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

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. That's - bad stuff.

    MR. AWBREY: Yes, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: Pastor, please.

    PASTOR PEÑA: Well, thank you, Mr. President, first for coming to Texas and -

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    PASTOR PEÑA: - to the Rio Grande Valley. I especially want to thank you for calling this what it is: a humanitarian crisis. When you use that language, it really set bells to ringing, because that is what it is. People in my profession see the suffering, the human suffering, brought by drugs, by the arms that are brought across, making our communities more violent. The trafficking of women and children especially, and boys, and young males as well.

    And the truth that needs to be talked about, that is seldom talked about, is that amount of underreporting of the crime. When these things happen in the shadows, people are not always eager to point out the crimes that are taking place. And it goes underreported.

    But people in my profession, especially Spanish-speaking pastors - especially Spanish-speaking pastors in this sector - know firsthand the human suffering, the human toll that's taking place because of the onslaught. The sickness, the disease, the lack of sanitation that's going on because of the bunch-up at the border and people are trying to come in.


    So I just want to give a very heartfelt thanks because I have had the privilege of visiting with you before. I know your heart of compassion, although some don't want to paint you as having a heart of compassion. I know you as the man that does have this heart of compassion that's genuine and authentic.

    And the fact that you called it what it is - it's a crisis and a humanitarian crisis. And again, the pastors that I'm here representing today salute you and thank you for wanting to bring an end to untold suffering that's taking place on our southern border.

    Thank you, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Pastor. Very nice. Good to see again. Appreciate it.

    PASTOR PEÑA: Thank you.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    Commissioner?

    COMMISSIONER MCALEENAN: Thank you, Mr. President. Obviously, you came to the right part of the border to really bring this border security and humanitarian crisis into focus, number one, for illegal crossings, and number two, for hard narcotics, both between our ports of entry - as you saw from the briefing - and at the ports. And then the humanitarian cost.

    The families and children crossing here - over half the families that cross our border in the whole country, cross here in South Texas. And so we have our men and women, our trained law enforcement officers, dealing with care for children and families in a very challenging environment.

    And so I just wanted to say I'm incredibly proud of the agents, officers, Air Marine professionals that are serving down here, staying focused on the mission despite the challenging environment at this time. I'm very proud of the briefing from Melisa and Carlos, telling you -

    THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely.

    COMMISSIONER MCALEENAN: - with their heart and soul what they do every day to protect our country and our fellow citizens.

    And I just got to say, the resources the administration is asking for from Congress are directly targeted at all three elements of this crisis: the border barrier, technology, agents and officers that we need to address the security threats. And we're building a new barrier, as the Lieutenant Governor noted, starting in February, right here. Thank you.

    Also, the technology at the ports of entry to stop the drugs, that's a critical element. And very importantly, you asked for humanitarian resources, and we can provide different facilities medical support to get our agents out of the childcare business and help protect families that are crossing and end this violence cycle. It's all controlled by violent criminals in Mexico, primarily transnational criminal organizations. And we want to combat that with these resources.

    So thank you for the support.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Commissioner.

    COMMISSIONER MCALEENAN: We look forward to showing you more on the river.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. A little while. We'll be there in a little while. That's great.

    One of the things that Dan Patrick suggested, which I thought was very interesting, was give the state of Texas a relatively small amount of money and they'll build a wall themselves, because they want to build it. And I thought that was not the worst idea I've ever heard. (Laughter.) Although, I still think I could do it cheaper than you. I still think I could do -

    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR PATRICK: (Inaudible) do it cheap? If you could do it cheaper - we're working to help you.

    THE PRESIDENT: But I do like the idea, and we're going to look at a couple of ways of doing it where you guys get it up. You do things very well in Texas. And I like that idea. So we'll take a look.

    And, Dan, could I ask you to say a few words, please?


    MR. BIBLE: Yes, Mr. President. I'm Dan Bible. I'm the Field Office Director with ICE ERO for the San Antonio field office. And with the inflow of the immigrants that are coming across in these unprecedented numbers, our officers are - also are coming down to the border to support that effort to deal with the women and children.

    But those are the same officers that we would be using in the community itself looking for those public safety threats and criminal aliens, which are now reprogramed to come down here to deal with the humanitarian crisis.

    Over this past year, I would say over half the time, those officers on my taskforce and everything were brought back down to deal with these crises. And when we look at the family units and stuff that come across in reality, we either just release them right out the door once we take them in, if they're not in a composition that can into one of our family residential centers. But even if they get to one of our family residential centers, due to some of the legal decisions and stuff, we have 20 days to release them from there. So essentially, they're being just released to the street as well.

    So pulling our officers away from doing criminal enforcement -

    THE PRESIDENT: These are the laws. Yeah. Terrible.

    MR. BIBLE: - to just basically release family units, it's kind of deteriorating the system and also reducing the secondary - or the secondary - how would you put it? - barrier for them to keep coming, right? I mean, once you get past - if all my agents are at the border doing this, they kind of get a free run in the communities, which make the communities less safe.

    THE PRESIDENT: You're right. And it's not just what's going on at the border. That's really almost a lesser problem. They get through the border and then they filter out throughout the whole country. And you have MS-13 all over Long Island and all over other places. We're getting them out by the thousands. The ICE folks are doing incredibly at getting them out. And they are rough and tough, but the - I will tell you a little secret: ICE is a lot rougher and a lot tougher and a lot smarter. But still, it's a lot of people. A lot of people that they have to get out.

    But it's not the crime at the border, which has got its own problems; it's what happens once they get through the border and they're dispersed or they disperse themselves throughout the country. And all of that crime is because of it.

    Yes, John.

    SENATOR CORNYN: Mr. President, just before you - before we end tonight, I suspect we'll hear from Secretary Nielsen, who's doing a great job at DHS, but I just want to acknowledge all the local officials here - the mayors, and the country judges, and others - who supports these men and women who wear the green and blue uniforms.


    THE PRESIDENT: It's great.

    SENATOR CORNYN: And who basically end up having to try to manage this humanitarian crisis that floods across the border because of the gaps in our law that you've already described.

    And, you know, we are set up as a country to deal with legal immigration. We applaud legal immigration. But illegal immigration, particularly when it floods over here, we're just not prepared for, especially with these large caravans. And it's created a humanitarian crisis that these men and women, who are local elected officials, have had to deal with.

    So I wonder if you wouldn't mind if we asked them to stand -

    THE PRESIDENT: Please. Please.

    SENATOR CORNYN: - so we can recognize them and thank them for what they're doing. (Applause.)

    THE PRESIDENT: That's great. Thank you very much. Thank you, John, very much.

    Secretary?

    SECRETARY NIELSEN: Well, sir, I think everyone here today said it so well. What I would tell you is it's not status quo. It is a crisis. It's a humanitarian crisis. It's clearly a security crisis. For those who would like to put their heads in the sand and pretend that it's "manufactured," it's not only an insult and deeply disturbing to those that have lost loved ones, but it's an insult to our country, sir. This is a crisis.

    And when a crisis mandates (inaudible) is a decisive leader with a vision. That's what you have. You continue each day to make it very clear to Congress what the crisis is and what the men and women here today have told you is needed to address it, and they refuse to do it.

    So I hope today they're watching. I hope they take a cue from you, they decide to be leaders, and they do what this country needs to help us secure it.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Secretary. And you're doing a great job. And you're working hard, I will tell you that. She's working hard. Every time I speak to her, she's in a different location, usually along the border. And, Commissioner, you and the Secretary, and everybody else, we appreciate it very much.

    And we're getting there. I think we're making a lot of progress. And I have to say that my sacred duty - most sacred duty as President is to defend the people of our nation. That's whether it's from foreign nations or along a border. It's all defending our people and defending them properly and strongly and really rightly and justly. And that's what I'm doing.

    And it would be a lot easier for me not to do this. It would be a lot easier not to say anything and let this go on. This should have been taken care of 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago. It should have been taken care of. I've seen all the speeches made by all the Presidents and a lot people that worked under the Presidents. And you say, "What happened?" Nothing happened.

    They were going to build this wall in 2003, in 2006. They were going to build it 20 years ago. They were going to build it forever. And little sections got built. And I will say, we've done a lot of renovation. And we have a lot of new wall going up where we took down wall because it was in such bad shape, and we put new wall up. We've done a lot of work, but we have work to do.