In Washington, people are always talking about the U.S. border with Mexico, but in a lot of ways, what we see here in Florida is the Forgotten Invasion. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz took to the skies with the Coast Guard Tuesday morning to get a better understanding of the migrant crisis in Florida s coastal waters. Today, Victoria Cardenas sat down with Congressman Gaetz to discuss the asylum and illegal immigration challenges Florida is facing.
00:06:54.000When it comes to political leadership, we have established Haiti isn't sending their best.
00:07:00.000Sometimes they aren't sending their best to Florida by the thousands on desperate floating rafts either.
00:07:07.000According to a study conducted by the Cato Institute in 2021, illegal Haitian immigrants have an incarceration rate of 4.4%.
00:07:18.000That is higher than any other group of illegal immigrants.
00:07:22.000Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, and its citizens have long been seeking a better life.
00:07:28.000In recent years, Florida has become the major destination for Haitian migrants.
00:07:34.000And more than you would guess, certainly more than our own government actually knows.
00:07:39.000They're coming across the southern border with Mexico.
00:07:42.000They're also coming through the Florida Straits and through the Bahamian and Bimini passageways.
00:07:47.000This is because you haven't seen the same attention to what's going on in Florida that you've seen on our southern border.
00:07:55.000And now the influx of Haitian migrants has had a significant impact on Florida's school systems, jails, hospitals, social services.
00:08:04.000In schools, Haitian students often face all kinds of barriers, language barriers, cultural barriers,
00:08:10.000and it makes it impossible for our teachers or other students to succeed in that type of an environment.
00:08:18.00035% of all Haitian students won't graduate from high school.
00:08:22.000You will see many of them again in the juvenile justice system or worse.
00:08:26.000So that percentage is 150 times worse as far as not finishing dropping out than non-Haitian immigrant counterparts.
00:08:35.000Haitian immigrants are also overrepresented in Florida's jails.
00:08:38.000A 2017 study by the Florida Department of Corrections found that Haitians make up 10% of the jails,
00:08:44.000of the state's jail population, even though they account for only about 1% of the state's population.
00:08:50.000They're batting at 10 times their population rate when it comes to the Department of Corrections.
00:08:55.000That means billions of dollars in extra costs for Florida taxpayers to lock up Haiti's criminals.
00:09:03.000Haitian migrants also have higher rates of chronic death conditions such as HIV, AIDS, and tuberculosis.
00:09:10.000This is due to a number of factors including poverty, lack of access to health care, exposure to violence and trauma in Haiti.
00:09:17.000As a result, Haitian migrants place a significant burden on Florida's hospitals, social services, public health services.
00:09:26.000A 2018 study by the Florida Department of Health found that Haitians had a higher rate of HIV, AIDS, than any other ethnic group in the state.
00:09:34.000The impact of the Haitian migration on Florida's social services, very significant.
00:09:39.000Haitian migrants are more likely to use food stamps, Medicaid, and other social services than their native-born peers.
00:09:46.000A 2019 study by the Florida Department of Children and Families found that Haitian children were more likely to be living in poverty than any other ethnic group in our state.
00:09:56.000Here's the problem. The real invasion numbers have gotten significantly worse under Joe Biden.
00:10:04.000In fiscal year 2022, over 4,000 Haitians were interdicted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard, an 800% increase since 2020.
00:10:13.000And there are many, many more that aren't being interdicted and that are arriving at our shores.
00:10:19.000And unlike those who cross illegally on the southern border who are dispersed throughout the country,
00:10:24.000these thousands and thousands of people are frequently congregating in specific areas in southeast Florida that are being overrun.
00:10:32.000And it's not good for anyone, as you see from the data.
00:10:35.000Now, there's an obvious solution to this.
00:10:38.000We surge resources, use the U.S. Navy if necessary,
00:10:43.000and send every last person who tries to get here in these particular illegal ways back home to Haiti.
00:12:37.000Allies struggling to keep them supplied as they fight through a tough counteroffensive.
00:12:42.000And so we want to make sure that the Ukrainians have sufficient artillery to keep them in the fight in the context of the current counteroffensive.
00:14:38.000And by the way, Russia is dropping with impunity cluster bombs in Ukraine, in the country of Ukraine right now.
00:14:46.000Now, all the Ukrainians and Zelensky are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country against Russians who are in their own country.
00:14:57.000They're they do not want these to be used in Russia.
00:15:00.000They want these as self-defense to use against Russians in their own country of Ukraine.
00:15:04.000I don't see anything wrong with that because quite honestly, Jake, as you look at the counter offensive, it's been slowed tremendously because this administration has been so slow to get the weapons in.
00:15:15.000These weapons would be a game changer.
00:15:18.000They are highly effective and particularly hitting flanks of troops inside of Ukraine.
00:15:25.000They would be a game changer in the counter offensive.
00:15:28.000And I'm really pleased the administration has finally agreed to do this.
00:15:36.000Chairman McCall is right about one thing.
00:15:38.000Sending cluster bombs to Ukraine is absolutely a chain game changer, but not for the reasons he thinks it is unnecessarily escalatory and deadly.
00:15:48.000So let's break down the two arguments that McCall makes in that clip.
00:15:52.000First, he says, well, I mean, we we have to send cluster bombs to Ukraine because that's what Russia has.
00:16:08.000The notion that the obligation of the United States of America in this conflict is to bring Ukraine into military parity with Russia is unreasonable.
00:16:19.000It's a different kind of fight as a defensive fight and cluster bombs are a terrible idea.
00:16:25.000His next argument is, well, they're using them on their own country.
00:16:29.000We've already seen Ukraine engage in attacks inside Russia.
00:16:33.000And we've seen the very same neoconservatives and Bidenites supporting that, saying that they have a right to attack supply chains in Russia.
00:16:40.000So by what power lever are we going to control the utilization of these cluster bombs after they leave?
00:16:51.000Because we'll be in a position where we would be in direct conflict with a global power, a near peer adversary, as all of the generals like to tell us in briefings.
00:17:13.000They will kill innocents anywhere they are used.
00:17:16.000And also, they have a high dud rate, which means that there are a number of these that will deploy out of an aircraft, hit the ground, and then explode later when found by some innocent person.
00:17:31.000Now, the fact that the Ukrainian leadership would even contemplate using cluster bombs in their own country goes from irresponsible to downright depraved.
00:17:43.000A Democrat ranking member of the Rules Committee, Jim McGovern, even filed legislation to functionally ban the export of cluster bombs from the United States for, like, any reason.
00:17:56.000And so every Democrat needs to be counted now.
00:18:24.000The National Defense Authorization Act that I've talked about on the podcast a great deal sets our military policy for the year.
00:18:32.000And it just so happens it's going to be voted on on the floor of the House of Representatives this week.
00:18:38.000Democrat Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs, who we've criticized a great deal on the show for some of her views.
00:18:45.000She's probably criticized me a great deal for some of mine.
00:18:47.000But she has introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that reads notwithstanding any other provision of law, no military assistance shall be furnished for cluster munitions.
00:18:59.000No defense export license for cluster munitions may be issued and no cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology shall be sold or transferred.
00:19:10.000And what I'm here to tell you is that I'm going to be the Republican co-sponsor of the Jacobs Amendment before the House Rules Committee.
00:19:18.000We have an opportunity with bipartisanship to stand against the warmongering Bidens.
00:19:24.000And these cluster bombs will not end the war in Ukraine.
00:19:29.000Let's look at the countries where cluster bombs have been used.
00:19:37.000Cluster bombs are features of the world's bloodiest and most inhumane wars.
00:19:43.000And some of the longest, it's hardly the cornerstone of a path to peace.
00:19:50.000This will not build a more stable Ukraine.
00:19:52.000Children will be left without limbs and without parents because of this decision by Joe Biden if we do not work together in a bipartisan fashion to stop it.
00:20:02.000Always remember, this bloody war would end any time the European democracies wanted it to.
00:20:10.000Don't forget that when you see the gruesome images of the death and destruction.
00:20:15.000It's the Europeans who fund this war through their purchase of Russian gas.
00:21:47.000I would certainly agree with President Biden that if you spent 68 hours with someone and traveled 17,000 miles, that you would know a great deal about them.
00:22:00.000And they would know a great deal about you, too.
00:22:03.000And you see, that is the follow-up that Fareed Zakaria was not courageous enough to ask.
00:22:08.000But it is certainly the operative question now for the country.
00:22:14.000Maybe all these payments to the Biden family from China were a consequence of Xi realizing that these were corrupt and compromisable people.
00:22:25.000Maybe it was gallivanting around the globe with Joe Biden that had Xi realized that his weak spot was Hunter.
00:22:33.000That if Hunter was bought off, paid, compromised, leveraged, turned against our country for money.
00:22:40.000That that would be a way to ensure the compromise of Joe Biden.
00:22:45.000I think that the time that these two have spent together will be very telling about not only the relationship between the two men, but about the policy changes in our country that seem to have inured to the benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.
00:22:59.000Just look at the China initiative at the Department of Justice.
00:23:02.000President Trump set up a team of dedicated prosecutors to go after Chinese influence.
00:23:15.000And it is hurting our country each and every day.
00:23:18.000And patriots have to stand together to call it out and then to put guardrails up while we can and then to do everything we have to do to get the country back on track.
00:23:28.000Thanks so much for joining us today on Firebrand.
00:23:54.000And you never know, I've used letters and suggestions that folks have given me quite regularly, particularly this Congress, to be able to ask questions of some of these corrupt officials.
00:24:05.000And again, as I mentioned before, we've got the National Defense Authorization Act.
00:24:08.000We talked about the cluster bombs today, but we're going to have a lot more to report about de-wokifying this military that we love so much and ensuring that we've got the capabilities and the standards to ensure that America always holds the high ground.