The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 52 - There Isn’t Any Nice Or Pleasant Way To Enforce Our Immigration Law

00:00:00.000 Well, I've been away on vacation this week, and I'm actually going on vacation again a week from now.

00:00:06.720 So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take a vacation every other week in perpetuity.

00:00:11.060 Well, that would be nice anyway. I'd love if I could do that.

00:00:13.380 Now, we decided to take our two weeks this way, two weeks of vacation, but breaking it up in this weird way for some reason.

00:00:20.240 We were at a lake in Pennsylvania this week, and then in two weeks we're going to be at a lake in New England.

00:00:27.540 So we enjoy lakes.

00:00:28.460 And as part of our fascination with lakes, I have developed a bit of a fascination with fishing, an interest in fishing anyway.

00:00:37.580 The problem, though, is that my interest in fishing does not include so far a corresponding talent for fishing.

00:00:46.540 So when I say that I've been fishing, I've been fishing all this week.

00:00:50.300 But when I say I've been fishing all this week, what I really mean is I've been casting hooks into the water.

00:00:54.800 I don't mean that I've been catching fish all this week.

00:00:57.020 But this is what I've discovered when it comes to developing a hobby is that in the early going, and this is why I think a lot of people have trouble developing hobbies and why I do as well, is that in the early going, you have to enjoy the hobby while being terrible at it.

00:01:12.560 And it's hard to like something when you're bad at it.

00:01:16.700 But if you can push through that phase, then eventually I think the payoff comes.

00:01:21.440 So maybe I'm about two years into it.

00:01:24.360 I'm still waiting for that payoff.

00:01:26.320 Anyway, I didn't have my phone on this week.

00:01:30.240 I didn't check the news at all.

00:01:31.800 I avoided all that like the plague.

00:01:33.520 So I have therefore missed most of the discussion over the separation of families at the borders.

00:01:39.420 By the time I got back, Trump had already effectively reversed the policy, at least to the extent that he could legally.

00:01:45.140 But I do want to say just one quick thing on this, because I haven't really chimed in on the issue yet.

00:01:51.720 I know that the whole world has been waiting with bated breath to hear what I have to say about it.

00:01:57.200 Nobody cares.

00:01:57.940 I know.

00:01:58.320 You don't have to remind me.

00:02:00.160 Here's what I think about it.

00:02:01.400 If we are going to enforce our laws and protect our border, and I think we should do both of those things, then there has to be some kind of legal penalty for those who break our law and sneak across the border.

00:02:16.600 And if we're going to prosecute them and send them back, which is the penalty, at least for the first time across, it's a misdemeanor.

00:02:24.380 So you prosecute them, send them back.

00:02:26.200 If they come back again, then it's a felony.

00:02:27.700 So if we're going to go through that whole process, then we have to detain them in the meanwhile.

00:02:33.320 We have to lock them somewhere, keep them somewhere, while that process of prosecution and then eventually shipping them back is carried out.

00:02:42.900 If we don't, then they're just going to disappear into the ether and we'll never see them again.

00:02:47.420 So we can't say to them, oh, you're in trouble now, mister.

00:02:51.340 You snuck across the border.

00:02:52.900 So just go do what you want, but check back in two weeks.

00:02:58.360 There's going to be a court case.

00:02:59.600 And here you go.

00:03:00.200 Here's a note, okay?

00:03:01.960 Here's your court date.

00:03:03.260 Come back.

00:03:03.840 Make sure you check back.

00:03:04.940 In fact, you know what?

00:03:05.660 I want you every three days, I want you to give us a call just to check in, all right?

00:03:09.600 Honor system, don't disappoint us by disappearing like everybody else.

00:03:14.520 No, we can't do that.

00:03:15.740 If we do that, then it's just there's no point.

00:03:18.200 We're never going to see them.

00:03:18.780 Um, so you see how the, there's kind of a logical progression here where if we're starting

00:03:26.860 with the proposition that it is good to enforce our laws and protect our border, then I don't

00:03:34.200 see how we avoid, you know, you follow down.

00:03:37.180 Once we get like two or three steps into it, we are inevitably going to get to the point

00:03:41.520 where we have to detain, confine, lock up these people for a period of time.

00:03:46.580 I don't see how you avoid that.

00:03:50.040 I don't see any way around it.

00:03:52.820 The only other option, as far as I can tell, is to not enforce the law or to enforce it

00:03:58.920 in a way that is so incompetent and ineffective that you may as well not enforce it.

00:04:05.540 And if an illegal alien family, if an illegal alien family comes across and they claim asylum,

00:04:11.160 then they're still the same, the same issue where that asylum claim has to be investigated

00:04:15.880 and processed.

00:04:17.020 And in the meanwhile, you've got to detain them somewhere because claiming asylum is not

00:04:23.140 just, they say, Oh, I claim asylum.

00:04:25.800 And we say, Oh, okay, you're good then.

00:04:27.400 Because if that was the process, then everybody would claim asylum and it would be anarchy.

00:04:32.300 But asylum is a very particular thing for a very particular situation.

00:04:38.000 It's not for everybody.

00:04:40.140 So that's the issue.

00:04:43.020 And if we are going to detain them, if we have an entire family, and we've got thousands of

00:04:48.560 entire families that are streaming across the border all the time, if we catch an entire

00:04:52.620 family with parents, kids, everything else, and we're going to confine all of them while

00:04:57.660 we go through this process, then we run into some complications.

00:05:02.480 First of all, we run into all the different laws that govern the detainment of families.

00:05:08.800 We also run into the fact that there is a different process for parents or for adults than there

00:05:14.960 is for kids.

00:05:16.800 So there are all these kinds of bureaucratic loopholes and complications.

00:05:21.660 And I'm all about streamlining that and taking the bureaucracy out of some of this stuff

00:05:26.260 and making it simple.

00:05:27.200 I'm all about doing that in every facet of American life, especially when it comes to

00:05:32.640 immigration.

00:05:34.100 So if that's what we're going to do, I say, great.

00:05:36.660 And then there's also an issue of resources and capabilities.

00:05:39.680 We do not have infinite resources and an infinite capability to detain and care for and provide

00:05:46.080 for entire families all at once.

00:05:49.360 But if it were possible, legally speaking, and in terms of resources, capabilities, logistics,

00:05:55.280 laws, everything else, all the things you got to take into consideration, if it were possible

00:05:59.320 to detain entire families together, I would be in favor of that. 1.00

00:06:03.100 I would think that's the best approach.

00:06:04.500 I'm not a fan of separating kids from their parents.

00:06:09.660 I don't like that idea.

00:06:10.900 I don't like the idea of separating kids.

00:06:13.020 I don't like the idea of kids being traumatized and so forth, especially when you consider that

00:06:18.540 because this is a bureaucracy, we're talking about bureaucracies are very clumsy.

00:06:21.300 Bureaucracies are very inefficient, ineffective.

00:06:24.460 So there's also the difficulty of reuniting the families after the kids have been separated.

00:06:29.800 So I don't like any of that.

00:06:31.120 And I'll fully admit, I'm a sucker when it comes to things involving kids.

00:06:36.860 You know, I don't like the idea of kids being upset, traumatized, separated from their parents.

00:06:41.040 I mean, I hate that because I think about my own kids.

00:06:43.300 I think about like my five-year-old kids being separated from us.

00:06:45.900 So I'm like most people when it comes to that.

00:06:47.900 I look at that and I say, no, let's, if we can figure out another way, let's do it.

00:06:54.620 But the other way cannot be just not enforcing the law.

00:07:00.900 The other way cannot be, oh, you have a kid with you?

00:07:03.980 Well, then just, well, just do what you want.

00:07:06.480 Throw open the doors to anyone who happens to wander across the border with kids. 0.99

00:07:11.260 Because then you have the situation that we're facing right now, which is kids are used as

00:07:16.040 get out, you know, get across the border free cards.

00:07:19.760 They're, they're, they're used that way.

00:07:21.660 And I think that that is much more dehumanizing than detaining them.

00:07:26.060 So that is a, that situation is bad for our country.

00:07:32.300 It's also bad for the kids.

00:07:34.580 So it's also in the kids' best interest for us to enforce our laws and to have this disincentive.

00:07:39.940 To make it clear to people, it's a, it's a bad idea to bring your kids across the border

00:07:46.380 illegally.

00:07:47.640 We want to disincentivize that.

00:07:50.940 We want there to be a deterrent.

00:07:53.380 So that's where we're at.

00:07:55.260 You got to detain that.

00:07:56.360 We got to enforce the laws.

00:07:57.220 You got to detain them.

00:07:58.860 We don't want to separate them.

00:08:00.460 Yeah, but we have to enforce the law.

00:08:02.220 So the only other option, if it's possible, is the keys to detain the families altogether.

00:08:06.600 But even that is not a clean or easy solution.

00:08:11.500 Keeping an entire family detained is still upsetting to a lot of people, just as we've

00:08:16.980 seen, because even, even after Trump, even after Trump reversed himself on this, said they're

00:08:22.280 going to change the policy, he's still being criticized by the media and by the left because

00:08:26.720 they're saying, well, it's not good enough because even if you detain the families, you

00:08:30.060 confine the families together, you're still confining kids and confining families.

00:08:33.960 And that's bad.

00:08:34.600 We can't do that.

00:08:35.440 So what they're really trying to get to is let's not enforce our laws.

00:08:40.780 They don't have a problem necessarily specifically with separating kids.

00:08:44.840 They have a problem with us enforcing the law.

00:08:47.820 So that's what this discussion is really about.

00:08:50.120 And here's the reality that you run right into when we're talking about this, that there

00:08:55.040 is not always a nice or polite way to maintain and protect a civilization.

00:09:02.820 If we are going to have a civilization, if we're going to have a country, then we have to enforce

00:09:09.060 our laws.

00:09:10.160 And that, as I've established, is going to involve catching the people when they're coming

00:09:16.480 across, confining them in some sort of locked environment, okay?

00:09:23.400 And then prosecuting them and shipping them back.

00:09:26.640 That has to be the process.

00:09:29.520 That's the only way we can have a country and a civilization.

00:09:31.840 And it's not polite.

00:09:34.800 It's not nice.

00:09:37.180 It's somewhat unpleasant.

00:09:39.120 But there are not always nice, polite, and pleasant ways to maintain a civilization.

00:09:47.160 We have this really childish, ridiculous idea, this utopian idea that we can just erase the

00:09:54.820 borders and get rid of all the laws and just say, everybody live where you want. 0.67

00:10:00.140 Do what you want.

00:10:01.460 It's fine.

00:10:02.360 Everything is fine. 1.00

00:10:03.280 And you have all these people that grew up listening to that stupid, horrible John Lennon 1.00

00:10:07.360 song, Imagine a World Without Borders, Without Countries, and so forth, which is just people 0.99

00:10:14.900 with the mentality of five-year-olds who think that sounds like a good idea.

00:10:18.920 In fact, I had, and also the other problem is you have a lot of people that have never

00:10:22.140 read a history book and really know nothing about the world whatsoever.

00:10:25.560 For instance, yesterday on Twitter, someone said to me, and I know I've heard this a million

00:10:28.960 times.

00:10:29.300 I'm sure you have as well.

00:10:30.200 Somebody told me on Twitter the other day, they said, yesterday, they said, well, America

00:10:35.340 was founded on open borders.

00:10:39.020 America was founded on open borders, which that's not, that's literally impossible.

00:10:45.840 You cannot found a country with open borders because founding a country with open borders

00:10:52.060 means you're not founding any country at all.

00:10:54.080 The process of establishing and founding a country means drawing a border and probably 0.71

00:11:02.560 fighting over it.

00:11:03.960 That is an essential component of founding a country is the border.

00:11:08.800 That's what defines it.

00:11:09.840 It's like building a house.

00:11:11.460 It's like saying, you know, I built my house without walls.

00:11:14.500 Well, then you didn't build a house.

00:11:15.880 That's not a house.

00:11:16.580 You're just living on a mattress in the grass.

00:11:19.820 Okay.

00:11:19.980 That's not a house.

00:11:20.700 Building a house means building the walls.

00:11:25.140 There's no such thing as a house without walls.

00:11:27.680 In fact, when you look at the history, the early history of the United States, when you

00:11:32.580 look at the 18th and 19th century of history of the United States, what you find is an endless

00:11:38.640 series of wars, battles, and other armed conflicts that were fought in order to define, establish,

00:11:47.940 maintain, found, and expand our borders.

00:11:52.460 That's what you find.

00:11:54.400 You find men who are willing to fight and bleed to defend, establish, define, expand the borders.

00:12:02.220 That's what you find here.

00:12:03.800 And that's what you find everywhere in the world, in every civilization.

00:12:06.580 There has never been a civilization that established itself and established its borders by talking

00:12:12.960 politely and nicely to the civilizations around it.

00:12:16.140 And saying, say, do you mind if we draw our borders here?

00:12:19.340 Oh, yeah, sure.

00:12:20.120 You could draw.

00:12:20.600 You know what?

00:12:20.900 In fact, you don't have some of our land.

00:12:23.340 You could draw it further back here and have some of ours.

00:12:25.920 And oh, yeah, be our guest.

00:12:27.120 Oh, yeah, absolutely.

00:12:27.980 And then they all shake hands and they have tea and crumpets together.

00:12:31.820 No, that's never happened.

00:12:33.540 It is a bloody, it is a bloody rough thing.

00:12:38.140 And that is unavoidable.

00:12:42.040 Now, that doesn't mean it's, this is not an ends justify the means situation.

00:12:46.840 That doesn't mean that everything a country does in order to protect, define its borders

00:12:52.500 is justified.

00:12:53.340 We should still strive to be humane and just while we, while we set out to do that.

00:13:01.620 And that should be one of the things that separates America from other countries is that we care

00:13:06.160 about being humane and just.

00:13:08.900 But you can, you can do something that's humane and just.

00:13:13.840 And yet, at the same time, is kind of upsetting and unpleasant.

00:13:18.160 That's what I think a lot of people miss.

00:13:20.180 It's like just because it's upsetting and just because it makes you feel icky inside and

00:13:24.620 just because it's unpleasant doesn't mean that it's inhumane and it doesn't mean that

00:13:28.780 it's unjust.

00:13:30.480 I mean, the idea of enforcing any law is kind of unpleasant.

00:13:33.740 The idea of locking anyone in prison for breaking a law, that's an unpleasant idea.

00:13:38.680 I mean, it doesn't make me feel good when I think about people in prison, even when I

00:13:44.540 think about a murder in prison.

00:13:46.000 I, it's, it's, it's, it's not like it, it, it fills me with, with just happy butterflies

00:13:50.880 in my stomach.

00:13:51.500 I'm just so happy thinking about people locked in prison.

00:13:54.540 It's not, it's not a, it's not a happy, pleasant thing, but it's a necessary and just

00:13:59.760 and humane thing.

00:14:01.940 And it's also fair.

00:14:04.220 Here's the other thing.

00:14:05.120 But enforcing our law, it's, it's nothing personal against these people who are coming 0.66

00:14:11.680 across the border illegally.

00:14:14.000 And yeah, you know what?

00:14:15.420 If I lived in some dirt poor, drug infested, Central American country, and I had kids especially, 0.93

00:14:23.460 and I couldn't really speak English, and I didn't understand the American system, and

00:14:27.380 I didn't even know how to go about obtaining legal American citizenship.

00:14:31.160 And I had heard all these stories about how difficult it is and everything else.

00:14:36.640 And then I'd also heard stories about how easy it is to just sneak across the border.

00:14:40.440 And I've already got family somewhere in, you know, Texas or wherever.

00:14:45.220 Then, then if I were in that situation, I may well decide to sneak across the border myself.

00:14:50.860 I don't know.

00:14:51.460 I may make that situation, that, that decision because I would be far, far more concerned with

00:14:57.080 protecting my children than with obeying the law.

00:14:59.140 So, I get it.

00:15:01.600 I understand.

00:15:03.000 On a personal level, I understand and I sympathize.

00:15:07.240 You can sympathize with someone and yet still believe that they should face the penalties for

00:15:14.020 breaking the law.

00:15:15.880 Look, I sympathize with people who grow up in the gutter, you know, in, in, in the inner

00:15:21.740 city and they have no parental guidance to speak of.

00:15:25.500 They're just surrounded by gangs and violence and drugs all the time.

00:15:31.240 There's, there's no moral format formation, no guidance, nothing.

00:15:35.800 And, and they start selling drugs when they're 12 years old.

00:15:40.280 And by the time they're 18, they're, you know, knocking over liquor stores.

00:15:44.140 I sympathize with those people.

00:15:45.920 And I look at the situation that they're in and the way that they're, the trajectory that

00:15:49.500 they've been on.

00:15:50.040 And I think I could very easily have ended up doing the same thing if I was in their

00:15:53.860 situation, but we still have to enforce the law.

00:15:58.000 So we still have to lock them in jail because the law matters. 0.99

00:16:03.120 The law must still be enforced.

00:16:06.140 It's nothing personal.

00:16:07.980 It doesn't mean that we hate you. 0.96

00:16:10.060 It doesn't mean that you're dirt.

00:16:11.640 It doesn't mean that we're dehumanizing somebody.

00:16:14.460 It just means that the law must be enforced.

00:16:17.520 So these families are doing what they think they need to do.

00:16:22.380 And we as a country have to do what we must do.

00:16:26.280 And that's a lot of life, you know, that's, that's what life consists of.

00:16:30.920 A lot of times is you have two people with competing interests who are both doing or two

00:16:36.300 groups doing what they think they need to do.

00:16:39.420 And, and then there's kind of a clash there.

00:16:43.920 We can't have a country if we don't have a border.

00:16:46.320 That's what this really comes down to.

00:16:48.640 And enforcing the border is, can be an unpleasant process.

00:16:52.840 You have to be able to remove emotions from law.

00:16:57.020 Now that doesn't mean you remove morality from law.

00:16:59.800 It doesn't mean you remove justice from law.

00:17:02.220 It doesn't mean you remove humanity from law.

00:17:04.660 It doesn't mean you remove fairness from law, but you do have to remove emotions.

00:17:09.420 Laws should be just humane, uh, fair, but they can't always be comfortable.

00:17:16.400 They can't always be nice and they can't always be pleasant.

00:17:20.480 And in order to have justice, in order to have order, in order to have a civilization,

00:17:25.220 you have to have just fair, clear, understandable laws that are enforced.

00:17:31.020 And it's going to be, as I said, unpleasant, no matter how you do it.

00:17:37.620 And I'm okay.

00:17:38.720 If we can keep the kid, the families together, I say, let's do that.

00:17:42.620 But we still have to detain them and they still have to face the penalty.

00:17:45.800 And even that, even if we get rid of all the situations where kids are being separated,

00:17:51.320 keep the families together.

00:17:52.320 But still, we still are running into the, to, to, to, to the, to the fact that we're going

00:17:56.760 to be, we have to catch these people, confine them, go through this legal process, and then

00:18:04.160 send them back across the border to a country that is not a very nice place to live. 1.00

00:18:08.360 They're trying to escape it.

00:18:09.340 And in the meanwhile, there's going to be tears and there's going to be, you know, there's

00:18:13.620 going to be some, some, some level of trauma and people's dreams are going to be crushed.

00:18:18.740 I mean, they were dreaming of, of living in America and escaping all of this.

00:18:22.480 And that's now being taken from them.

00:18:24.460 I mean, that's an unpleasant, tough thing to think about.

00:18:27.860 It really is.

00:18:28.480 It doesn't make me happy to think about, but it is necessary.

00:18:31.920 And it is just, because it is the law and it is a necessary, just, fair law, the kind

00:18:41.120 of law that every country has and must have, or it cannot be a country.

00:18:47.760 The real problem is that many of the people who are shouting about the child separation

00:18:53.480 issue, what they, when it really comes down to is they don't want to enforce the law at

00:18:59.340 all.

00:18:59.580 They want open borders.

00:19:00.560 So they are not looking for a more just, a more fair, a more humane way to enforce the

00:19:07.760 law.

00:19:08.200 That would be a worthy discussion.

00:19:10.340 Okay.

00:19:10.480 If that's what we were talking about, if we were just talking about, well, what is the,

00:19:14.120 the best way to enforce this law, this necessary law that, that, you know, protects our border.

00:19:20.660 If we were having that discussion, I would say that's a great, that's a great discussion

00:19:23.600 to have.

00:19:23.940 Very productive, very fruitful, very important, but that's not the discussion.

00:19:28.120 Instead, we're having a discussion about immigration law with people who don't think there should

00:19:36.700 be any immigration laws.

00:19:38.620 So it would be the same thing if we were talking about, you know, what, what are the most humane

00:19:47.320 ways to deal with prisoners in the prison system?

00:19:49.920 Uh, but it turns out that half of the people involved in the discussion think that there

00:19:55.420 should be no prisons at all.

00:19:57.640 Well, then you can't get anywhere in the conversation because number one, they're really being disingenuous.

00:20:03.920 I mean, they're, they're, they're, they're beginning the conversation by criticizing this

00:20:08.820 particular policy, but then it turns out that they don't think there should be any policies.

00:20:13.760 So that's disingenuous.

00:20:16.120 And it's also incoherent.

00:20:18.620 The open borders position is incoherent because it means the dissolution of our country.

00:20:25.360 And in the process, it means dissolving the very thing that makes our country appealing

00:20:33.080 to those people in Mexico and Central America and South America.

00:20:37.540 If there's a way to keep these families together while you enforce the law and protect the border,

00:20:41.600 then let's do that.

00:20:42.900 I don't want to see kids separate from their families.

00:20:44.860 I don't like seeing, but we cannot, what we cannot do is go back to a policy where anyone

00:20:51.460 who crosses the border with a child, even if the child doesn't even necessarily belong

00:20:55.840 to them, um, gets to come in scot-free.

00:20:59.160 You know, we cannot go back to that.

00:21:00.920 We cannot do that.

00:21:04.080 That's not good for the kids.

00:21:05.520 It's not good for the country.

00:21:06.640 It's not good for anybody, except maybe smugglers who profit off this whole situation.

00:21:14.440 So if you want to talk about enforcing the law humanely, great, but enforcing the law

00:21:19.380 is the first part of that.

00:21:23.200 And we have to do it.

00:21:25.420 Even if it makes our tummies hurt, we still have to do it.

00:21:28.500 All right.

00:21:29.240 Thanks for listening, everybody.

00:21:30.260 Thanks for watching.

00:21:31.120 I'll talk to you next week.

00:21:32.120 Have a great weekend.

00:21:33.020 Godspeed.

00:21:33.380 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - June 22, 2018

Ep. 52 - There Isn’t Any Nice Or Pleasant Way To Enforce Our Immigration Law

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