Remarks by President Trump in Briefing on Drug Trafficking on the Southern Border | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Roosevelt Room  •  March 13, 2019  •  2:27 P.M. EDT

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much for being here. I know that you've all been following the terrible tragedy of the Ethiopian Airlines crash this weekend. Tragic. The FAA is prepared to make a announcement very shortly regarding the new information and physical evidence that we've received from the site and from other locations, and through a couple of other complaints.

    We've had a very, very detailed group of people working on the 737-8 and the 737-9 - new airplanes. We're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 MAX 8 and the 737 MAX 9, and planes associated with that line.

    I've spoken to Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation; Dan Elwell, Acting Administrator of the FAA; and to Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing, and they'll be available shortly after our conference today. They are all in agreement with the action.

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    Any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and thereafter be grounded until further notice. So planes that are in the air will be grounded - if they're the 737 MAX - will be grounded upon landing at the destination. Pilots have been notified. Airlines have been all notified. Airlines are agreeing with this. The safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern.

    Our hearts go out to all of those who lost loved ones, to their friends, to their families, in both the Ethiopian and Lion Airlines crashes that involved the 737 MAX aircraft. It's a terrible, terrible thing.

    Boeing is an incredible company. They are working very, very hard right now, and hopefully they'll very quickly come up with the answer. But until they do, the planes are grounded. And you'll be hearing from the FAA directly, in a little while. We'd say probably in 45 minutes from now, so you'll be prepared to hear. They're going to go into great detail as to what they found and where we're going and what we're doing. But all of those planes are grounded effective immediately. Okay?

    This is a briefing that we've had planned for quite some time. Some incredible people are with us. This is on drug trafficking and on the southern border. And we have a lot of great things happening there. We're building a lot of wall, as you all know. A lot more than they understand, I think, Carla, right?

    CHIEF PROVOST: Yes, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: They don't understand how much we're building, but that's okay. They never did.

    And we're joined today by federal, state, and local leaders on the frontlines of the battle against the vicious drug traffickers and criminal cartels violating our sovereignty and infiltrating our southern border.

    I want to thank Director of Office of National Drug Control Policy, who's with us, Jim Carroll. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Fantastic job you're doing.

    Acting DEA Administrator, a friend of mine, Uttam Dhillon, who I hear just incredible things, the job you're doing. Thank you, Uttam.

    Director of the Houston, Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, Mike McDaniel. Thank you, Mike. And you're going to be saying a few words.

    Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost. Thank you, Carla, very much. A friend.

    ICE Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Director Matt Allen. Thank you, Matt.

    Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, Thomas Alexander. Thomas, thanks.

    Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. Steve? Steve. Thank you, Steve, very much. I appreciate it. You're doing a great job too, by the way. I hear. And the other law enforcement professionals. These are fantastic people. Work so hard. Great danger. And they have incredible responsibility.

    Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by the vast quantities of deadly, poisonous drugs that are smuggled across our nation's very porous borders. They're a lot less porous with us there, but they're coming in bigger numbers, and part of that is because our country is doing so well economically. They're coming up for that. And even the drugs - I guess the money that we're spending, unfortunately, within the country, if we could just tell people not to be doing that, but they are doing that. And we have a very, very strong country economically. And people come up, to a large extent, for that reason.

    But we're having tremendous amounts of meth, cocaine, heroin, and ultra-lethal fentanyl. That's literally ultra-lethal. It gets stronger.

    This comes at a great cost to our society. An excess of $700 billion annually is spent, and we think that's a very, very small number compared to what the actual number is.

    The administration declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. Illegal immigration provides a lucrative cash flow, to put it mildly, to some of the most dangerous and ruthless criminal organizations on planet Earth.

    We're doing a lot at the border, a lot of wall going up. A lot of equipment has been purchased. A lot of equipment is being purchased as we speak. We have tremendous things going in terms of technology. We have tremendous amounts of technology going to the ports of entry, where a lot of the drugs come in. But I think it's highly overrated. I think much of the drugs - the big loads of drugs, and certainly the human traffickers, go not through the ports of entry; they go through the open areas where they don't have walls. These folks know that better than anybody.

    When the press talks about ports of entry, sure, things go through ports of entry, but we're going to have that very well sealed up with this equipment. The equipment is incredible what it does. It's expensive but it's pretty amazing stuff. And that's going in literally as we speak. But we have a lot of - we've got to get the wall up, otherwise it all doesn't work.

    And I have to say, and I have to say it again: I hope you go down there, because we're going to have a news conference at the border over the next three weeks. We're going to do it in areas where we're building large stretches of wall. And tomorrow, or the next day, we're giving out another very large section. So we got a lot of wall going up.

    The massive, surging flow of illegal immigration, trafficking, drugs, and crime threaten the safety and security of all Americans. To confront this urgent national crisis, we're doing many, many things. And that's what we're going to be talking about today.

    We have a vote tomorrow on national emergency, and we'll see whether or not I have to do the veto. And it will be, I think, all very successful, regardless of how it wall works out. But it's going to be very successful.

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    A lot of money is being spent right now. We have access to a lot of money. And more money is coming in, and people are starting to see it. Even certain of the other side are starting to see the level of importance and the importance of having this wall. I call it a "wall"; some people are liking to call it a "barrier." And some people are even calling it "slats." But it's a wall, and it's a strong wall. It's a powerful wall.

    So a lot of very positive things are happening on the border.

    I'd like ask Mike McDaniel to say a few words - Director of Houston, Texas. The whole job that you and your folks have been doing has been incredible, Mike. People are studying it. So maybe you'll say a few words to the media, please?

    MR. MCDANIEL: Thank you, sir. I'm honored to be here today to report on the important work being done by the 21,000 state, local, federal, and tribal law enforcement officers participating in the HIDTA program across the country. Some of our principal partners are sitting here at the table with us today.

    Let me first begin by thanking you for your unprecedented commitment in fighting against the drugs and the cartels that are assaulting our communities. Thank you for the support and respect you've restored to law enforcement in this country. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mike.

    MR. MCDANIEL: Your appointment of Director Jim Carroll has been significant for us in the HIDTA program, and we thank you for that and also for you signing the reauthorization of ONDCP with the opioid act that you signed. So thank you very much.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thanks.

    MR. MCDANIEL: We all see the charts, and everyone at the table is familiar with seeing 72,000 in 2017 died of drug overdoses. And sometimes I believe the general public doesn't realize the magnitude of what that really represents. And as a matter of fact, I was at a rodeo event in Houston this weekend, and the announcer said, "There's 72,000 in attendance at this thing." And I looked around the stadium, and you talk about giving it a whole new perspective of how big of a crisis this is in our country, just take a look at the next time you're at a major sporting event.

    THE PRESIDENT: It's a good way of explaining it too. A stadium full of people.

    MR. MCDANIEL: Yes, sir.

    Now is not the time for business as usual in addressing this epidemic. Now is the time for us to develop and implement new and innovative strategies to address this country's drug addiction issues. The fact that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem is well recognized by law enforcement. But law enforcement is a part of the solution, and the emerging partnerships between public health and public safety have never been more important. And HIDTA is a perfect platform, and the DFC - the drug-free communities - is a perfect platform to work along, side by side, with our treatment and prevention partners.

    As a point of reference, I have been involved in drug law enforcement for 36 years as a police officer with the city of Houston, 24 years with the Drug Enforcement Administration. And I retired to get the job done that I'm blessed with having now as the Houston HIDTA Director.

    But today I come representing the other 32 HIDTA directors across the country. And thanks to this administration, the HIDTA program is now in 50 states, with the inclusion of Alaska, and we're very proud of that. And the HIDTA program is in 33 critical regions, to include our five southwest border HIDTAs.

    We just recently, in Arizona, had a seizure of 29,000 counterfeit OxyContin and fentanyl tablets that actually had contained fentanyl. And it was an Arizona HIDTA task force that seized these, and they seized them up in Phoenix, Arizona.

    The scary thing about that is those drugs actually went through our southwestern border primarily through backpackers that are moving them up into the communities of our nation.

    And, as a matter of fact, the Arizona HIDTA just last week had to issue an alert about teenagers overdosing on counterfeit OxyContin pills. So, how many of those pills are actually making it in our community is really the scary thing to focus on.

    HIDTAs around the country have effectively assembled unified teams of federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement to work together towards one common goal, and that is attacking and dismantling these violent drug cartels.

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    One of the most important things I believe that we do - and working with our partners at CBP and Border Patrol - is to try to connect the dots. When there's seizures along the border, the most important thing law enforcement can do is connect the dots and actually identify the cartels that those drugs are coming from so that we can dismantle those drug trafficking organizations and, more importantly, criminally prosecute them in U.S. courts.

    Recently, a lot of you in the media have noticed there was a 254-pound fentanyl seizure by CBP in Nogales, Arizona. Just two weeks ago, a case in Little Rock, Arkansas, and with the Gulf Coast HIDTA, they seized approximately 38,000 in several seizures that were coming into the port of New Orleans and - a good case. And, sir, I can assure you that the women and men of law enforcement across this country are trying to connect those dots so that we can do our job of dismantling those cartels.

    There's another alarming trend that really bothers me, in that we're seeing juveniles actually transporting fentanyl, especially in the San Diego area. And if you can imagine - us in law enforcement - you'll see law enforcement wearing suits and everything else to prevent any contact. But the cartels are strapping these drugs, many times on these juveniles, and sending them across the border, telling them that it's actually methamphetamine or coke. And they have no regard for human life.
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