mr. President. The smugglers, they don't care. They're treating human beings as commodities. They put them in deplorable situations. Sometimes they're in these houses up to eight days. Sometimes even more. This is terrible. This is just - the American people need to understand, like you stated just now, we know better. We know what the cost is to families - to our families, to our communities, to the country. We're here to serve and we're here to protect not just ourselves and everybody in the country, but even the people who are being taken advantage of.


    THE PRESIDENT: That was a great presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very important. (Applause.)

    Dan?

    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: Mr. President, I wanted to share with you that our state troopers seized 94.5 pounds of fentanyl last year, which, on the street, breaks down to 21 million lethal doses. Twenty-one million lethal doses. And we talked about our opioid crisis.

    To those of you who say this is a manufactured crisis, it's a manufactured cover-up by your opposition. We have - we had 500,000 people apprehended crossing the border from San Diego to Brownsville last year, more than half in Texas. And most of those in this sector between Brownsville and Falcon Dam.

    We need the wall. We need the fencing. We have 54 miles. You're about to build 22 more miles, which leaves about 128 miles.

    On the other side of the border here, about 10 miles way, Mr. President, there's a city of a million people - Reynosa - without a police force. Every night, running gun fights on the streets between the Mexican marines and the cartels. Just eight miles from here. And anyone who says we don't need a fence or a wall, or a barrier, or more law enforcement, they're deceiving the American people.

    So, you're right, Mr. President, and we're with you.

    THE PRESIDENT: And they say it's immoral. What's immoral is all the killing that's taking place by people just walking across.

    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: What's immoral, sir, is deceiving the American people. That's immoral.

    THE PRESIDENT: They are. They are. And they know better. And they all know it's an indefensible position. And even people that aren't into it like we are, where we're studying it and working, and we want to end it, and we can't end it - everybody knows that what we're saying is right. They can't -

    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: And the economic impact to the country and Texas. We have a million students who aren't proficient or don't speak English. And these are good people that want to come here, but there's a tremendous cost to the taxpayer. That's about one out of every five students. The healthcare cost and the humanitarian cost. No one should have to die trying to come to America. And the Democrat opposition is creating that situation.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Okay, well, I want to thank you.

    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: Thank you for coming.

    THE PRESIDENT: And I think a lot of people are getting it now because it's very simple. It's not complex. If we don't have a barrier, a very substantial barrier of some kind, you're never going to be able to solve this problem. And everybody gets it - whether you're educated in this world or not educated in this world. You don't have to be at all. They all get it.

    And that's why you see Congress now - Democrats in Congress are coming out and saying, "Hey, we don't like this subject." There was just a big article - I won't give your competition the publicity - but there was a big article in a very important media outlet that just came out where a lot of the young Democrats just elected to office are breaking up and they're saying: Hey, wait a minute, this - our position, meaning, the Democrats' position of no barrier and no wall, is indefensible."

    And it's going to happen. It's going to happen more and more because it's common sense.

    Mark, would you say something, please? You've done a great job.


    DR. ESPER: Well, Mr. President, I'd like to say that, as you well know, the Department of Defense has fully supported the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol with thousands of service members from multiple components. And we continue to lead forward and won the support in the mission as we look ahead.

    THE PRESIDENT: And I called on you, and I called on the Department of Defense to come down and help because we have caravans forming. We have another one forming, believe it or not, in Honduras.

    And we pay them million - tens of millions of dollars. They do nothing for us. They do nothing. And if you think that country is trying to stop, don't believe it. Okay? And that goes for Guatemala. That goes for El Salvador. If they want to stop it, they can stop it.

    But they form and then they come in through Mexico. They break in. And you saw what happened. They broke in because they didn't have the wall. And I think they're thinking about building a wall on their southern border now.

    But I want to thank the military. They've been incredible. They came up, and from day one they worked. Nobody has seen anybody work like that. And they put the - essentially barbed wire - but it's called barbed wire times 10. And it was very effective, to put it mildly. Very effective. Without that, we would have been - it would have been a stampede right into our country.

    So I just want to thank the military. I know you're still working with us on it. And I'm - unfortunately, I have to tell you that they have another one forming. And we'll handle that as it happens.

    And we're working with Mexico. We appreciate that. But we're working with Mexico very much.

    Attorney General, pleased say a few words.

    TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL PAXTON: Sure. And thank you so much for coming to the border. So many people in Washington talk about the border as if they know what's going on and they don't come down here. So thank you.