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

    Also, thank you for your vision, your persistance, your willingness to stand, I think, like no other leader we've had, President or non-President. You've done more for border security, to push this forward.

    And look, we have two stories - horrific stories of people losing their lives. And in Texas, unfortunately, you're not the only two families that have suffered. We keep track of statistics in Texas related to border security. Our state police has addressed hundreds of thousands of crimes, hundreds of homicides. And so we have hundreds of thousands of stories just like this that have affected real people and our families in Texas.

    And so thank you for addressing that.

    We also hear that the narrative is that the wall won't work. If you go to El Paso, we've put up a barrier there. I think it was under the Bush administration. It's over 100 miles long. El Paso used to have one of the highest crime rates in America. After that fence went up and separated Juarez, which still has an extremely high crime rate, the crime rates in El Paso are now some of the lowest in the country. So we know it works. So the narrative is incorrect and we've tested it in Texas.

    And finally, I wanted to say something about your comments about human trafficking. I started a human tracking unit my first year in office. And I did it because - largely because of the border. We have the second-highest human trafficking rate in the country. Over 300,000 people are victims of that crime every year. That's the research. Houston is the worst city in America. And so we're addressing that. And border security will clearly have a positive impact on those horrible and horrific statistics that are affecting our women and our children.

    So thank you very much, Mr. President.


    THE PRESIDENT: And thank you very much. And what you're saying is interesting, because you'll have a wall or a barrier and then you won't. And what they do is they walk up, can't get through. They come in and they eventually find an opening. And it's the openings where they come in. And we don't want to have the openings. We're going to have gates where they come in legally. But other than that, we don't want to have openings.

    And you'll see the crime rate in this country go way down. And we're already doing very well in terms of crime rate but it's not being helped by what's going on. We could make it a lot better. So I appreciate it very much. Thank you very much, Ken.

    Brandon?

    MR. JUDD: Absolutely. Mr. President, I came here and this big gentleman right here, he said he didn't like that .50 cal pointing at his head. (Laughter.) He played football -

    THE PRESIDENT: (Laughs.) That's right.

    MR. JUDD: He played football at the University of Missouri. I told him it wouldn't even put a dent in him. So - (laughter) -

    THE PRESIDENT: That's right. He might be able to handle it. I don't know.

    MR. JUDD: He was the right person to put that (inaudible). (Laughter.)

    I appreciate the leadership that you've provided. I appreciate the access that you have given our Border Patrol agents to our leaders like Secretary Nielsen. Nobody has ever come down and spoken to our agents as much as Secretary Nielsen has. And we appreciate that. We appreciate the leadership Commissioner McAleenan has provided and the access that you have allowed our agents with these individuals.

    I appreciate you having Senator Cornyn and Senator Cruz here with us today. These two individuals played such a huge role in getting Javier Vega's death declared as a line-of-duty death. Without their leadership, that wouldn't have happened. And I appreciate you allowing them to be here.

    From a personal experience as a Border Patrol agent, I can tell you what barriers do. I started my career in El Centro, California, 21 years ago. We had very few barriers. We had illegal border crossings that were out of control. It was the busiest sector at that time. We put up physical barriers, and illegal border crossings dropped exponentially.

    I then went to Naco, Arizona. We were the busiest station at that time. 2004-2005 we were arresting - one small station - we were arresting over 100,000 illegal aliens per year at that station. We built physical barriers. It dropped from 100,000 down to 20,000.

    That's how physical barriers work. They work and we appreciate the leadership that you're providing in order to get us those things that we need, such as personnel, technology, and the infrastructure - which is barriers. Thank you very much, Mr. President.


    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And, Brandon, it's been - you just sit here listening - it's like not a contest. There's no two sides or anything. And all they're doing is looking at 2020. And they figure they can't win, maybe they can do this, or they can come up with some other issue. I can tell you about another couple of issues they're using, and - because we've had great achievement. But I won't consider myself to have that great achievement unless we can straighten out your border. And we're working on it.

    And your son and your brother will not have died in vain. I can tell you that. They will not have died in vain. It's a very important purpose to all of this. Very important.

    Monty, I agree, that's a very uncomfortable positon. (Laughter.) I don't know. I wouldn't want to be in that chair. But you're a tough guy. You can handle it.

    MR. AWBREY: Yes, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: Please, say a few words.

    MR. AWBREY: Mr. President, first thing I want to say is thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come down and address the situation, that we do live on a daily basis - not only us as ranchers or anything but all the law enforcement agencies.

    Senator Cruz hit it right on the head whenever he said, you know, you got a backbone. And that's exactly why we elected you and wanted you in the White House. And we appreciate you not giving up on that.

    I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley. Home. Born and raised down here. My family is - I'm a third generation down here. Fifteen, twenty years ago, we didn't have this kind of problem. We had a great flow of illegal immigrants coming across but those people were harmless, and they wanted to come over here for a better life and work.

    Unfortunately, it's not the same thing anymore. There's been many times where we'd be out on the ranch or even at 3 o'clock in the morning - a cold, drizzly, rainy night - and have a family come up and beat on my backdoor or on the front porch. I go out there and it's a family in distress. You know, we feed them. We water them. And they're asking for help. We're passionate people, and that's what we do. So we call for help. We get them over there. We feed them, clothe them - whatever we have to do.

    Unfortunately, a few times we've also had a few young females come up that you could tell had been sexually assaulted. They were scared out of their mind. They get led around in a brush for three or four days and get disoriented on their direction, and told by their coyotes that Houston is right there; this is where you want to go. These people pay $3,000 a piece to come across. It's everything that they garnish up, you know, wage wise, to pay these people.

    They walk them 10 miles across the border, walk them around in a brush, and disappear on them. They're lost. They're hopeless. They don't know what to do. So they give up and they say, "Can you call Border Patrol for me?" Border Patrol, my hats off to you guys. I see how you work all the time. You're undermanned - the sheriff department, everybody.

    We got a great sheriff in Hidalgo County and probably call him my friend as well. Anytime that we've had any instances - I lost my father five years ago, and when that happened there was a lot of traffic going on. I didn't live at the ranch at the time, but I would have to go out there every night. So I was a constant bother to the sheriff, I'm sure. And he was there to help me all the time.

    These guys, the Border Patrol right now, their hands are tied. And these immigrants, they know it. So they know that they get over here and they're going to get caught, but they're going to get let go. That's - to me, that's something that I think that really needs to be addressed.

    And, yes, I agree with the wall. There's a lot of farmers who - and landowners that I do know that are on the river and they're a little upset because of the eminent domain. That brings up the question there. As far as, you know, all the acreages that they're losing with that wall, maybe there is something that you can devise with those owners and say, "Hey, you know, what? We don't want to drill right down through the middle of your property. Let's rearrange it and get a little closer to the river or something." And I think that that would probably forego - and you'll see a lot more cooperation with that.

    THE PRESIDENT: We should look at that, okay? I think - I agree with you. I think you're right, Monty. I agree with you.

    MR. AWBREY: Thank you, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: And the laws are a big problem. You know, they call one "catch-and-release." You catch them and you release them. You know, other countries, for the most part, you go into the country and they say, "Excuse me. These people - get out. You have to get out. Sorry." And nobody tries to get in because they know they can't.

    With us, we take them through court proceedings. We have to hire hundreds of judges. We got hundreds of judges. Hundreds of judges. You go through a proceeding. They check you in. Then they can't do the proceeding because there's 800,000 people now waiting. Eight - think of it - 800,000 people. How ridiculous is this? If they set one foot on U.S. property, so to speak, they end up having to go to a trial.

    So they take their name and they say, "You can go now. Come back in three years. You have a trial." This is the United States law, by the way. And made worse by the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit is a disaster. Made worse by the Ninth.


    If you go to the Ninth Circuit, if you're on the other side of what everybody in this room is all about - and, frankly, what most of the people in the country are all about - it's almost like an automatic loss. It's like an automatic loss. They take a case to the Ninth Circuit that's nowhere near the Ninth Circuit, that has nothing to do with the Ninth Circuit.

    So we're bucking a bad system and we're bucking a lot of things that are bad. And we're apprehending more people than ever apprehended before. But the laws are really against us, and we're doing well anyway. But we have to do much better. And we can do only better if we have a physical barrier. Because this way we don't have the - even with the bad laws, you have a physical barrier, they can't come on to the - into our country.

    MR. AWBREY: If I may, Mr. President, I also - I married into a law enforcement family. Agent Jaime Zapata was the agent killed down in Mexico. You know, it was pretty hard going through that, and I kind of feel you all's pain. Jaime and I were not all that close at first. We gained - you know, became really, really good friends after that. After that happened, I don't' know how, but the killers, when they got - or went up to D.C., they were allowed to bring their entire family and put them up on the taxpayer's dollar. And in front of his parents, just paraded them around. And it was like a stab in the back, you know, for the government that he gave his life for. And it just -

    THE PRESIDENT: When was that? How long ago?

    MR. AWBREY: Sir, that was the - that was right out last year when they finally went to sentencing. So -

    THE PRESIDENT: Convicted?

    MR. AWBREY: Somebody took the fall for it. I can't say that it was the correct person that pulled the trigger.