This Past Weekend with Theo Von - E335 US Border Patrol Agent

00:00:00.000 Mint Mobile secret sauce is that they're the first company to sell wireless service online only.

00:00:07.160 To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for

00:00:12.580 free, go to mintmobile.com slash t-h-e-o. That's m-i-n-t-m-o-b-i-l-e dot com slash

00:00:21.680 theo. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month. Sounds manageable to me at mintmobile.com slash

00:00:29.520 theo. You know, it's an it's a unique time where there's so much information and false

00:00:37.280 information and rumor and biased material going around about the U.S. border. And and I'm sure

00:00:48.440 we've all heard things and tried not to hear things about it. And so I wanted to get someone

00:00:55.060 here today who is boots on the ground been there, you know, that frontline bad boy. And

00:01:03.000 I'm so happy today to have fresh off of his 32 years of service working with the U.S. Border

00:01:11.080 Patrol, where he finished as the chief border patrol agent of the Tucson sector. We are happy

00:01:19.400 to have him today. Mr. Roy Villarreal.

00:01:23.280 Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you my stories. Shine on me. And I will find a song. I'll be singing just for you.

00:01:49.400 Oh, yeah. Bert Kreischer. Oh, man. I love that guy. Yeah. He's so funny.

00:01:54.060 Dude, he is an animal or the machine. They call him. He's everything. Yeah, he's he's like any laughs all the time. Every time he's he's he reminds me of like Winnie the Pooh, like if Winnie the Pooh went to college and was like in a fraternity for a really long time.

00:02:10.460 Oh, yeah. You know, like just like. Yeah, he's one of a kind, man. So you live over in Tucson. Yeah. Nice, man. I went to Santa Rita High School for. Oh, really? For a semester. Yeah. My mom used to live out on Pantano. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So I used to be out there and people would fight in the car washes and stuff like that after school.

00:02:30.320 So we didn't have any border control. We could use some border control. We could use some border control out of Santa Rita High School, man. Go Eagles.

00:02:41.820 So Roy Villarreal, let's say you say your last name. Nailed it. Yeah. So your position with the border. What was it exactly?

00:02:49.300 So I recently retired from the Border Patrol. I served for 32 years. My position at the time was the chief patrol agent of the Tucson sector.

00:02:55.460 OK. And that sector is about how big? Two hundred and sixty miles of border with Arizona border with Mexico.

00:03:03.300 OK. And so when you're in charge of that, are you in charge of both sides of it or just one side?

00:03:08.180 Just the one side. So we have control over the U.S. side.

00:03:11.980 Do they have do you know the person who's in charge of the other side? Like, is there someone in charge of the other side?

00:03:16.860 Well, yes, to a degree. Dealing with the Mexican government, you're dealing with different entities,

00:03:21.020 their customs, their immigration, federal police, local police.

00:03:26.180 There's a whole myriad of entities you have to deal with in Mexico.

00:03:28.860 OK. So like on a day to day basis, kind of what were some of like your kind of responsibilities?

00:03:34.700 Like what are you guys's responsibilities over there?

00:03:36.900 So Tucson sectors is the largest sector in the Border Patrol.

00:03:39.980 And so I had about four thousand employees under my purview.

00:03:41.800 Wow. And that was about thirty four hundred sworn law enforcement officers.

00:03:47.140 And then the rest were administrative folks, mechanics, technicians, intel analysts, radio operators.

00:03:52.760 You name it. There's a full gambit behind it.

00:03:54.780 The day to day operations in the height of operations here in Tucson.

00:04:00.000 We were arresting about five hundred to a thousand people a day.

00:04:02.400 And that that includes, you know, like looking at the news right now, you're dealing with unaccompanied children, families.

00:04:09.620 And then that's about 30, maybe 40 percent of the work of the workload right now.

00:04:13.960 Right. And then the rest are all single adults, criminal aliens. 0.80

00:04:17.600 You've got everything from pedophiles, rapists, narcotic traffickers heading in coming in. 0.99

00:04:23.800 Yeah. Wow. So is it. 0.99

00:04:25.700 And so, man, there's just it's so much it's like such a it's just a lot.

00:04:32.420 It seems it just seems like a lot.

00:04:33.720 Is it or so someone comes into the country, right?

00:04:37.220 Someone's coming in illegally.

00:04:39.020 And I say that just because that's the you know, these are the there's a lot where you have to have some rules.

00:04:43.960 And the rules are if somebody's in a place you're not supposed to be, then we're just going to use the term illegally.

00:04:48.500 So is that OK with you?

00:04:50.340 Absolutely. OK.

00:04:51.040 I mean, that's and that's the appropriate legal definition.

00:04:53.460 You've entered the country illegally. 0.99

00:04:54.640 Right. Yeah.

00:04:55.780 Like if I went somewhere, they would say that to me if I went to a country where I wasn't or I wasn't like didn't have the paperwork done to be.

00:05:01.280 And then they would say you're here illegally.

00:05:04.180 So if someone comes across and you guys apprehend them, is it apprehend like what do you guys do?

00:05:10.120 You guys take them in.

00:05:11.000 You guys take them into a facility.

00:05:12.080 Do you immediately like take them back across the border?

00:05:15.440 Like what kind of happens?

00:05:17.280 So it's interesting about border enforcement is is I think what happens with middle America is there's there's a perception.

00:05:23.100 I don't know if you've been down to the border or what you take on the border is, but I think a lot of America looks at the border through the eyes of what they've seen on the news.

00:05:31.160 You know, you look at San Diego, you look at El Paso and they show an urbanized border.

00:05:35.620 You got cities on both sides and fencing and demarcation.

00:05:37.940 A lot of what the Border Patrol deals with is everything in between out in the middle of nowhere, rugged mountains, desert.

00:05:45.660 It just there is I've worked in places where there's next to nothing out there in regards to infrastructure.

00:05:51.800 It's just you and your closest backup is 10 or 20 miles away and you're in the middle of nowhere.

00:05:55.660 Wow.

00:05:55.820 And so we employ and I have to get away from the we because now I'm retired, but the Border Patrol employs a whole myriad of tools, infrared cameras, ground sensors.

00:06:07.160 We've got one of the largest air fleets in the U.S. government in the law enforcement realm.

00:06:11.800 So you've got Blackhawks, an assortment of helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles.

00:06:16.940 And so, I mean, you're using all these different assets to track so many, hopefully to prevent, but to track them once they enter the country. 0.99

00:06:24.260 So you see someone say say someone's out on patrol, right on an actual patrol, and then they see someone crossing into the country.

00:06:32.400 Do they like tag them or like do they what do you do?

00:06:38.980 Like, do you apprehend them?

00:06:40.680 Is it I mean, I would it almost has like a freeze tag type of vibe.

00:06:45.180 I feel like at a certain point it is.

00:06:47.460 It's almost like a game of cat and mouse, you know.

00:06:50.000 So I'll give you two scenarios.

00:06:51.420 OK.

00:06:51.640 In an urbanized area where we've got you've got fencing or El Paso, you're saying like El Paso, even places like Douglas, Nogales, Arizona.

00:07:01.080 Yeah.

00:07:01.740 San Diego, you've got fencing or a wall under the Trump administration to change from fencing to wall.

00:07:07.740 Right.

00:07:08.600 And those locations, we've got a lot of fixed cameras.

00:07:11.520 These are cameras that are up on large poles.

00:07:13.720 And so you've got agents that are monitoring and watching.

00:07:16.500 And some of the technology that plays into these cameras also detects does change detection.

00:07:21.240 So if it's watching the fence and all of a sudden there's a change in that picture, it'll alert the operator who then will call the agents out in the field.

00:07:28.340 And then that agent, he or she will respond to the area.

00:07:31.580 Or maybe they're watching with binoculars and they see him crossing over the fence through a hole.

00:07:35.540 So they'll respond and then they'll make the arrest.

00:07:38.320 It's apprehension, arrest.

00:07:40.300 It's all the same thing.

00:07:41.900 Okay.

00:07:41.940 And then the second scenario is, as I described, out in the middle of nowhere, and that's more of the norm.

00:07:48.160 You're out there and what happens is you may have a ground sensor that goes off somewhere near the border.

00:07:53.300 And you learn, psychologically as human beings, you're looking for the easiest path of resistance.

00:07:59.920 So you learn the psychology of where people are going to try to cross.

00:08:03.640 And then you're also dealing with, one of the things that we can talk about this shortly is, you're dealing with a criminal element that's very effective and, I'll use the term, they're professionals at what they do, smuggling people.

00:08:13.780 And so they'll begin trekking north into the U.S. 0.83

00:08:18.040 And what agents will do is they'll find a spot where they can make the arrest that's beneficial to them.

00:08:23.240 And they'll track them.

00:08:24.400 The sensors are lined up in such a manner that you can track the movement of a person or a group of people.

00:08:29.380 You may use infrared scopes.

00:08:31.140 You may call on someone up in the air to track the group of people as they move along.

00:08:35.840 And then you'll roll in and make that arrest.

00:08:37.480 So it sounds like there's a lot of capabilities to know when and where people are coming.

00:08:43.880 So it sounds great, right?

00:08:45.240 It sounds like all these tools, all these assets.

00:08:48.240 But until you're out there and you get a true idea of just how it really is a needle in a haystack, because some of the areas that we work in, I'll speak to Arizona.

00:08:57.960 You have these arroyos and canyons and brush.

00:09:02.260 And so you may have, I may have a camera, an infrared camera that's going to pan this way.

00:09:06.220 And if the ground was flat and there was nothing to obstruct the view, easy.

00:09:10.500 Right.

00:09:11.000 But because someone can drop into a canyon, and these canyons can go for miles or climb up into a mountain and hide in a cave, your window of opportunity for arrest is very short.

00:09:20.260 So the agents, when I say they position themselves, they're finding an area where they have great technology coverage.

00:09:25.180 And they know the ins and out of that area.

00:09:26.760 So when they go to arrest these people, if they scatter and run, which happens quite often, they know what to work towards to bring them into custody.

00:09:34.440 Wow.

00:09:34.800 Yeah, it's, you got to get you out there.

00:09:36.840 Yeah.

00:09:37.260 Oh, you would love it.

00:09:38.180 I've heard, yeah, I've actually got offered, we had Tommy Lahren came on as a guest one time, and she is like, you know, she's like real, she's big on the border, on border control, you know.

00:09:48.220 She's a favorite of the border patrol.

00:09:49.460 Is she?

00:09:49.760 She's one of the first that went out to the border and invested herself, excuse me, invested herself and got to know the border, the border patrol and what's going on.

00:09:57.400 Right.

00:09:57.560 But she's a strong advocate and a lot of the agents really, really love her.

00:10:00.940 Yeah.

00:10:01.560 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:01.880 She's a strong, yeah, she's definitely a strong advocate. 0.61

00:10:03.520 She offered me to go sometime.

00:10:05.300 So, yeah, I would love to go sometime.

00:10:06.960 So I have an idea because I just see like snippets here and there.

00:10:11.180 And it seems like, you know, a lot of the border gets politicized a lot, you know, like you see a lot of like you hear a lot of like, oh, caravans are coming or children are being separated from their parents or their families.

00:10:26.480 Like take me into some of that scenario.

00:10:28.160 So like if you apprehend a family, then what happens?

00:10:30.940 So everyone who's apprehended, and I'll walk you through from the point of apprehension to getting into the station and in some cases, criminally prosecuted or released or returned.

00:10:39.020 There's a couple of scenarios.

00:10:40.540 As soon as that arrest is made, the agent, and what we have to recognize is that we're still dealing with a criminal element.

00:10:46.780 Right.

00:10:46.900 So just like any law enforcement officer, he or she goes through that whole procedure of pat down, checking bags and whatever else.

00:10:53.660 And you're dealing with people from not only, well, I think most people think about illegal immigrants as being from Mexico or Central America.

00:11:01.360 And that's the focus right now.

00:11:02.920 Right.

00:11:03.140 But the reality is, is we see people from everywhere throughout the world.

00:11:06.840 Really?

00:11:07.300 Syria, Somalia, Egypt, Russia, Ukraine, you name it.

00:11:13.700 People from those countries are coming here.

00:11:16.660 And they're coming to the southern border.

00:11:19.780 Yeah.

00:11:20.200 Wow.

00:11:20.560 So the, and I often say this, what gets lost on the public is border security is truly national security.

00:11:30.580 Right.

00:11:30.880 We're dealing with cartels, and this is a multi-billion dollar industry.

00:11:35.100 It's not a couple hundred dollars or a few million.

00:11:37.220 It's billions of dollars that are generated in trafficking and smuggling of people and narcotics.

00:11:41.560 Wow.

00:11:42.440 The power and the leverage that these trafficking organizations have is tremendous.

00:11:46.980 And we can talk about this in a little bit.

00:11:48.380 But on the Mexican side, one of the things that we have to contend with is corruption. 1.00

00:11:52.520 And when you have an organization, a criminal organization that's pulling in billions of dollars, you know, dropping $5,000 or $10,000 in the pockets of a Mexican official to look the other way is nothing.

00:12:02.020 Yeah.

00:12:02.260 So this multi-billion dollar industry has a drive, has a need to keep that, that, that money coming in.

00:12:10.400 Yeah.

00:12:10.780 So the agents are contending with, you've got unaccompanied children.

00:12:14.300 And when we say this, I want to paint the picture.

00:12:16.580 A lot of these unaccompanied children are young men between the ages of 15 and 17.

00:12:20.100 Okay.

00:12:20.340 I'd say about probably half of them.

00:12:22.360 And then the rest are everything from a 12-year-old.

00:12:27.340 One of the things I see frequently is you'll have an eight or nine-year-old with a younger sibling who's about five or six and sometimes a two or three-year-old with them.

00:12:35.220 And they're traveling thousands of miles by themselves to our border and then coming across.

00:12:40.780 And it blows my mind.

00:12:42.720 I've got an eight-year-old.

00:12:45.000 And I couldn't imagine.

00:12:46.360 Yeah.

00:12:47.080 Saying, here, here's, here's a phone number.

00:12:48.740 When you get to the U.S., call this number and somebody's going to come and find you.

00:12:51.300 I couldn't imagine sending my child out on this journey by himself.

00:12:54.760 Oh, we had a four-year-old when I was growing up that, that wandered over to our house.

00:12:58.880 Like from the neighbors, they used to do a bunch of drugs next door.

00:13:01.500 And he knocked on the door.

00:13:03.740 He said he was going to the Dollar General.

00:13:05.300 He's like four years old.

00:13:06.040 We're like, you're not going to the Dollar.

00:13:07.600 Like this kid is out of his mind.

00:13:08.700 It's like two miles away.

00:13:09.640 We're like, this guy's, you know.

00:13:10.860 So we sent him home, man.

00:13:12.300 But, but yeah, I can't even imagine like a kid going a really far distance out of it.

00:13:16.160 And it's hot over there.

00:13:17.340 I mean, I lived in Tucson for a while, dude.

00:13:18.780 It is, it's spicy.

00:13:21.080 Oh, yeah.

00:13:21.620 And take it back.

00:13:22.460 So if you're leaving from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, you're traveling a couple thousand

00:13:26.340 miles, two to four weeks.

00:13:28.900 Think about a six-year-old or an eight-year-old doing this by himself.

00:13:31.040 Or maybe with a group of other kids.

00:13:33.780 What happens between the moment they leave their house until they get to the border?

00:13:37.180 And when you get to the border, you're right.

00:13:38.600 There's the dangers of just the environment by itself.

00:13:40.780 The Rio Grande, the desert, the heat.

00:13:42.800 Well, the heat and the cold.

00:13:43.940 It'll kill you either or.

00:13:45.380 Yeah, it's a good point.

00:13:46.460 Then you have people that will take advantage of these kids.

00:13:48.820 Yeah.

00:13:49.040 You know, and one of the things that just breaks my heart, because I've seen this countless

00:13:52.380 times, you get kids that are rented.

00:13:54.960 Because one of the things that happens is if you present as a family unit, here's Roy,

00:14:00.560 mom, a couple of kids, I'm going to get released.

00:14:03.920 And so what we were seeing was kids being rented.

00:14:06.600 And so you've got a parent back in Guatemala who rents their child for $1,500.

00:14:11.620 And that's a tremendous amount of money in Guatemala.

00:14:13.640 Yeah.

00:14:13.800 And so the kid is brought to the border, put in with a pseudo family, sits in detention

00:14:20.800 and then is released.

00:14:21.900 And then a handler, a smuggler picks up this child, plies him back to Guatemala.

00:14:26.940 Wow.

00:14:27.380 That's the best case scenario, right?

00:14:29.080 Right.

00:14:29.700 What happens with kids that just disappear?

00:14:31.900 And we saw this happen.

00:14:33.440 As soon as you identify that child, because it would take one or two, sometimes three times

00:14:36.960 before the system would pick them up, because not all children are fingerprinted.

00:14:42.380 And once you've identified them and you latch onto this group and you expose it, if you can

00:14:47.900 control and get that child back into the hands of the parent, win.

00:14:51.940 If you can't, if that child happens to get released with that family and then the smuggling

00:14:55.040 organization realizes that the child is now blown, I don't know what happens to them.

00:15:00.420 Yeah.

00:15:00.700 It's like, is it worth them getting them a plane ticket or a bus ticket back to Guatemala?

00:15:06.700 Is it worth, or is it just cheaper for them, especially after they've already been doing

00:15:11.920 a lot of dirty business, you know, to just not care or get them into something else, even

00:15:18.080 worse?

00:15:18.620 It's a business that doesn't care about the person.

00:15:20.840 It's a business that's driven by money.

00:15:22.620 So whether it's trafficking, whether it's returning to the family, best case scenario,

00:15:26.800 and or becoming an indentured servant, you know, working in some sort of industry, being

00:15:31.460 sexually trafficked, all of those are realities of what we see at the border.

00:15:34.520 Yeah.

00:15:35.560 Yeah.

00:15:35.960 I've met, I mean, I've, I myself have been involved with escorts and, you know, that

00:15:41.160 sort of thing.

00:15:41.660 We had a sex worker on here one time. 1.00

00:15:43.180 Um, I've met girls before, um, that have been presented as escorts and you can, that 0.99

00:15:50.800 I've just been like, Oh, there's something is not right with this scenario.

00:15:53.880 You know, this is not, um, this is not somebody who's involved in this because they want to

00:15:59.140 be involved in this.

00:15:59.900 You know, that kind of stuff's kind of sad to see.

00:16:01.320 And it's interesting because we'll have such adamant, like people speaking so outspokenly

00:16:06.740 about sex trafficking in America, but the same people that seems will be speaking about

00:16:11.400 opening the borders up.

00:16:12.600 And it's like, it just seems so, uh, I don't know.

00:16:17.120 It's like, yeah.

00:16:17.500 How do you know that the people coming across aren't like, yeah, it could be pretending

00:16:22.320 that that that's their daughter, you know, or pretending that that's their mom.

00:16:25.660 Like you just don't really know the scenario, huh?

00:16:27.740 No.

00:16:28.160 And the thing about it, when I talk about these criminal organizations, each, uh, trafficking

00:16:32.500 organization, cartel owns a certain segment.

00:16:35.960 They've got, uh, um, cartel bosses that own plazas, their plaza bosses. 0.91

00:16:41.600 So, you know, it could be five miles or 10 miles of an area.

00:16:44.380 And so when you come up to the border, you're paying a tax in order to cross in that area

00:16:48.320 on that side on, yeah, from, from the Mexican side to the U S side.

00:16:51.400 So, I mean, and when I talk about billion dollar industry, so Mexican national, he or she is

00:16:56.580 going to pay between the cheapest would be about 2,500, all the way up to about five

00:17:00.060 grand, um, central American five to 10 grand, an Indian national, uh, tax they're paying 0.87

00:17:07.660 on the Mexican side.

00:17:08.560 Well, this is to get smuggled, right?

00:17:10.380 Oh, to get smuggled.

00:17:11.420 So you get to the border.

00:17:12.340 This is part of your, your smuggling fee.

00:17:13.620 You're paying a total fee of, let's say it's 10, 10 grand, right?

00:17:16.200 Okay.

00:17:16.520 But then when I show up at the border, this plaza boss says, Theo, I know you paid Roy to

00:17:21.160 come across, but you hadn't paid my tax yet.

00:17:23.680 So now you owe me 500 or 300, $800 to cross here.

00:17:27.840 So you have to keep that money on you, on your person while you're going that distance.

00:17:31.200 It's a little bit of both.

00:17:32.120 You'll see folks that travel with money in their, in their hands, in their pockets, hidden

00:17:35.700 away.

00:17:36.180 And then there's a lot of money that gets wired.

00:17:38.120 Um, you know, it's, it's a huge industry, uh, money being wired into Mexico.

00:17:42.880 So like, uh, I think it's the number three or number five, but part of Mexico's GDP, their

00:17:48.020 gross domestic domestic product, one of the, the largest, uh, GDP earners is remittances

00:17:53.660 from the U S into Mexico.

00:17:55.180 And it's the same thing in Central America where you've got folks that are sending money

00:17:57.820 back.

00:17:58.340 So they'll wire a smuggler here, you know, here's the 300 bucks that I can cross in

00:18:02.100 your plaza.

00:18:03.220 Wow.

00:18:03.640 It's, it's just, it's big bucks, but like an Indian national, it's going to pay 20 to 1.00

00:18:08.080 $40,000 Chinese, about 50 grand.

00:18:11.320 Um, someone who's, uh, from a, um, a, uh, a country that, that may be on the, like maybe

00:18:18.660 perceived as being a terrorist country, not that they're terrorists, but could be perceived

00:18:22.000 as such easily 80 grand.

00:18:24.320 And that's what they're going to charge that the, the, the, the smuggler organization or

00:18:27.980 the coyote is going to charge, is going to charge.

00:18:29.580 And, and the, the, the organization in and of itself is, is very disciplined in that you've

00:18:33.960 got folks that they do the recruitment.

00:18:35.620 Um, they're all over social media, so you can go onto Facebook and, and, uh, find, uh,

00:18:41.860 sites that'll offer smuggling.

00:18:44.660 And then, so you've got the recruiters, you've got the handlers on the Mexican side that, that,

00:18:48.920 uh, they house you and feed you until you're being, until you're ready to be crossed. 0.95

00:18:52.180 You've got the folks that will just get you across the border.

00:18:54.520 And then you've got those that'll cross you once across the border into the U S and then 0.97

00:18:58.180 you've got logistics teams that do the transport.

00:19:00.340 So there's all different.

00:19:01.640 So depending on how much money you have is the type of treatment you can get along the

00:19:05.560 way, kind of, kind of, kind of sort of, I mean, you're going to pay a lump sum, but

00:19:08.620 each segment, someone's getting paid, right?

00:19:11.540 Um, the thing is with each segment, as you're getting paid along, well, you're not, in other

00:19:18.220 words, I'm, I'm paying you, you're the organizer, right?

00:19:20.220 You're the smuggler.

00:19:20.820 I give you my 40 grand.

00:19:22.240 And then that smuggler as, as the person's being moved along pays Roy a portion.

00:19:26.980 Okay.

00:19:27.280 I see.

00:19:27.580 Somebody else a portion.

00:19:28.820 So he's breaking everybody off.

00:19:30.060 You kind of have the guy that's the bank.

00:19:31.320 Yeah.

00:19:31.760 Yeah, exactly.

00:19:32.960 Um, we had a question that came in from a young lady right here.

00:19:34.900 Let's pull that question back up.

00:19:36.260 If you don't mind, Sean, and if you can hear birds, this is our new studio.

00:19:40.660 So this is our first attempt in this new place here.

00:19:43.100 Um, gorgeous.

00:19:44.500 Thank you.

00:19:44.980 We got some, there's some robins nesting outside.

00:19:49.180 Hey, Theo.

00:19:50.020 Hey, Roy.

00:19:50.680 I'm visiting the great free state of Texas from Michigan.

00:19:53.780 And my question is, what is one thing that you'd want people to know about the border that

00:19:59.560 the media won't tell you?

00:20:01.140 Gang, gang.

00:20:02.200 Gang, baby. 0.75

00:20:02.680 So that's a good question.

00:20:03.940 Yeah.

00:20:04.120 What do you, what's something that, that people don't know?

00:20:07.460 What's something we don't know as like a regular citizen?

00:20:11.040 Yeah.

00:20:11.600 Unfortunately, there's so many things, but I mean, realistically, the, the greatest thing

00:20:16.220 that I think the public needs to understand is that it's not just about illegal migration.

00:20:22.800 It's not just kids or families.

00:20:25.780 It's the, the greater threat that's posed by these criminal organizations.

00:20:30.220 I mean, when you've got a multi-billion dollar organization that controls the border, that

00:20:35.300 can move people, commodities freely, that's problematic.

00:20:39.720 Yeah.

00:20:40.260 Um, it feels very problematic as like a, someone who's just in a place like, yeah, it'd be scary

00:20:46.100 if I left like a window open at night and I knew that people outside of the window had

00:20:49.960 a very strong business and wanted things to come in my window.

00:20:53.400 Oh, absolutely.

00:20:54.820 And they're going to do whatever it takes to get it done.

00:20:56.660 Wow.

00:20:56.980 Um, these aren't, uh, they're not doing it for altruistic, you know, good natured purposes.

00:21:02.620 They're doing it for the mighty dollar.

00:21:04.480 Do you have, uh, do you ever have compromised, uh, employees on your side?

00:21:10.000 Yeah.

00:21:10.400 Unfortunately it happens.

00:21:11.600 Um, the reality is again, get back to the, it'd be hard to do.

00:21:17.040 So I'll give you two scenarios.

00:21:18.500 The reality is, uh, the money is there.

00:21:20.320 Um, and so people that are recruited in the border patrol and we've got people from all

00:21:25.380 over the United States, um, some, some of which such as myself, who were born and raised

00:21:29.400 near the border.

00:21:30.020 So you work in the border environment and you've got folks that come from back East, uh, Michigan,

00:21:35.560 places like that, that have never experienced the border and they get down there and it's

00:21:38.220 just this culture shock.

00:21:39.200 And, uh, we, uh, in, in border patrol parlance, we, we used to call it a, uh, uh, 10, four

00:21:46.100 scenario, which is a police code for everything's okay.

00:21:49.460 10, four, but you call it a 10, four, because here I am, I'm a four walking into a bar and

00:21:53.940 this 10 comes up and starts hitting on me.

00:21:56.060 Well, what she's doing is she's working you to corrupt you. 0.99

00:21:58.480 And so we've seen a couple of circumstances where that's happened.

00:22:01.740 So the reality is, is there corruption or can corruption happen?

00:22:05.040 Yes.

00:22:05.440 Right.

00:22:05.880 But the, it's easier in Mexico than it is in the U S, uh, simply because of the pay is

00:22:12.680 different.

00:22:13.160 It's also culturally accepted in Mexico.

00:22:15.740 Um, one of the sayings down there is plumo plata.

00:22:18.340 Um, give me a, give me a silver or give me a bullet.

00:22:22.800 So silver being money.

00:22:23.980 Right.

00:22:24.460 And so, you know, Mexico has been changing, working towards getting away from corruption,

00:22:28.420 but it's still a reality of, of the environment down there.

00:22:30.980 Yeah.

00:22:31.740 Um, and we've also had a real dark force over there.

00:22:35.380 You're not really just up against the people that are coming across, uh, you're up against

00:22:39.500 the possibility of those people.

00:22:41.640 Um, not just being like people fleeing for a better life.

00:22:44.820 You're up against the possibility of those people being criminals.

00:22:48.000 Um, and then you're up against the, the, the, both of those being fortified and supported

00:22:55.080 by, by billions of dollars by, by a really a strong running business by dirty money.

00:23:01.320 But yes, absolutely.

00:23:02.340 Wow.

00:23:02.800 Yeah.

00:23:03.100 You know, the other aspect too, is we've had, uh, cartels pay people to join the border

00:23:07.760 clean record, get them to join the border patrol and then, and then use them for information,

00:23:12.240 um, uh, enforcement routes and stuff like that to pass goods.

00:23:16.520 So it's, it's, it's an everyday threat.

00:23:19.040 It really is.

00:23:19.840 So, uh, what about like, so Trump had a plan to build the wall, right?

00:23:25.340 So that was like a thing, uh, that was really big that he spoke a lot about.

00:23:28.900 Did they start building the wall?

00:23:31.840 Do you feel like the wall was going to be effective?

00:23:34.440 So, uh, looking at, uh, Trump's wall, uh, again, 32 years of doing this.

00:23:39.220 When I first came into the border patrol, there was very little infrastructure along the border.

00:23:42.660 It was strands of barbed wire.

00:23:44.300 If, if it was even up, right.

00:23:45.980 I remember, uh, being in a high speed pursuit and I'm driving down off the freeway.

00:23:50.360 We get into, into the, uh, the dirt and we're driving through these ravines and stuff.

00:23:54.160 And had it not been for another agent yelling out to me to stop, I would have driven right

00:23:57.280 into Mexico.

00:23:57.740 Oh, really?

00:23:58.280 Because there was nothing to demarcate the U S and Mexico.

00:24:01.260 Wow.

00:24:01.680 This is late eighties, early nineties.

00:24:03.320 So it was a different world then kind of?

00:24:04.700 Oh, absolutely.

00:24:05.460 Absolutely.

00:24:05.740 We were arresting, uh, anywhere from a million, a million and a half people a year.

00:24:08.700 And every night it was high speed pursuits, foot chases.

00:24:11.560 We were catching a thousand people a night.

00:24:12.960 And that's just in one little station.

00:24:14.740 Right.

00:24:15.020 Um, I used to laugh because when I first joined the border patrol, I remember walking into

00:24:18.640 a station and there was a, somebody had a shirt up shirt for sale on the back of

00:24:22.160 it was an agent laying face down with footprints on his back.

00:24:24.720 I'm like, well, you know, what does that have to do?

00:24:26.120 And he's like, just get out in the field.

00:24:27.520 And you'll see, and sure as heck, you're just getting overrun every day.

00:24:30.840 It was crazy.

00:24:31.900 Absolutely crazy.

00:24:32.620 So almost like playing a red Rover or something and they're just coming.

00:24:35.640 Oh yeah.

00:24:36.240 Yeah.

00:24:36.400 They would.

00:24:37.040 So, uh, if you, uh, Google it or look on YouTube and you go back to late eighties,

00:24:41.600 early nineties in San Diego, that was the epicenter of everything, illegal migration.

00:24:46.600 And what the, uh, the migrants would do and the smugglers would do is they'd line up on

00:24:50.500 the Tijuana side of the border and they would watch the agents.

00:24:54.560 There weren't a lot.

00:24:55.160 When I came to the border patrol, there were about 2,500 of us.

00:24:57.520 When I retired in December, there were about 20,000 of us.

00:25:00.740 So we've grown tremendously, but even that's, you know, it's just, it's not enough to cover

00:25:04.420 the border.

00:25:05.000 So it's increased by almost 10 by 10 fold and that's along the entire border.

00:25:10.580 Yeah.

00:25:10.940 Both, uh, the Southern border and the Northern border.

00:25:12.940 So we've got about, uh, 16,000 agents on the Southern border and just under 2000 on the

00:25:17.060 Northern border.

00:25:17.760 And that gets forgotten too.

00:25:18.920 There's a threat up there on the Northern border.

00:25:20.320 Wow.

00:25:20.520 It's different, but there's still a threat up there.

00:25:22.400 Right.

00:25:23.160 Do you, um, when you have like a family that comes in, oh, wait, let me get back to that

00:25:29.100 to just to the Trump wall.

00:25:30.200 So the wall, was it being built?

00:25:32.120 It was right.

00:25:32.860 So one of the things, and this is often, um, I think we talked about the media and, you

00:25:36.940 know, you get a certain soundbite.

00:25:38.680 So the media doesn't give you the full understanding or picture of what we're talking about.

00:25:42.140 Right.

00:25:42.780 When we were talking about the border wall, what it is, it's a border enforcement system.

00:25:47.680 Um, it's the wall, but more importantly, it's access to the wall.

00:25:51.200 It's infrastructure.

00:25:52.020 It's a road that leads to the wall.

00:25:53.540 It's a road that parallels the wall.

00:25:54.720 So you can patrol its power, its technology, uh, it's, it's this full package.

00:26:00.120 Right.

00:26:00.600 And so people often, again, they think about the border as being this urban area that you

00:26:06.420 can just drive it up to and patrol very easily.

00:26:09.280 When you go out into the mountains and the deserts, you need access.

00:26:12.180 And what building the wall did was it gave us access to certain locations.

00:26:16.340 So looking at Trump's border wall, um, there was some new wall that was built.

00:26:20.540 And then more importantly, there was replacement wall.

00:26:22.380 And I often laugh because people like, well, you know, it's, it's not wall.

00:26:25.900 It's not new wall.

00:26:26.520 Well, when you get a new pair of shoes, you don't call it a replacement pair of shoes.

00:26:29.800 It's a new pair of shoes.

00:26:31.200 Right.

00:26:31.560 So we, we have new wall built.

00:26:33.000 It was about, uh, I think it was 450 miles of wall that was built.

00:26:36.680 Oh, wow.

00:26:37.460 Yeah.

00:26:37.660 That's a decent amount.

00:26:38.580 It's a decent amount.

00:26:39.460 And the thing about this too, is what the wall does is we looked at and we analyzed

00:26:43.760 in the border patrols, where can we put wall that effectively shapes the environment

00:26:48.420 for us so that we can make a, we deter people from coming into the U S and 1.00

00:26:52.380 And then more importantly, if they do elect to come into the U S where can we shape it

00:26:55.500 so that it's advantageous to us to make an arrest.

00:26:58.420 Right.

00:26:59.220 Yeah.

00:26:59.580 Cause there's so much cost too, that go into like, just get people out of like the middle

00:27:04.240 of nowhere and getting them back to a location.

00:27:07.320 Um, and I just can't even imagine all the costs that go into a lot of that.

00:27:11.580 So the wall now, are they finishing the wall?

00:27:14.360 Are they stopping the wall?

00:27:15.640 Do they know?

00:27:16.700 No.

00:27:16.980 So, so the, uh, when Biden came into, into his presidency, the new administration put

00:27:22.720 a stop to all wall building, which is very short sighted.

00:27:26.480 And I say it because of this.

00:27:28.080 So in, in building the wall, it's not like they start at point A and then to B and then

00:27:32.060 to C what they did is it's A and B here and M and N over there.

00:27:35.280 So that you have areas that are open.

00:27:37.000 So, you know, they'll go and they'll clear out existing fencing or they'll grade for new

00:27:41.160 wall.

00:27:41.440 And then they're building in certain segments and building to finish the wall.

00:27:45.700 So we've got, uh, in just in Arizona itself, there are probably about 300 gaps.

00:27:50.820 Um, some of which were, are as, as small as 50 feet, some as wide as a quarter mile.

00:27:56.740 Right.

00:27:57.080 And other areas where the wall was built up to a point where you put a gate in and you

00:28:01.300 need gates to go back and forth because you have to do maintenance on the fencing on the

00:28:04.860 walls and sometimes rescues.

00:28:06.440 And I'll talk to you about that here shortly.

00:28:08.260 So they didn't finish these gates.

00:28:09.540 So now you've got 300 gaps in the wall, which means 300 vulnerabilities, 300 places that

00:28:15.780 smugglers can push people across.

00:28:17.280 And, um, one of the tools that smugglers use and this really upset me.

00:28:23.060 So when we had families and unaccompanied kids coming across what these organizations would 0.74

00:28:26.420 do is they would charter three to six buses.

00:28:28.800 They drive them out to the desert because on the Mexican side, their freeway parallels the 1.00

00:28:33.260 border on the U S side.

00:28:35.520 Other than the cities, there's nothing on our side of the border.

00:28:38.320 Uh, nothing, you know, anywhere from, geez, I would say 30 to 80 miles before you hit

00:28:43.800 any sort of infrastructure from the U S Mexico border.

00:28:46.280 So these smugglers, they'd hire chartered these buses, they drive up a hundred to 300 families

00:28:51.560 and kids and they drop them off in the desert and push them into the U S knowing that our 0.84

00:28:56.600 technology was going to pick up this, this event.

00:28:59.100 And then it would take us 24 to 40 hours because it's again, in places they were dropping off

00:29:05.800 in places where we had very little access or infrastructure.

00:29:08.480 So it would take us 24 to 40 hours to get four by four vehicles into these areas, load

00:29:13.020 up the kids, load up the families, drive them into a place where we could then get a van or

00:29:16.720 a bus and then drive them to a station.

00:29:17.960 And so when this happens and it's done strategically again, this is about making money, right?

00:29:23.580 It's done strategically.

00:29:24.540 So you drop this group off here and then I've got to close operations for in this particular

00:29:30.820 location.

00:29:31.140 I shut down a whole station, which is about 450 agents.

00:29:34.440 And I dedicated all of those agents to getting these kids and these families out of the desert

00:29:39.140 because what's going to happen, the heat or the cold is going to kill them.

00:29:41.900 And so when your manpower is dedicated to this, then you get segments of the border that are

00:29:47.220 wide open.

00:29:47.800 And what happens?

00:29:48.820 They run drugs through there.

00:29:49.920 They run criminals through there.

00:29:51.340 So it's all about making money.

00:29:52.740 It's, it's, it's a cat and mouse game.

00:29:54.740 You know, a lot of people are selling things online and vending things and selling things.

00:30:00.920 And if you want those things, if you, if you, uh, if you're a seller, you got to get rid

00:30:06.460 of the product.

00:30:07.980 You got to push goods.

00:30:09.620 You know what I'm saying, fam?

00:30:11.900 No one does that better than ship station.

00:30:14.780 No matter how much you sell ship station makes it super easy to push weight, to manage and

00:30:20.260 ship all your orders from all your sales channels, faster, cheaper, and more efficiently ship

00:30:27.280 with any carrier import orders from any sales channel access, discounted shipping rates.

00:30:33.000 Do it all ship station.

00:30:36.280 Whether you're selling through Amazon Etsy or your own website, whether you're using

00:30:41.240 UPS, FedEx, or USPS, you'll get access to amazing discounts with ship station.

00:30:47.540 Small businesses can now access the same rates usually reserved for those fortune 500 companies.

00:30:54.300 Compete with the big boys.

00:30:56.480 Ship station has more five-star reviews than any other shipping service.

00:31:00.020 Get our discount right now.

00:31:04.140 Use the offer code T-H-E-O to get a 60-day free trial.

00:31:09.580 That's two months free of no hassle, stress-free shipping.

00:31:15.180 Just go to shipstation.com.

00:31:18.280 Click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in T-H-E-O.

00:31:22.460 That's shipstation.com.

00:31:24.700 Enter offer code Theo.

00:31:25.940 Go make ship happen.

00:31:27.920 Oh, man.

00:31:29.680 Cracking into a little bit of you know.

00:31:37.020 Liquid death.

00:31:38.780 Are you paying off credit card debt a lot?

00:31:42.840 Do you see that bill come in and your day's been good, but you get it from the mailbox

00:31:48.140 and you can barely even hug your children after that because your arms is shaking 0.97

00:31:51.660 because you got so much damn debt?

00:31:53.780 Well, when it comes to paying off debt, Upstart can help you get ahead. 0.86

00:32:01.800 It's the fastest, easiest way to pay off your debt with a personal loan all done online.

00:32:07.760 Whether it's paying off credit cards, consolidating high interest debt, or funding personal expenses,

00:32:13.640 over half a million people have used Upstart to get a simple fixed monthly payment.

00:32:19.440 Quit getting all of those statements.

00:32:21.240 Get one.

00:32:21.700 With a five-minute online rate check, you can see your rate up front for loans between $1,000 to $50,000.

00:32:29.960 You can receive funds as fast as one business day after accepting your loan.

00:32:35.740 Find out how Upstart can lower your monthly payments today when you go to Upstart.com slash T-H-E-O.

00:32:42.560 That's Upstart, U-P-S-T-A-R-T, .com slash T-H-E-O. 0.94

00:32:47.920 Don't forget to use our URL.

00:32:50.560 Let them know we sent you.

00:32:52.540 Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit, income, and certain other information

00:32:57.020 provided in your loan application.

00:32:59.020 Go to Upstart.com slash T-H-E-O. 0.85

00:33:01.920 So sometimes the people, humans, will even be used just as a ploy to then run more expensive products over.

00:33:10.080 Oh, absolutely.

00:33:10.740 Wow.

00:33:10.940 Absolutely.

00:33:11.300 One of the things we were witnessing, too, is I was in San Diego prior to going to Tucson,

00:33:15.680 and San Diego at one point was accounting for about 60% of all hard narcotics, meth, coke, fentanyl.

00:33:21.320 Oh, wow.

00:33:22.020 San Diego.

00:33:22.660 Dang.

00:33:23.140 It's crazy.

00:33:23.620 A lot of it come through the ports, and then some of it come between the ports.

00:33:26.460 But in Arizona, it started to pick up, and the difference in Arizona is they were making

00:33:30.580 these little blue tablets, fentanyl tablets, which is much easier to smuggle and transport

00:33:34.960 than bricks of the stuff.

00:33:37.500 So you would get, and the way these guys operate, it's just phenomenal.

00:33:41.380 So the scenario I described, right?

00:33:42.740 Here's the diversion.

00:33:43.760 I send a group of three guys, three to five, all of them with a backpack, all of them carry,

00:33:47.880 well, the way they would work it is the first guy would have 20, 30 pounds of marijuana,

00:33:53.060 right?

00:33:53.600 Next guy, food and supplies.

00:33:55.820 The third guy would have the fentanyl, and he would be carrying probably 10 to the most

00:34:00.420 20 pounds of fentanyl.

00:34:01.860 And then the other two guys, maybe meth, coke, something else.

00:34:05.480 And so this group of five would come running across the border.

00:34:08.420 We would hope that we would pick them up.

00:34:09.960 What we try to do is not get so distracted that we completely avoided everything because,

00:34:15.300 again, we had air assets, technology.

00:34:17.880 And so you'd see this group, and then the group had the five guys.

00:34:23.340 The first guy, his job was to get arrested.

00:34:25.640 Right.

00:34:26.060 So that you would then dealing with him, and the guy with the fentanyl, his job was to

00:34:31.260 get away. 0.73

00:34:31.800 And the other four guys would do everything in their power to make sure that he got away.

00:34:35.320 Dang.

00:34:35.800 It's just crazy business.

00:34:36.880 It's like playing against Kansas City Chiefs almost, kind of.

00:34:39.100 You know?

00:34:39.440 It's almost like playing against Andy Reid.

00:34:40.800 You know what I'm saying?

00:34:41.560 Like, they're coming with a plan.

00:34:43.420 Oh, yeah.

00:34:43.900 Absolutely.

00:34:44.600 Absolutely.

00:34:46.280 Man.

00:34:46.600 And you know what's crazy about this, too, is thank you again for the opportunity.

00:34:52.860 There's, I mean, there's so much that goes on at the border, and I'm trying to spit it

00:34:56.640 out here, and my mind's racing because there's so much I'd like to say.

00:34:58.900 But, you know, I talked about the industry, but one of the things that also happens, like

00:35:02.720 these five guys that are coming across, they're going to hike for 30 to 80 miles through the

00:35:07.920 desert.

00:35:08.140 So, these cartels have logistical waypoints along the road.

00:35:12.860 They pay somebody to haul in food and water, fresh batteries.

00:35:17.320 And so, they're set up in the desert, in the mountains there.

00:35:20.180 So, as this group comes along, they're watching.

00:35:22.420 So, they got two jobs.

00:35:23.780 Right.

00:35:23.860 One is to resupply, and then the second job is to watch us.

00:35:26.040 And it is, it's a bear to catch them.

00:35:29.240 I mean, in order to arrest these guys, at one point, we did surveillance for probably

00:35:33.100 four to six months, identifying all the spots.

00:35:36.600 Right.

00:35:36.780 And then we brought in, we brought in a whole slew of air assets, Blackhawks and everything

00:35:44.500 else.

00:35:45.060 And we brought in our BORTAC, which is like our SWAT team.

00:35:47.900 Yeah.

00:35:48.140 And BORSTAR, which is our search and rescue team.

00:35:50.140 All these guys are badass.

00:35:51.260 Yeah.

00:35:52.200 And so, we pinpointed all these locations.

00:35:54.260 We coordinated with the Mexicans.

00:35:55.700 And, you know, I mentioned corruption.

00:35:57.360 So, we had to coordinate with Mexico City to bring out a vetted unit that we could trust.

00:36:01.680 Ah.

00:36:02.040 And so, you know, they did the blocking on the Mexican side, so these guys couldn't run 0.96

00:36:06.820 south and get away. 0.98

00:36:07.920 And then we flew all these teams in at each of these spots, and they'd rappel down, and

00:36:11.700 they'd run in the mountains and make these arrests.

00:36:13.740 But, you know, the amount of money and effort that goes into it is like tremendous.

00:36:17.260 But the unfortunate part is, you give it a week, maybe a month, and then they're right

00:36:22.980 back in business.

00:36:23.680 And so, then you have to replicate this.

00:36:24.840 You have to start watching them and tracking them.

00:36:26.480 And it's just crazy. 0.99

00:36:28.040 Can you tag them or something or shoot them with like a dart so you know where they are? 0.99

00:36:31.480 They don't allow that? 0.99

00:36:32.360 No, no. 0.93

00:36:33.140 See, that's ridiculous to me a little bit. 0.50

00:36:34.600 Like, it's almost like, especially for the guys who are doing the smuggling, can you, 0.54

00:36:39.880 because we'll tag a goose, you know what I'm saying, to find out where he's having an

00:36:42.920 egg, but you won't tag somebody who's freaking just running, you know, like anything across

00:36:48.300 the border.

00:36:49.940 Do they have, what about the smugglers?

00:36:51.780 If you catch a smuggler, can you prosecute them?

00:36:54.300 Is there prosecution against them?

00:36:56.020 There is.

00:36:56.480 Okay.

00:36:56.660 So, one of the things that's evolved over time is, it used to be the smuggler or the guy

00:37:00.760 would come across with that group and you'd make the arrest and then you could work towards

00:37:03.420 a prosecution.

00:37:04.760 We also, you have to recognize that we're competing with all the other federal agencies

00:37:07.700 to get a prosecution.

00:37:08.720 So, you know, probably one out of three cases gets prosecuted.

00:37:12.120 Why?

00:37:12.300 Because some of them, and there's water right there too, if you need it right.

00:37:15.480 Because, so you're competing with them to get a prosecution?

00:37:18.960 Yeah.

00:37:19.140 In other words, so the U.S.

00:37:20.040 Attorney, his or her office can only, they only have so many attorneys, so they can only

00:37:24.240 present so many cases.

00:37:25.100 So, they're looking for the best of the best cases.

00:37:27.900 And you're dealing, you're competing with DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals.

00:37:31.900 But they all want the clout from it, you mean?

00:37:33.600 Well, you want a winning record, right?

00:37:35.700 If I'm a U.S. attorney, I want to have a record that's 100 no.

00:37:39.480 I want to win every doggone case I present.

00:37:41.260 Right.

00:37:41.580 And I also want to take the sexiest cases.

00:37:43.580 Right.

00:37:43.740 I don't want the simple Joe Blow case.

00:37:45.480 I want a case that gets headlines.

00:37:46.920 I want a case that's going to make me look good.

00:37:48.680 Right.

00:37:48.920 So, when you've got, and every day, I mean, you've got a tremendous amount of cases you

00:37:53.700 can come up with.

00:37:54.540 I want to hand pick.

00:37:55.480 I'm going to cherry pick the best case because I want to win and I want to get a good name

00:37:59.520 behind myself.

00:38:00.080 Oh, the smugglers.

00:38:00.720 So, they'll try and prosecute the best smugglers.

00:38:02.460 Yeah.

00:38:02.640 The best smugglers or a smuggler that's tied to a particular organization.

00:38:06.280 Ah.

00:38:07.020 You know, so that, again, this was back in the day when you get these guys and these smugglers.

00:38:10.780 Now, what's happened with technology, everybody has a cell phone.

00:38:13.380 And some of the locations, the cell phone service has gotten to the point that it virtually touches

00:38:18.820 every part of the border now, which means they can communicate, they can pull up, they

00:38:22.520 can track as they're moving along.

00:38:24.080 So, smugglers will sit in Mexico and they'll text.

00:38:27.780 Okay, you're going to walk for a mile.

00:38:29.080 I'm watching you.

00:38:29.680 When you get to this point, you're going to turn left.

00:38:32.000 You're going to walk for three miles and then you're going to get to this mountain.

00:38:34.380 You're going to get resupplied.

00:38:34.660 And you're going to get door dash.

00:38:35.960 Yeah.

00:38:36.100 Like, yeah, it's just getting rid of that.

00:38:37.740 It's crazy.

00:38:38.380 And, you know, we try to employ technology and there's certain types of technology, some

00:38:43.720 of which I can't talk about, but that we employ when we're working.

00:38:47.600 That can jam cell phones and stuff like that? 0.72

00:38:48.940 Stuff that can jam cell phones, track cell phones.

00:38:51.300 And more importantly, one of the things that happened with the Trump administration is he,

00:38:57.260 so the president gets to declare his top priorities.

00:39:01.400 And for the longest time, immigration and border enforcement was, you know, it wasn't even

00:39:04.520 on the radar screen.

00:39:05.940 With President Trump, it was in the top five.

00:39:07.580 I think it was number three.

00:39:09.360 And as a result of that, we got access to a bunch of agencies that have techniques, skills,

00:39:16.740 tools, technology that goes well beyond what we've ever experienced.

00:39:20.200 And that really enabled us to start painting a better picture along the border.

00:39:24.340 Everything from looking at, it was very frustrating because you would look across the border because

00:39:29.800 a smuggler sits here and he's watching you knowing that you can't do anything to arrest

00:39:34.160 them unless, I shouldn't say that, very far field between you get to arrest that guy because

00:39:40.260 you have to work with the Mexicans. 0.95

00:39:41.380 And like I said, some of these guys are paid off.

00:39:43.120 And then you have to build up a case, go to Mexico City, and then sometimes you get the

00:39:46.020 arrest.

00:39:46.280 But the ability to do is just, I wish it was better.

00:39:52.700 To be able to actually prosecute these guys?

00:39:54.700 Yeah.

00:39:55.120 Because really, it's just a lot of return.

00:39:56.480 So is it a lot of just returning them?

00:39:58.960 It is.

00:39:59.820 So going back to the beginning of our conversation, unaccompanied children, there's a process for

00:40:05.440 them that, you know, we take their information.

00:40:08.320 A lot of them show up.

00:40:09.180 They have a phone number written down somewhere or a piece of paper.

00:40:12.160 And you'll contact that person and then you start, and you work at the consuls of those

00:40:16.060 countries, whether it's Mexico or Guatemala, and you start backtracking to identify who

00:40:20.420 the child is, if they have family in the U.S., and how you can connect them with that family.

00:40:24.980 And they're released from our custody into another organization that does the housing and the

00:40:30.260 feeding until they can get them into a relative or a parent's hands.

00:40:33.740 Okay.

00:40:34.180 And in some cases, when it can't be done, then they work towards getting them back to their

00:40:37.600 family and whatever country they're coming from.

00:40:40.400 Okay.

00:40:40.900 That's kids.

00:40:41.460 Family units are usually processed and then they're released into the U.S.

00:40:46.180 So like if a mother and a couple of two children come in and a father, then they're processed

00:40:51.720 and released into the U.S.

00:40:53.820 Yeah.

00:40:54.460 And do they have to go back to Mexico or they can just stay? 0.96

00:40:58.540 So, and this is what's looking at 2014, looking, thinking about the viewer's question there.

00:41:04.620 One of the things that's happening right now is that up until about 2010, 2014, I think

00:41:09.240 it was more realistic.

00:41:10.700 Most people coming across were single adults.

00:41:12.700 Right.

00:41:13.240 Yeah.

00:41:13.440 So they were arrested.

00:41:14.620 Some were prosecuted.

00:41:15.760 Some were just simply returned back into Mexico.

00:41:18.160 In 2014, people began to realize that they could exploit the asylum loophole.

00:41:22.680 In other words, I come here and I say, Theo, I want asylum.

00:41:25.380 Right.

00:41:25.580 And because of that, I've got to process you and then I've got to release you.

00:41:28.840 And when I release you, now you have access to state aid.

00:41:32.500 You get a work authorization and you may not have a hearing for five years.

00:41:37.280 And that's if you elect to show up.

00:41:38.440 And a lot of people don't show up for their hearings.

00:41:40.160 So they don't necessarily qualify for asylum.

00:41:42.940 And I think that's, it's one of the shortfalls of this because you've really, you've bastardized

00:41:50.540 the definition of asylum.

00:41:51.520 And for those that truly need asylum, now they've become one of a million people asking for it.

00:41:56.540 And you've taken that away from them.

00:41:58.480 And at the same time, now these folks are using the system against the system in order

00:42:03.900 to benefit from them, from it, excuse me.

00:42:05.860 And so the family units, they come in, they ask for asylum.

00:42:08.840 They get into the U.S. and they disappear.

00:42:11.920 You're criminal aliens. 0.98

00:42:12.860 They get prosecuted. 0.98

00:42:13.640 And again, we have folks that, robbers, rapists, narcotic traffickers, you name it.

00:42:20.620 And they'll get prosecuted for what's either illegal entry or re-entry or being an ag felon. 0.51

00:42:25.840 And they can get anywhere from a year to some, upwards of 10 years.

00:42:29.640 In prison?

00:42:31.180 Yeah.

00:42:31.580 In federal prison.

00:42:32.680 Prison that we have to take care.

00:42:34.800 It's like, it's still on the American tab, really.

00:42:36.760 Yeah, absolutely.

00:42:37.880 Have you had to release people that you know are criminal, like release people just into

00:42:41.720 the country and you're like, this, I should not be releasing this person.

00:42:46.040 But there's nothing I can do about it.

00:42:47.700 Like it's out of your.

00:42:49.520 Yeah.

00:42:51.060 I've never had to release like a hardcore criminal.

00:42:53.200 Right.

00:42:53.400 You're going to do everything in your, if you've got a hardcore criminal and you know

00:42:55.880 that's a bad dude.

00:42:57.320 Right.

00:42:57.560 You can do everything in your power to make sure that he's either returned to Mexico or

00:43:01.120 there's some legal resource you can use.

00:43:04.360 Maybe he's got a warrant in some sheriff department or something so you can get him picked up and

00:43:09.100 held and then prosecuted.

00:43:10.280 Right.

00:43:10.700 You do everything in your power to do that.

00:43:12.080 But I think what, like looking at today right now with the situation at the border, it's a

00:43:18.160 crisis.

00:43:18.820 Is it a crisis?

00:43:19.480 Oh, absolutely.

00:43:20.100 And I'll tell you why it's a crisis.

00:43:22.960 There's a focus on kids.

00:43:24.240 There's a focus on family units.

00:43:26.080 So in 2019, we had, we had a border crisis then.

00:43:30.760 And what made it a crisis was these two populations, families and kids, what they do is they cause 1.00

00:43:35.580 the system to just to come to a complete grinding halt.

00:43:38.520 Right.

00:43:39.080 Because there is no law enforcement entity in the world that's designed to house or care,

00:43:44.160 feed children and families.

00:43:46.120 Right.

00:43:46.340 You know, so we often heard, you know, negative backlash about all the, you know, it's inhumane

00:43:51.100 treatment and X, Y, and Z, but nobody's situated for that.

00:43:54.780 But when you get, I think it was a hundred, almost 200,000 family units and something like

00:43:59.600 80,000 unaccompanied children.

00:44:00.980 When you put that into the system, that's not designed for it.

00:44:04.880 It just, it stops, it's gridlocked, and then everything else falls apart behind it.

00:44:09.100 You can't prosecute, you can't house criminal aliens. 1.00

00:44:12.280 So the system will collapse.

00:44:15.380 It's a crisis on multiple fronts.

00:44:17.180 First and foremost, because it's not being addressed, the flow is going to continue.

00:44:23.060 You know, the unfortunate part, and for the border patrol, we're apolitical.

00:44:27.260 You know, we're, we're worked for 32 years under different administrations.

00:44:30.680 Every administration, you know, you, you give them the facts, you tell them what, what's

00:44:35.180 going to, what you think is going to work, what's going to benefit, and then you step

00:44:38.260 back and then, you know, you fall in the line.

00:44:41.320 This administration was briefed on, if you reverse these programs, if you take these steps,

00:44:47.480 this is what's going to happen. 0.99

00:44:49.140 And unfortunately, sure as shit, that's what happened. 0.97

00:44:52.240 So, so we're in a space right now where it's, uh, do you feel like it's, how, how bad is 0.97

00:44:58.060 it right now compared to what it's been like during your tenure?

00:45:00.960 So in 2019, um, so like you mentioned the caravan earlier, and that was the first of

00:45:06.300 its kind.

00:45:06.720 We had something like 10, 20,000 people.

00:45:09.280 This was a few years ago.

00:45:09.920 You remember that a Honduran caravan that was all of this, like there was pictures and

00:45:13.860 there was like, some of the pictures were even stolen images from, um, hotel Rwanda.

00:45:18.940 I remember, I remember seeing one and it was like a bunch of black guys with machetes. 0.99

00:45:22.220 And I'm like, I don't think this is the same thing, but, um, that was a big thing.

00:45:26.640 How much of that was just like a political football kind of being kicked around?

00:45:29.620 And how much of that was like an actual group of people on the way?

00:45:34.600 Oh, so it started out, it was multiple groups of a couple thousand.

00:45:39.740 And then the biggest group was something like 8,000.

00:45:41.240 And then they, they convened together.

00:45:42.820 First it was Honduras and then El Salvador got on board, then Guatemala.

00:45:45.800 And so when these groups convened together, they, they were close to 20,000, uh, when they

00:45:50.600 hit the Mexico border.

00:45:51.500 And this is when, uh, the U S put pressure on Mexico, Mexico made an effort to stop them.

00:45:57.300 But it wasn't a concerted effort.

00:45:58.740 It wasn't like we're absolutely going to do it.

00:45:59.980 And then there was some writing at the Mexico Guatemala border.

00:46:02.700 And then eventually the crowd pushes through.

00:46:04.900 And then what happened as they progressed through Mexico was, um, cities decided that

00:46:10.240 they didn't want, you know, who wants 20,000 people camped out in your city?

00:46:13.520 So cities started, um, chartering buses and they would start moving these folks along.

00:46:17.640 And then when they got to Mexico city, they housed them in a big stadium there,

00:46:20.700 the stadio and, uh, medical care, food, everything else.

00:46:25.120 And that was an offering them jobs.

00:46:26.760 That was one of the things that they, that they did was, Hey, look, if you're looking for

00:46:29.640 work, we've got work, we'll give you a work permit.

00:46:31.920 We'll get you set up.

00:46:32.520 Um, and everybody was pretty much in town on getting to the U S.

00:46:36.060 Um, so then they began, and this was all being organized and it was, I mean, Facebook and

00:46:41.580 people were giving them cell phones.

00:46:43.740 So then they got on the move again.

00:46:45.240 So wild.

00:46:46.260 And, uh, La Bestia, the, the train that goes, uh, comes up from, um, Southern Mexico to

00:46:51.340 the tip of South, uh, Southern Texas, McAllen, Rio Grande in that area.

00:46:55.220 That's what this group was planning on taking free ride, dangerous as hell, but free ride

00:46:59.240 to the border.

00:47:00.080 Um, so we got the Mexican government to stop the train.

00:47:02.640 Wow.

00:47:03.120 And then that caused this group to, to rethink what they were going to do.

00:47:06.720 So then they started moving towards, uh, Arizona and towards California.

00:47:10.600 And so when they got to California, I was in San Diego at the time they got to San Diego.

00:47:13.800 It was, uh, along the way they had broken up.

00:47:16.520 Some went into South Texas, some went into, um, Arizona and then a large group went all

00:47:21.420 the way up in San Diego and it was about 12,000 strong.

00:47:24.100 And, uh, they were held up in Tijuana.

00:47:26.320 A lot of the Mexican people didn't want them there.

00:47:28.380 Wow.

00:47:29.220 And again, it's just, it's this large group of people that are showing up on your border

00:47:32.420 that you're having to house and feed and care for.

00:47:34.320 Yeah.

00:47:34.700 And then what comes with it, crime.

00:47:36.640 Right.

00:47:36.920 And some of it's directed at the migrants.

00:47:38.620 I mean, there, it's a population that can be easily exploited.

00:47:41.380 So, you know, when we talk about what are some of the things that happened,

00:47:43.800 I, I certainly, I worry about, you know, it's a population that we're having to contend

00:47:47.980 with.

00:47:48.200 We're going to have to arrest, but you also worry about these people because.

00:47:50.760 Right.

00:47:51.100 Cause there's still, it's still human beings.

00:47:52.800 Every human being.

00:47:53.580 Yeah.

00:47:54.520 And a lot of times what I saw in, uh, in the span of my career, when I first came on

00:47:58.660 board of the border patrol, we were kind of vilified, you know, there were Corridas,

00:48:01.880 Mexican songs written about these hard ass border patrol agents.

00:48:06.220 And, and, you know, fast forward 30 years, um, before I left, I had, I was at the border 0.94

00:48:11.300 with some of my agents and there was a group of, uh, Hondurans and this mom and her two

00:48:15.820 daughters came across and brought them to custody.

00:48:18.220 I walked up just to talk to him.

00:48:19.280 So I want to get, you know, right from the horse's mouth in regards to what was it like.

00:48:23.040 And I started talking to mom and she starts crying and the little girls run up and they

00:48:26.600 grabbed my leg.

00:48:28.340 And, uh, you know, it chokes me up thinking about it.

00:48:32.440 It was, and after she calmed down, I said, why are you crying?

00:48:35.220 And she goes, because I know I've made it and I know that I'm safe because I'm in your

00:48:39.000 arms.

00:48:40.140 So the, the mentality of these folks is they're doing this dangerous trip from wherever they're

00:48:44.740 coming, but they know that the minute they get into our custody, the minute they see the

00:48:48.100 border patrol, they've made it to the U S and that they're safe and going to be cared

00:48:51.620 for.

00:48:52.440 And it was just, it was the crazy, craziest experience for him because I, again, when I first started,

00:48:56.900 it was like, Whoa, I don't want to be there to the border patrol to I'm running for you.

00:49:01.040 And I, I'm embracing you.

00:49:02.460 And it's just crazy, man.

00:49:04.260 It's, uh, yeah, it's so tough because it's like, I have so much like human empathy, you

00:49:10.640 know, just like, you know, like, um, sometimes almost too much, I feel like.

00:49:15.620 And then it's also tough, like, um, you know, a business that doesn't cause America really

00:49:20.900 is a business, you know, as much as we like to think that it's also a group of people

00:49:24.660 who are trying to, you know, it's a society, it's a structure, but it's definitely has

00:49:28.420 its ledgers for sure where everything is, uh, you know, accounted for, but then you get

00:49:34.060 into this, it's, you know, this, it feels like just a lot of inventory that nobody kind

00:49:39.800 of really is writing down, you know, um, are we getting a lot of people in that?

00:49:46.940 That we don't really know that, you know, we don't have like paperwork on, um, absolutely.

00:49:51.500 Yeah, absolutely.

00:49:52.060 So, uh, one of the things that you have to look at is you're talking about a, uh, an 0.87

00:49:56.720 unfettered flow of, of migration in the U S prior to 2018, 2019, uh, annual apprehensions

00:50:04.720 were three to 400,000.

00:50:06.540 Okay.

00:50:06.900 A year, a year across the whole border, across the whole border.

00:50:09.380 Okay.

00:50:09.760 So again, looking back to eighties and nineties when it was over a million, million and a half

00:50:13.760 tremendous improvement, right now we're almost, we're in that 700 to a million a year again.

00:50:19.600 So this is this unchecked, unfettered population surge that's coming across every year. And that's

00:50:24.540 what we encounter and apprehend, right? Um, you know, it's, it's hard to guesstimate what's

00:50:28.760 getting away from us when you're distracted, when you have agents that are distracted on families

00:50:33.440 and kids that are giving up and then caring for them, what's getting by us, right? So, you know,

00:50:38.460 every year there's probably minimally 500,000, maybe upwards of 2 million,

00:50:43.680 people that are coming across illegally and coming into the U S that we don't know who

00:50:47.600 they are. Um, you know, one of the things with the current situation in COVID is we also

00:50:52.000 have to recognize that COVID has impacted these countries probably much more severely

00:50:56.400 than it has the U S you know, the medical capabilities aren't, aren't, uh, the same as

00:51:00.160 they are here in the U S right. Um, so you're getting a population of people that are coming

00:51:05.220 into the U S we're, we're not doing COVID testing on them. So you have the potential of

00:51:12.060 another resurgence of COVID in the U S part of what happened, um, when COVID started back,

00:51:17.980 you know, last year is we implemented what's known as title 42, which is the ability to,

00:51:23.100 when you come across, I make the arrest and I expel you immediately. I don't bring you into

00:51:26.860 a station. I, my goal is to get you back across the border and out of the U S as quickly as possible 0.89

00:51:31.460 to minimize that exposure. Um, and they, they, that was started during COVID. Yeah. Okay.

00:51:36.860 So prior to that, it was, you're arrested, driven to a station processed. And with COVID,

00:51:42.140 it was, you don't even come into the station and we get you out of there as quick.

00:51:45.380 Was that kind of nice? That's great. But the only problem with it is that, uh, so when I came to the

00:51:50.120 border patrol in 88, we were just arresting people and you'd process them and you'd return them right

00:51:55.260 back to Mexico. And then you'd see them again in the same shift or the next day. And so it was just

00:51:59.220 constant revolving door with, with title 42. We're kind of there again because all the courts are

00:52:05.440 shut down. So there's no prosecution. There's no deterrence. You can't house them. So you put

00:52:09.980 them back on the border and the smuggler says, Hey, I'm taking you back across. You know, you paid

00:52:14.740 me. I'm going to get you back across. And they just keep on doing this. So until we get the court

00:52:19.340 system turned back on. Um, and then I think unfortunately until the Biden administration

00:52:24.000 recognizes that, but they are, their, their actions and their words are having an impact.

00:52:30.140 They're driving illegal migration until that changes. This is going to continue. So when we talk about

00:52:34.800 crisis, I mentioned the system coming to a grinding halt, but the bigger issue is that, um, there isn't

00:52:40.200 enough from this administration saying you can't come here, right? You know, you're going to be

00:52:45.120 prosecuted or the, the reality behind this whole thing is in, and people may find this, uh, quizzical

00:52:51.700 thinking, you know, here's an enforcement officer, but our immigration system has to be revamped.

00:52:56.020 And you have to think about this as it's, it's a whole system, the enforcement part and the legal

00:53:01.140 part. If you fix the legal part, then that enables the enforcement part to focus on the true

00:53:06.620 criminals, the really bad elements. When you have a legal system that's messed up and it's not

00:53:11.760 working well, that's when you get all these people that take the illegal route and then it just

00:53:16.100 burdens border security. So, you know, I'm a strong advocate of whether it's this administration or the

00:53:21.020 next one, somebody has to come in and fix our immigration system as a whole. Really? 0.54

00:53:25.560 They can't do it half-assed. You can't focus on the legal part and not the enforcement part,

00:53:28.900 or you can't take apart the enforcement part and then bolster the legal part. You need to

00:53:32.800 do it simultaneously so that you've got this immigration system, this umbrella that works

00:53:37.900 well. So it's a really a two-arm deal, huh? Oh, absolutely. Does it feel, uh, futile sometimes?

00:53:44.980 Like the, how do you guys maintain that morale if it seems, yeah. What does it feel futile?

00:53:50.420 It does. One of the things I've been talking to some of the agents that are still out in the field and

00:53:53.740 it's, uh, you know, it's the antithesis of what you've been trained and what you've been

00:53:58.880 doing for your careers, arresting people and removing them from the country or prosecuting

00:54:03.000 them. And now you're arresting them and you're releasing them into the country. The other thing 0.77

00:54:08.060 too, is when you release them, a lot of what's, what's not being reported is the impact on the

00:54:11.900 border communities. Right. Oh, I think about that a lot of times. Like, yeah, if you're a family that

00:54:16.620 has a house there 20 years ago or something, and you, you know, worked hard in a town and you,

00:54:20.940 you know, provided for your family and you bought a home and then what's that like for them? Yeah.

00:54:26.960 Yeah. So, I mean, you have the potential of driving the value of the home down, but the, the, the

00:54:31.040 greater impact is when we look at, uh, the, the title 42 thing, it was also about preserving our

00:54:37.160 medical system in the U S because we wanted to make sure that we had ample medical care for U S

00:54:41.700 residents. Right, right, right. If you allow this population to come in, it can overwhelm the medical

00:54:45.420 system. Um, but when we have people being released at the border, so now you have to house, feed,

00:54:50.440 care for, you have to provide medical care for them. So some of these border communities,

00:54:54.740 they're not equipped for that, you know, not equipped for a surge of a thousand or 20,000

00:54:58.820 people coming in on a daily basis. And so it overwhelms them that, you know, they don't have

00:55:03.040 the deep pockets to pay for this stuff. And right now the government's not doing anything to help

00:55:06.620 them out. Oh man, here's a question we have that came in right here, uh, from a fellow right here.

00:55:13.980 The, uh, what's up bro. This is a question from Roy out here in Johnson city, Tennessee. Just wondering

00:55:21.240 what's the biggest, uh, danger that you go through on a daily basis out there. If it's, uh, certain

00:55:30.520 wild animals or, uh, cartel, just curious gang gang brother. Yeah. Hey baby. What's the, thank you for

00:55:38.380 that question, man. Uh, yeah, bro. What do you think is like, yeah, what's kind of a danger when you,

00:55:42.040 when the guys leave on their details or on their, what's some of the biggest dangers that you guys

00:55:47.900 face? And it could be physical. It could even be emotional dangers that you feel. So there's a

00:55:52.320 whole realm of dangers. I mean, honestly, so the cartels, the criminals, that's one in and of itself,

00:55:56.120 uh, you're dealing with the environment. So if you're out there in the desert and you're hiking

00:55:59.820 around dehydration, hypothermia, I've, uh, tragically, I've had a number of agents that have died from,

00:56:06.940 from, uh, dehydration, um, at age and hiking up Patagonia mountain, had a heart attack.

00:56:12.040 Really? Oh yeah. So, I mean, the elements in and of themselves are danger. And then you get the

00:56:17.200 criminal aspect. Um, some of these guys, they carry weapons, some of them. Oh yeah. They don't

00:56:21.700 want to be taken into custody, you know? Um, and at one point, particularly in Arizona,

00:56:26.520 we had ripoff crews. These were gang bangers coming from Phoenix down to the border, laying in

00:56:33.000 in the mountains or the deserts out there to rip off the, uh, the mules coming across with the dope.

00:56:39.160 And so, you know, we had an agent who got caught up in the middle of a firefight and got killed.

00:56:43.240 Oh. Um, and then, you know, he mentioned wild animals, man, we're dealing with, uh, rattlers

00:56:48.160 out there. Um, pumas, there's some serious animals out there. Oh damn, yeah, some buzzards. Oh yeah.

00:56:54.700 And then you got the, you know, you go down to Texas, you got the Rio Grande. In some places,

00:56:57.260 you walk right across it. Other places you, it's dangerous as hell. Yeah. So there, I mean,

00:57:00.740 there's a whole bunch of things that can, unfortunately, law enforcement as a whole,

00:57:03.940 it's a dangerous job, but there's a bunch of things that can kill you out there. Um, what,

00:57:09.440 uh, when you, is it hard for border patrol agents, like some of them, whether they're

00:57:16.740 to set aside any political beliefs they may have and just do their job. Do you see any of that?

00:57:21.120 Or most of the guys, like you said, administration just changes over time and, um, and you guys just

00:57:26.320 kind of stay on the task at hand. You know, it does bother you personally. Of course, you know,

00:57:30.880 you want somebody that's supporting your endeavors. Um, but you don't take it to work.

00:57:35.880 Um, you know, again, cause we're going to, every four years, you have the potential for working

00:57:39.600 for a new boss. Right. And the rules can change every four years. What's, uh, I think what's,

00:57:45.500 what's fortunate for the agent in the field is that, you know, you're, you're tasked with enforcing

00:57:49.500 the laws that have been legislated by Congress. Right. And so even though the president may not like

00:57:53.580 those laws, it's the law and it's hard for him to change it or her to change it maybe someday.

00:57:57.420 Um, so you, you, you try to stay apolitical, but it certainly bothers you when you're not

00:58:02.180 getting support. Does it, um, does it, so yeah, so obviously laws have to change and it's,

00:58:09.060 it's a lot for things to actually change that would affect the way that you guys operate.

00:58:13.420 But you're saying that if it's not like maybe more vocal support, uh, from the media or from

00:58:19.300 a president or from an office, then it like, like if, if they see border, say if I'm a,

00:58:27.420 a coyote or a smuggler or someone who, um, you know, one of these plaza kingpins who's

00:58:32.740 helping run, you know, run guys through my district or whatever to cross the border to

00:58:36.400 make more money. Um, if I see this, I know that the system's taxed and I know to attack

00:58:42.080 more. I know to ramp it up. Is that the kind of thing that happens by like when you see like

00:58:47.540 that there's a border crisis?

00:58:48.940 Oh, absolutely. They take advantage of, of anything. They'll exploit any opportunity.

00:58:53.380 So the current situation, absolutely. They're looking at if I've got family units and kids

00:58:57.860 over here encumbering the agents and I can run over here to the right of them. Um, it,

00:59:02.280 it's, it's such a, it's interesting. It's a business. It really is. It is a business.

00:59:08.040 And, uh, as a young man, I started out in, um, in San Diego, I worked at a checkpoint and

00:59:13.440 we would see these cycles that you're always trying to get ahold of what the next trend was.

00:59:17.860 So when college, you know, college season, late August, when kids were going back to

00:59:22.200 school, you'd see kids smuggling dope.

00:59:24.820 Oh yeah. We used to smuggle it.

00:59:26.040 Dude, I remember one time we took, we went down to Mexico.

00:59:29.080 Well, we, uh, I remember one time we all went down there and bought pills cause that

00:59:33.020 was like something you could do in Mexico. You could buy pills and we all took them.

00:59:37.800 Then we all got, so we ended up stealing everybody's pills from each other.

00:59:41.580 So now we're all sitting around in a room. We'd each stolen each other's pills and we're

00:59:46.380 all lying. Everybody's looking for their own pills and had stolen the other person's

00:59:50.100 pills. Everybody's just lying that they had stolen. And then one time we got steroids and

00:59:55.680 we couldn't find a way to, so we put them in like a shampoo bottle. And I remember for

01:00:00.840 a couple months back in Louisiana, we were literally, we just like put like a syringe into

01:00:05.080 a shampoo bottle. Like, I mean, like we were horses drinking out of like a soapy trough,

01:00:10.000 you know? Oh my gosh. I remember the weights just kept slipping out of my hands for about

01:00:14.400 three months. Um, so yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, there's definitely like, uh, you know,

01:00:22.800 it's interesting cause there's like an allure for it when you're an American kid growing

01:00:26.680 up, there's an allure to go down to Mexico and it's almost like, uh, there's just less

01:00:32.800 laws, less regulations, less infrastructure. So you, you kind of have carte blanche to kind

01:00:37.760 of, um, get into just more trouble is capable. Oh, absolutely. So you see it. So, so you're

01:00:43.420 saying, sorry to interrupt you, but you saw some people. So at a certain seasons of the

01:00:46.240 border, it's just spring breakers coming back across. You'll see college kids, uh, smuggling

01:00:50.500 because, you know, looking for tuition, books, whatever money. Oh yeah. Um, and then at one

01:00:54.580 point, you know, as soon as you catch onto that trend, then they shift to something else.

01:00:58.060 Uh, I've seen senior citizens. Um, Oh really? Oh yeah. You know, they're supplementing 1.00

01:01:02.820 their income. You know, the, uh, the Clint Eastwood movie, the mule. Yeah, that's real.

01:01:07.680 I mean, two years ago I was in Arizona and we caught a guy who's 68, 68 or 68, 69. I can't

01:01:15.660 remember old guy. He was a mule smuggling dope. And we were talking to him. I've been doing 0.66

01:01:21.660 this for years. You guys, you look at an old man, you don't think of a drug smuggler.

01:01:25.620 Nah, man, that colon cane, baby. Are they putting cocaine? Like, are they doing the balloons

01:01:30.300 still? What are people doing, man? I'd be worried about, uh, yeah, that colon cane. That 1.00

01:01:35.380 used to be the big thing. People would like, like swallow cocaine balloons. Do people still

01:01:39.160 do that? Oh yeah. So, uh, every mechanism, uh, when I was working in, uh, El Centro, this

01:01:45.560 is a Southern California. They were, uh, so every day across the border and the borders,

01:01:50.160 it's such a dynamic place. If you haven't been there, you need to go down there, experience

01:01:53.560 it. And, uh, but every day, hundreds of kids cross the border to go to school. And so what

01:02:00.220 these organizations had done is they took their school books, they hollowed it out just

01:02:04.600 big enough to put a key in there. And so here come these little kids every day. They'd walk

01:02:08.460 across, they'd walk a block down and there was a car. They, you know, they tell the kids

01:02:12.100 you walk down, there's going to be a red Mazda, windows going to be down, shove your book in

01:02:15.560 there. On the way home from school, walk through here. There's going to be a blue Mazda, doors

01:02:21.160 open, grab your book. And so you would see this, you know, until you catch on that trend,

01:02:26.140 right? Here's these little kids dropping off a book, you know, and it was an astute agent

01:02:29.220 who's like, what the hell are they doing? Went over, looked in and there, you know, a dozen

01:02:32.480 books in there. Yeah. So, so, so kids get used a lot, huh? Yeah. Because they're not

01:02:37.760 going to get prosecuted. Ah, so they'll get used and, and, uh, to, to bring that stuff

01:02:42.920 over. Uh, what's unfortunate than these kids that, you know, they migrate to the next

01:02:47.360 level. Right. Cause they're already caught in the game. They're caught in the game.

01:02:50.220 Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's not, it's not a pleasant game. It's not the type of game where

01:02:53.960 you can be like, yeah, I'm not going to do it today. You know, there's consequences on this

01:02:57.600 other side and these aren't nice people. Yeah, man. It must be such a trying position

01:03:03.120 that you guys are in then. Um, because you're the human element that's right there at the

01:03:10.200 front. So you, it's like, do I have to follow these laws, but sometimes you're going to have

01:03:18.220 to turn a kid over to an organization or to a country, to an environment, to a structure

01:03:23.260 that doesn't really care about it as much. Um, do, is there enough, like by allowing like

01:03:32.840 some of the leniencies that we have here, are we making it harder? Do we make it easier

01:03:38.680 on these countries? Like, do we make it less responsibility on these countries to police

01:03:43.580 their own unit, their own, like, um, not really police, but to, to run their own societies

01:03:50.040 well? Like, are we alleviating like pressures on them to like, if we stop things, are they

01:03:56.200 going to have to deal with, would that leave more on their plate to deal with, to actually

01:04:00.720 get their, get like a better act together? Yeah. So there's cause and consequence. Um,

01:04:05.940 sorry, it took me so long to ask too. I just, it's hard to be smart sometimes and it's hard.

01:04:11.560 No, it hurts my neck. There's certainly cause and consequence. And one of the things you have

01:04:15.720 to understand also is there's a culture there. You know, you're, you're, you're dealing with

01:04:19.480 a culture that doesn't necessarily match up line for line with the U S culture. You know,

01:04:24.440 what's acceptable there may not be acceptable here. Um, you know, migrating here from, from 1.00

01:04:29.260 Mexico for the longest time, it was just part of growing up. You hit 15, 16, you're expected 1.00

01:04:35.380 to migrate to the U S start working and send money back home. Right. Um, so there's a cultural

01:04:40.080 thing that we're dealing with. And then anything we do on the U S side certainly has a trickle

01:04:44.680 down effect. It's going to have some sort of reaction to Mexico. Uh, I dealt a lot

01:04:48.640 with, uh, again, uh, Mexican government from, uh, their U S attorney's office, their federal

01:04:53.340 police, Mexican military has a big part on border enforcement down there. Um, you know,

01:04:58.280 one of their complaints was when, you know, when you, when you do enforcement, you know,

01:05:03.200 it's very one-sided and it has been for years. And I felt guilty when I finally recognized

01:05:07.340 it was a Mexican general. We were, we were at a meeting in Tijuana and, uh, I gotta tell you,

01:05:12.380 I always love meeting with the Mexican generals because it's, it's just a, it's a different 1.00

01:05:16.300 world and the level of treatment you're getting. And we'll talk about culture in a second on

01:05:18.980 that. But, um, he says, Hey Roy, you know, you always, we focus on what you want. I need

01:05:24.580 you to focus on what I want. Cause all we do is look at stuff going North. You don't take

01:05:29.300 the time and look at what's coming South. In other words, we're going to send drugs North 0.94

01:05:32.860 and this money is coming South and these weapons are coming South and the combination of the

01:05:37.980 weapons and the money, which buys the weapons is messing up my, my society.

01:05:42.380 And Tijuana was just, it was a horrendous place for border violence, for cartel action.

01:05:47.300 Um, there was just deaths every day. And so he's like, you need to help me do something

01:05:52.420 to stop some of this from coming into my country. Uh, and it wasn't until then I kind of realized

01:05:57.620 that yes. God, it's great. I mean, it's just such a, do you feel like there's a, like a solution?

01:06:05.780 Do you feel like what would help? Like, what do you think could help?

01:06:12.160 Oh man, there are so many things that could help. Okay. You know, and so the border crisis

01:06:16.400 is a, is a now thing. Okay. And we need the government, uh, to step, and not the government,

01:06:21.240 we need Congress. We need the white house, but more, I think Congress more than anything

01:06:25.000 kind of to, to get in the game. Right. Um, you know, if I can be blunt, it's Congress

01:06:29.680 needs to get its head out of his ass and start doing something. Right. They have the power 0.99

01:06:33.080 of the purse and the power to legislate. Right. Um, they need to apply the purse towards addressing

01:06:38.900 this, um, helping with the kids and the family units. They need to legislate. They need to revamp

01:06:43.720 the entire immigration system. And, uh, you know, I applaud the Biden administration for looking at,

01:06:49.120 you know, what do we do to invest in the source? You know, where are these people coming from?

01:06:53.680 Right. That's great. And we've always tried to do economic redevelopment in these countries,

01:06:57.120 but they have to recognize that you could, you can't put a billion dollars in El Salvador today

01:07:02.380 and expect it to stop this flow. Right. You have to recognize that it's going to take 10 or 20 years

01:07:06.880 before that plan comes to fruition. So in order to make things better, it's, it's revamping the

01:07:12.240 immigration system. It's helping some of these sending countries, but it's also having a very

01:07:16.760 strong, effective immigration system that includes the border enforcement, right? You know,

01:07:22.080 you just, you can't undermine it. And whether it's technology, more agents, more infrastructure,

01:07:26.740 whatever it may be, you need to secure that border. Hmm. Man. So, so you have to have the border,

01:07:33.260 you have to have the actual boots on the ground. They need help. And then the legislate,

01:07:37.120 you have to have better ways to legislate and just process things. Yeah. Congress has to do its job. 0.71

01:07:42.660 I mean, it really hasn't done anything towards, um, addressing the problem.

01:07:46.360 Uh, and, and a lot of what's going on right now is, uh, Congress's fault from the last two or three

01:07:51.420 years, because a lot of the funding that was earmarked for, um, detention, for remodeling

01:07:55.520 detention facilities was removed from the budget because part of the intent was to ensure that

01:07:59.860 people were being released. Okay. So now you fast forward two years and what's happening,

01:08:03.580 we can't hold these people, so we have to release them. So it's, it's a vicious cyclical game. And,

01:08:08.400 and I would just hope that, uh, our elected officials just focus on the problem. It, not only for the

01:08:14.600 humanity of, of these kids and these families, but also for the bigger aspect of the border

01:08:18.660 security. You know, one thing we didn't touch was terrorism. Um, I assure you, and I can't speak to

01:08:23.720 specifics because there's, there's classifications behind it, but there are folks that have terrorist

01:08:28.640 ties, terrorist training that are intent on hurting us that have come across our Southern border.

01:08:32.660 So you're seeing, so you definitely see people that you're like, Oh, this is not a Mexican person

01:08:37.300 looking for asylum. You see, right. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and I mentioned the, the, the amount

01:08:42.900 of money that's charged, these guys are paying big bucks. Um, and for like right after 9-11,

01:08:48.060 a lot of the smugglers refuse to have anything to do with anybody that, that came from the 0.92

01:08:52.540 Middle Eastern country, just because they kind of painted everybody with a wide brush. You're 0.99

01:08:56.300 probably a terrorist. Right. Um, so even the smugglers had like a, there was sort of a code 0.99

01:09:00.560 of honor, right? But you get away from 9-11, we kind of forget about it. Like, man,

01:09:05.300 if you smuggle that guy and he's going to blow up the country, we'll have no place to

01:09:07.940 smuggle. Yeah, exactly. But, uh, but now it's just really open range, huh? It is to

01:09:13.880 a degree. I mean, there are, it's funny to think about this because it, it, it, to a

01:09:18.720 degree, it's almost a symbiotic relationship because you, you do have some smugglers 0.81

01:09:21.720 who, uh, one thing that everybody despises is a pedophile. Right. And, uh, if they know 0.90

01:09:27.320 you're a pedophile or you do something and they're missing, they're hurting a kid or 1.00

01:09:30.980 something, if they don't beat your ass or kill you, they'll shove you across the border 1.00

01:09:36.300 with a little note, letting you know who he is. And you guys know? Yeah. Oh, wow. I've 1.00

01:09:40.540 seen, I've, I've seen that on a couple of occasions where somebody's left on the other

01:09:43.620 side of the border, tied to a tree or cuffed up and with a little note, Hey, this guy's

01:09:47.060 a check your records. Wow. So there, I mean, there's a little bit of street justice, a

01:09:51.280 little bit of ethics on there, but they're still driven by the almighty dollar. Um, and I

01:09:55.640 would hope that as if it related to terrorist stuff, that they would still refrain from

01:10:00.280 it because it, it harms both. Yeah. No, no better help. H E L P. You get timely and 1.00

01:10:08.700 thoughtful responses. You get connected with a real therapist, not somebody, not your

01:10:15.120 mom's friend who's chatty and hits on you. Better help is committed to facilitating

01:10:21.240 great therapeutic matches. Maybe you don't want to drive over there to the help

01:10:25.620 center in your town or village or, um, experimental area where you live. Maybe

01:10:33.860 you don't want to be seen walking in there in the back of the nudie shop and 1.00

01:10:40.060 somebody's back there giving advice. Better help set you up with licensed 1.00

01:10:45.440 professional therapists. You can do it on FaceTime. You can do it on the phone. You

01:10:48.920 can do it over text. Better help wants you to start living a happier, healthier

01:10:53.500 life today. Visit betterhelp.com slash Theo. That's B E T T E R H E L P. Join the 0.99

01:11:02.460 over million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an

01:11:06.760 experienced professional. That's right. And you will get 10% off your first month

01:11:12.020 at betterhelp.com slash T H E O. If you need help, go get it. Betterhelp.com slash Theo. 0.94

01:11:21.900 Um, here is a, let's get the one that came up a minute ago by the military guy in the white

01:11:27.720 shirt.

01:11:29.100 Theo Vaughn, what's up, man? It's, uh, Patrick Bryant. I'm out of Kentucky, but I'm over here

01:11:34.560 at Joint Base Lewis McCord right now. Uh, I got a question for your man, Roy. Uh, how did he

01:11:41.140 feel about the military joining up with the border patrol a few years back? I was down

01:11:48.880 there with them out of Fort Knox. I just wanted to know what his opinion on that was.

01:11:57.020 Oh, gang brother. Thank you, man. Um, do you, uh, yeah. What was that like? Was it, is it

01:12:02.640 nice when other organizations are on board? Does it get a little sticky? Is there like, kind

01:12:05.820 of like a lot of posturing or is it pretty fun sometimes? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, uh, it's,

01:12:11.540 it's very sticky. So, you know, we've got posse comatitis, which prevents the military

01:12:14.400 from taking any sort of, uh, enforcement action. So anything that, that they do for the border

01:12:19.540 patrol is, um, support. Okay. So when I say support, um, they can fix our vehicles. Uh,

01:12:26.300 they can run our scopes like our, you know, our infrared cameras, they can run, uh, they can

01:12:29.960 do, uh, LPOPs, listening posts, outposts where you'll put a, a group of, uh, it's, it's a great

01:12:35.280 training environment along the Southern border. So sometimes they'd send out, um, snipers and

01:12:40.420 they'd put them up on a Hill and they would stay there for two weeks at a time. And they

01:12:43.340 would just report stuff to us. Um, but everything they do is just about support. That's not actually

01:12:48.940 put hands on or anything. Uh, so to answer the question, absolutely loved having the military

01:12:54.200 on, on the border because it, it freed up, uh, agents to go and actually do patrol work.

01:12:58.400 Right. Plus it was a great training environment for our military. So that, you know, that mission

01:13:02.240 readiness for them when they go across the pond. And then the bigger aspect is there was, there

01:13:06.220 was always this exchange of, of information and, um, and, and, and know-how because some

01:13:12.320 of the things we'd learned from them. Right. But the biggest part was, uh, the building of

01:13:15.900 infrastructure. Uh, I mean, they'd, they'd come in and they'd fix our roads or build roads

01:13:19.300 for us. And again, to be able to get to the border helps win that battle. Yeah. It's just

01:13:24.020 so interesting to hear you say that about that wall, about the fact that it was going

01:13:27.020 to also provide, um, like that there was, uh, that there was electricity with it, that

01:13:32.040 there was like, uh, just a little bit of infrastructure, especially out there in the middle of nowhere.

01:13:37.240 Um, that probably just would have helped so much.

01:13:40.500 I tell you, I'm inviting you to come out to Arizona. I'll take you out there.

01:13:44.060 Yeah. You'll be shocked. We'll, we'll drive from an urban area and we'll drive three, maybe

01:13:47.780 five miles out. And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of nowhere and there's no border

01:13:51.420 infrastructure. There's no power. There's nothing. And again, I think middle America 0.98

01:13:56.720 just has no concept of what the border really means. I mean, you're, you're out in the middle

01:14:00.360 of nowhere.

01:14:02.000 I mean, I've driven through West Texas and that even gets like, you know, even on I-10 or

01:14:06.640 whatever that is. Yeah. It's like that gets harrowing. I mean, I know there was like one

01:14:10.060 point about 45 miles where there's just no exit, you know, there's no, if you need gas or something,

01:14:14.860 you already should have got it. So yeah, I can't even imagine what it's like when you, I mean,

01:14:18.560 that's a long and interstate. So I can't even imagine what it's like when you get kind of

01:14:22.060 in a, in a, in a, you're out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's you, maybe you have

01:14:26.780 a partner. Sometimes you're partnered up and sometimes you're not. Your partner could be

01:14:29.920 20 miles away and it's pitch black. You're relying on your radio. If you have radio reception,

01:14:34.240 you know, and I've got agents that they're using four wheel, four wheel drive vehicles,

01:14:38.540 ATVs, motorcycles. Sometimes you're just hiking out in foot. You'll park your vehicle and then

01:14:42.280 you just hike UTVs, you name it. I mean, they're out there and they're doing the job

01:14:47.200 in Texas. They're on boats, you know, and we still use horses, right? Um, people laugh

01:14:53.180 like, why would you use horses? But they get you in and out of places that you can't do

01:14:55.720 with the vehicle. Yeah. Great resource. And, uh, the horses, uh, I laugh because, uh, to

01:15:02.280 them, it's almost like a game. They get to the point where they're smelling and they hear

01:15:05.880 people and they start getting giddy. You can fill them tents up. A good friend of mine was

01:15:09.740 on the horse patrol and, uh, he wasn't paying attention. He wasn't paying attention to his horse

01:15:14.400 and let go of the reins. He was sitting there bullshit with another agent and his horse heard 0.99

01:15:19.220 a group of people over the next little hill took off. He fell off, broke his arm. By the time they 0.99

01:15:25.080 got up to the horse, the horse had circled up and basically made the arrest. Yeah. And the horse is

01:15:29.000 up there learning Spanish and he's, he's fixing his arm. Um, what, uh, so yeah, with the kids,

01:15:35.380 it's just such a, God, there's just such a, there's so many little elements going on there.

01:15:39.340 It's like, it must pull on your heartstrings sometimes, but are there other times where

01:15:44.340 you just feel like the kids are being used and it's not about, um, an actual, like getting

01:15:49.340 a better life for a child? Is there that that happens also? Yeah. You know, um, the, every

01:15:55.960 day at the border there, there's, there's so many different stories. Um, I think for those

01:16:01.760 in law enforcement, you go from being a social worker to a caregiver to, to the cop, right?

01:16:05.820 You run the full mire out of things you have to do every day. And, uh, with kids, it's

01:16:10.100 just, it's different because you're, when you walk up and there's three little kids, it's

01:16:15.180 a 10 year old and a six year old and their two year old, uh, sibling. It just blows my

01:16:19.920 mind. Cause you're realizing that this group of kids just traverse thousands of miles by

01:16:25.400 themselves, walked out in the middle of the doggone desert. I shouldn't say walk. I mean

01:16:29.400 that somebody drove them up there and pushed them across the border and they're left out there

01:16:32.760 exposed. Um, and sometimes they may have that phone number in their pocket sometimes.

01:16:36.900 And I've seen it when they, they break it out and it's gotten washed away because they,

01:16:40.040 you know, they were dirty or soiled or went through a river. And then how do you find the

01:16:43.520 parents? You know, we've, we've had cases where an infants, newborns, you just, you go

01:16:48.960 out there and you find them that are there. And what do you do? You know, how do you, how

01:16:52.220 do you track back the parents of this child? Yeah. And we've also had some, some cool

01:16:56.980 stories where, uh, this was in San Diego where I don't know why mom did this, but she

01:17:01.980 handed her baby off to another guy and they're coming across the border and the agents went

01:17:06.460 to make the arrest and she runs left and he runs right. She, she didn't know who he 0.97

01:17:10.080 was. Right. Uh, we end up arresting him. She ends up running back into Mexico and, uh, you

01:17:16.860 know, start the processing, asking the questions. And he says, Hey, this is my baby. I

01:17:20.120 don't want, you know, here, I don't want it. And all of a sudden here we are with this

01:17:24.180 newborn. We're thinking, how do you, where do you find mom? Wow. And this is when you

01:17:28.000 work at the, you know, in this case it was the, the Mexican console and, and she happened

01:17:31.340 to be from Guatemala and the Guatemalan console. And you get the word out and then you get

01:17:34.380 the word out to, on the South side of Mexico, there are organizations, uh, non-government

01:17:38.060 organizations that help these people. Um, whether it's food, housing, whatever it may be. And

01:17:42.940 so you put the word out and you hope that mom is there. Right. Or that maybe if mom actually

01:17:47.320 made it into the U S maybe she gets ahold of the console and Hey, we found, found a baby 1.00

01:17:51.280 in this particular case of two, two days. And mom finally came up and said, Hey, that's

01:17:56.000 my child. Describe the child to a T what, what the baby was wearing. And we were able to

01:17:59.660 reunite them. But you know, that doesn't happen all the time. Yeah. You know, and it

01:18:04.500 tragically, uh, every year there's two to 500 people that die along the border. Really?

01:18:09.580 Oh yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a lot of exposure, exposure, uh, the dehydration hypothermia. Um,

01:18:16.800 you know, when they get to the border, they're not fully equipped. And a lot of what they're

01:18:19.660 told by the smugglers is take a gallon of water. You're going to walk a few hours and then

01:18:23.660 you're going to be fine. And you get to the border and it's like, okay, you're walking 80 miles.

01:18:27.060 Be very cautious with your gallon of water prepared for it. Some people just chug it right

01:18:32.280 in the beginning. Oh yeah. I mean, we've seen cases where, uh, aliens have got to the point

01:18:37.460 that they're, you know, they're, they're drinking their own urine. Yeah. Uh, you know, and I

01:18:40.200 mentioned the agents are out there in the same environment also. I had an agent who, uh, he

01:18:43.880 had hiked all night. His, he was tracking down a group. His radio went dead beginning of

01:18:48.420 summer. He ran out of water. Um, he starts to get disorientated and, uh, this is, uh, so this

01:18:54.800 shift started at four o'clock at about 10 in the morning. He realizes that he's just

01:18:59.260 in dire straits and his radio is dead. And so he goes out in the middle of the road,

01:19:03.720 writes a letter to his wife, takes off his uniform, folds it up, sets it down in the middle

01:19:09.520 of the road. And he goes over and he gets under a bush because he's just expecting to

01:19:12.900 die and he's looking for any shade. And he's hoping that, you know, the uniform is going

01:19:16.340 to be seen by somebody flying over. Uh, when you lose communication with an agent after

01:19:20.680 a certain, we do a call welfare checks on our agents. Right. And, uh, we couldn't find

01:19:25.100 them. And so we started this massive ground search and air search. And thankfully, uh,

01:19:29.360 so this is like 10 o'clock. I think it was about one in the afternoon. We found him and

01:19:32.060 he was, he said, I was ready to go to God. Dang. Yeah. So it's, it's a dangerous place,

01:19:36.620 but you know, going back to the kids and the fact that there are 200, 500 people dying on

01:19:41.600 the border. Yeah. That includes little kids trying to swim across a river. That includes

01:19:45.180 little kids walking through the desert. And it's just, it breaks my heart. I can't express

01:19:49.560 to you. You get a little, a little bit desensitized to it because you get exposed to it so often,

01:19:54.360 but, uh, there, there's just so many times when, whether it was out in the field or I'd

01:19:59.020 walk into a processing station and I'd see these kids sitting there and it would just

01:20:02.780 break my heart because I would envision my kids. Right. You know, and is it the desperation

01:20:08.400 of the families to, for a better life in the U S and we got to admit, we have the best

01:20:11.500 country in the world, bar none. Right. Right. But it's the desperation such that you're

01:20:15.520 going to put your child through this and then expose them to this. And it just, it boggles

01:20:19.320 my mind. Yeah. That feels like such an intense move. Cause I've been to some countries where,

01:20:25.200 I mean, I think I've been to most of the countries where there's a lot of poverty and there's a

01:20:29.860 lot of like not much structure in these, even some where there's a lot of danger and fear.

01:20:35.280 Um, but you still often see families, uh, just moderate that the best of their abilities.

01:20:42.760 And also they don't know any better a lot of times. Um, and I, yeah, I just couldn't imagine,

01:20:50.140 uh, that, that, that, that would be such a, it would be such a, uh, desire, you know, especially

01:20:57.960 if you had children. Yeah. Like I would almost be like, let's just manage what we can here and be

01:21:03.440 together. Then take this or, or come across together. You know, that's, that's one of the

01:21:08.320 things that I understand. If you're going to send your kids, go with your kid, particularly right 1.00

01:21:11.280 now. Not that I'm advocating this to anybody, but if you know, the family, families are being

01:21:16.320 released, why don't you come with your family? Yeah. Yeah. How much of the responsibility ever

01:21:20.520 falls on the parents too? You know, it's like, um, I hate to say that, but I don't really, it's like,

01:21:25.480 I would be upset as a child. I think if my, if there were not responsibility kind of taken by my mom,

01:21:30.980 you know, um, and I know every instance is different. Yeah. Look at the culture too. You know,

01:21:35.620 there's this expectation, but not for a two year old, a four or six year old. Yeah. A four

01:21:40.840 year old can't even work at Walmart or anything. No. Yeah. And you asked about the traffic aspect.

01:21:45.220 Um, two years ago, there was a case that came out of you, Arizona, where they identified something

01:21:50.100 like, uh, I think it was just under a thousand kids that were being trafficked or cycled through.

01:21:54.460 And, uh, here's one of the things that I think a big misconception is what happens at the border

01:21:59.700 does not stay at the border, right? It's coming to every part of the U S it's here in Nashville.

01:22:04.580 It's in New York city. It's in Florida. It's in Kentucky. You name it, it's going there,

01:22:08.420 whether it's narcotics or illegal immigrants. And in this particular case, these kids were being

01:22:12.900 trafficked. And then the family units were also part of this trafficking. And, uh, so when they're

01:22:17.620 getting released, the, usually either the mom or the dad, or they were putting a bracelet on them.

01:22:22.880 And then what we were finding as soon as they got to the Greyhound station or the airport,

01:22:26.040 they would cut it off. Uh, but we were tracking them. And so we tracked them to three different

01:22:30.180 locations and at each location where they would arrive. So if they didn't cut it off at near the

01:22:36.180 border, they cut it off when they got to, to, uh, to the state that they're in and, uh, they would

01:22:41.680 get there and then the smuggler would bring them in and, uh, okay, now you're part of this landscaping

01:22:46.760 team. You're part of this construction team. You're going to be a maid and you're going to work 0.99

01:22:50.480 off this $10,000. Wow. So, I mean, they were slavery, modern day slavery, right, right in the midst of

01:22:55.940 us. Um, and the kids were part of that. And again, it gets back to some of the kids being

01:23:00.180 rented. Some of those kids would get there and then they'd be flown back. Right. And when we,

01:23:04.580 when we brought that organization down, there was a female who was responsible for those kids and 1.00

01:23:07.760 it brought me so much joy to see her get prosecuted. Man. Oh, it's a lot. It is. It,

01:23:18.200 you know, I, again, I appreciate the opportunity and there's just so much to, that goes on with the

01:23:22.220 border patrol. And, you know, we haven't really talked about what the men and women do,

01:23:25.180 the tools they use. Uh, we've talked about a lot about the criminal aspect, what's driving it.

01:23:29.640 Uh, there's so much that goes on there. And, and, and again, it doesn't stay at the border. It's

01:23:34.520 just, yeah. Yeah. No, that's the part that really definitely starts to scare me too. It's like,

01:23:39.280 you know, um, it just seems futile. Like if we're going to spend money to have this and,

01:23:45.640 you know, like we have a military that's not sitting around a lot of times, but on a lot of bases

01:23:49.640 there, you know, there there's, they could use probably details and things to do at times. I'm

01:23:55.080 sure some of them would love the opportunity to even just go see the border and see what it's

01:23:58.260 like. And, um, and if that would help relieve you guys, it just like, yeah, why don't we try and

01:24:04.960 use our assets better? Um, it used to feel like when I was growing up that there was a pride in

01:24:09.760 like, we're America and this is like, you know, we stand for our borders and that they mean something.

01:24:15.180 And then it feels like that that's kind of gone away or the media at least is also like really

01:24:21.080 push that, you know, uh, everyone has a right to be in America, this sort of thing, which,

01:24:26.820 which is hard to contest because it's like, how'd I get into America, you know, or how did you get,

01:24:31.120 how did any of us get here? Um, but at the same time, it's like, if you don't have some system of

01:24:37.940 checks and balances where like some inventory, um, you know, there used to be a program, I think,

01:24:44.220 where you could sponsor a family, like a family that came in, another family would sponsor the family.

01:24:48.680 And so then you had like a tour guide into America kind of, and there was like,

01:24:52.960 I feel like at least then there's some like social accountability within like a fabric work of the

01:24:57.360 society. But I don't know, man. I mean, what do you feel like is some type of a solution or

01:25:02.820 something moving forward? It's the legal aspect. It really is. It needs to be revamped. Um, you know,

01:25:07.520 what you described about programs, um, refugee programs are well-established. So where you're

01:25:11.740 sponsoring refugees as they come in in different category from an asylum seeker, right? Um, but there are

01:25:16.840 programs for that where it's, whether it's a church group or a particular individual that supports that

01:25:21.160 refugee and then helps them assimilate and, you know, uh, become part of America. Really, we, the key

01:25:28.380 is legal migration, but it's gotta be a system that's just much more effective and efficient. Um, the reason

01:25:34.680 people start coming across illegally is you may apply legally, but it's going to take you three to five

01:25:41.220 years. Right. And then the categories, again, a lot of what we have are unskilled labor. Right. Um,

01:25:46.560 you know, I agree with one thing that president Trump did talk about was if we're going to bring

01:25:51.240 people in, why aren't we bringing in more skilled labor? You know, we're not, we're not the country

01:25:55.300 that we used to be 40, 50 years ago where we had a great demand for unskilled labor, right? We have a

01:26:00.060 greater demand for skilled labor, your, your technology folks, you know, stuff like that. So if we're going

01:26:05.560 to do this, it has to be revamped so that it's addressing the particular types of skills that we need,

01:26:10.400 but it's also done in such a manner that it's just, it's effective. It's, we live in a world

01:26:14.620 where we want things now, right? Nobody wants to wait two or three years. And that's part of what's

01:26:18.900 driving this illegal migration is if I apply legally, A, I may not qualify B, it's going to 0.84

01:26:23.440 take me forever. And then C right now, if I come across illegally, I'm going to get released.

01:26:28.280 At least that's the mindset. That's what we're seeing on, on social media and chatter and,

01:26:31.860 and debriefs that we do with the folks we encounter. And that's some of the stuff that's really the

01:26:35.660 worst. Cause that's how people are learning about it and getting inspired really. Like now's the time,

01:26:40.020 you know? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're on social media, Facebook, Instagram,

01:26:43.940 Twitter. It's out there. Yeah. They, they feed this. And I mentioned earlier,

01:26:47.560 smugglers use those avenues to promote it too. So that's so crazy, man. So I worry like a lot of

01:26:54.960 times, like in my life, I are just, I'll try to, it's hard to make things fair in the world. You know,

01:27:00.340 it's really tough. And I'm sure in your job, you guys have this real semblance of like,

01:27:03.760 what's fair here, you know? Um, but then also it's like, you have the laws that you have to

01:27:08.520 uphold. Um, but I start to worry like, like if a lot of people come into the country and they are 0.93

01:27:17.820 allowed to be here and then eventually become citizens, then it really just kind of favors

01:27:22.800 the democratic party to let them in because then eventually there'll probably be democratic voters. 1.00

01:27:28.140 It feels like, which I'm not saying that like no shade against either a Democrat or a Republican or

01:27:34.640 libertarian or Paul Revere, anybody, you know, but, um, or Pancho via anyone, you know, but it doesn't

01:27:42.060 seem fair kind of like, it almost seems like it would behoove like, uh, like a more like leniency

01:27:50.300 by the democratic party to have the border be more fluid because then eventually those

01:27:57.980 statistically, um, statistically the people coming over are going to vote in their party and in

01:28:03.640 their camp. Does that, is that like a realistic possibility or no? You know, yes and no. So I

01:28:09.880 think back, uh, it was 1994 Bill Clinton and that was the first time that there was a true focus on

01:28:16.240 border security when we started to build fences, uh, started to increase manpower and invest in

01:28:20.480 technology. And he was a Democrat. He was a Democrat. Yeah. Um, so anybody can do it. Anybody can do it.

01:28:24.960 Absolutely. You know, and you mentioned the, the potential for a, a, a support base, i.e. will

01:28:30.480 these folks eventually vote Democrat? It's possible. A lot of them getting into a unionized

01:28:34.640 jobs that are tend to lean towards the democratic party. So absolutely. But, uh, maybe that's too

01:28:40.680 big of a jump. Well, I mean, they can go either way, but what I've seen a great example. Um, my mother

01:28:46.660 immigrated here legally decades ago. And when she first came across, uh, and then legalized,

01:28:52.460 she's a U S naturalized U S citizen, you know, her viewpoint on, on illegal migration is she's

01:28:56.980 absolutely wrong. This is not the way to do it, do it legally. But her, her political viewpoint went 0.70

01:29:03.100 from probably more liberal towards conservative, you know, and, and, and over the span of time

01:29:08.980 living here. And I talked to a lot of the folks that have immigrated here legally and they have the

01:29:12.460 same mindset. It's, I think it depends upon your experiences, your education. Um, and, and truly it's

01:29:19.440 that sense of if there's a legal process, why not, why is it not being utilized? And I don't know

01:29:24.720 what's driving the Democrats, but they certainly don't want to recognize that there's a crisis at

01:29:28.980 the border. They don't want to recognize that their actions are, are actually impacting this and

01:29:33.560 driving it. Yeah. It seems like, well, I mean, it's nice to know that anybody, so any party can help,

01:29:38.100 um, no matter who's in leadership, but that, yeah, but that we do have a real, these are real issues.

01:29:44.360 Oh, absolutely. You know, but it gets back to, they've got to, there are elected officials.

01:29:48.200 They have a job. Yeah. They need to fix this and get away from right, left, right. Doesn't matter. 0.93

01:29:53.520 Fix this is real shit. These are real people. Yes. These are real, uh, servicemen and women that 1.00

01:29:58.620 are going to work and do trying to do their jobs. Like less, at least if we can afford to have the

01:30:03.660 support for them and afford to have systems that work a little bit better, we have these systems.

01:30:08.000 Yes. It's like, let's get them functioning. Back in the sixties, it was the Bracetto program.

01:30:13.020 You mentioned about programs. I was just thinking about this. It was, uh, you applied for the

01:30:17.280 program and you came across and you worked in the U S for six months or a year. And then you went

01:30:20.980 back to Mexico. A lot of these folks, you know, they're proud to be Mexican. They're proud to be

01:30:26.220 Honduran, wherever they're coming from, but the economic opportunities aren't as great, uh, in

01:30:30.440 their home countries. Right. They'd prefer to come here and work for a short period of time and go 0.72

01:30:33.580 back. Right. I mean, we deal with, uh, even in the U S we deal with the transitory workforce.

01:30:38.800 You bring that program back, you could, you may have some tremendous success in that. Now you've got a

01:30:42.540 legal mechanism, which allows these people to come and work here for short durations,

01:30:46.300 contract work, basically alleviates the flow at the border of illegal migration, which then enables 0.91

01:30:51.780 the agents to focus on all the bad people that are trying to come across and the bad crap that's 0.96

01:30:56.080 coming over here. Cause they're there. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that's my biggest thing is I 0.97

01:30:59.680 like, uh, there just has to, you have to have a system of inventory. You have to like when a teacher

01:31:03.520 calls roll call, the beginning of a class or it's like, you have to know who is here. You know,

01:31:08.840 you just have to, and you have to know why. And, um, especially in a day and of age when we have

01:31:14.380 so much ability to keep tabs on everyone. Yeah. You know, um, you know, and the one thing too,

01:31:20.100 is you talked about accountability and knowing who's coming here. One of the things, and I'd

01:31:23.260 mentioned earlier there, there, uh, it's not a huge flow, thankfully, but there's certainly a

01:31:28.540 terrorist threat there. Yeah. Uh, and some of the folks that come across, you know, they, they, uh,

01:31:32.720 there's an initial scrubbing and there may be more deeper scrubbing down the road.

01:31:35.940 But some of these are bad folks that we have to keep tabs on it and, or get out of our

01:31:40.140 country as quickly as possible. Yeah. Yeah. I look, I totally agree, man. And it's nice to just

01:31:45.800 hear like a lot of what's going on. And I think you did a really good job, Roy, just like sharing a

01:31:49.220 lot of information and, um, and just sharing it like in a comfortable way, uh, where people can

01:31:54.700 really just kind of hear that it's a severe thing, you know, and it's, it's, man, you guys go

01:32:00.900 through a lot. I commend you guys, man. I commend all these guys and ladies out there, man.

01:32:05.780 And women, some of the best, uh, women in law enforcement or us border patrols. And as I,

01:32:10.340 my wife's also in law enforcement and I applaud them there. I got to go, man. You promise you'll

01:32:15.140 take me out there? Absolutely. You come on down. I'll take you out there. Yeah. My mom's moving

01:32:18.000 back to Tucson, man. I saw to come on down there. Yeah. I'll go get in a fist fight at this car

01:32:21.620 wash by Santa Rita. And then you and me will go out there. Uh, Roy Villarreal, thank you so much for

01:32:27.840 your service and, uh, and for being here today, just to kind of, um, just to open some of our eyes

01:32:32.820 and get some real direct from, uh, the front lines information, man. It's really helpful.

01:32:37.540 Hey, another resource too. And, and, and I say this, uh, the border patrol finally got into the

01:32:42.000 social media realm. Look them up on Instagram, uh, Twitter, because they'll send stuff out on a

01:32:46.460 regular basis in regards to what's happening at the border, whether it's narcotics, terrorist ties,

01:32:51.100 kids, whatever it is, because you're not always getting the full story for the media, right?

01:32:54.580 You know, you're getting little snippets, at least this way you can get a broader picture.

01:32:57.500 Um, go to the source. Yeah, no, we'll share that. And we'll share that whenever we post

01:33:01.020 about, uh, about the show. Um, it's fascinating, man. Thank you so much for being here. Thank

01:33:05.320 you. Really appreciate your time. Appreciate it.

01:33:07.220 Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone.

01:33:18.120 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones.

01:33:27.500 But it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.

01:33:40.280 Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you my stories.

01:33:49.020 Shine that light on me. Shine on me. And I will find a song. I will sing it just for you.

01:34:01.800 And now I've been moving way too fast. On the runaway train with a heavy load of my past.

01:34:16.720 And these rails that I've been riding on, they weren't so thin that they're damn near gone.

01:34:22.460 I guess now they just weren't built to...

01:34:24.800 Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club. A podcast where I'll be

01:34:31.440 sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your

01:34:36.580 partner. The answer may shock you. Sometimes I'll interview my friends. Sometimes I won't.

01:34:43.040 And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.

01:34:45.720 A lot of people are talking about Kite Club. I've been talking about Kite Club for so long.

01:34:54.560 Longer than anybody else. So great.

01:34:57.560 Hi. Sweetie. Here's a deal.

01:35:00.540 Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker. 1.00

01:35:04.460 Jermaine. 0.99

01:35:05.060 Hi. I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.

01:35:09.560 Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.

01:35:11.640 Oh, no.

01:35:13.940 I think Tom Hanks just butt dialed me.

01:35:16.340 Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

01:35:20.500 Second rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

01:35:24.760 Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?

01:35:30.280 And yes, don't worry. My Brad Pitt impression will get better.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - April 13, 2021

E335 US Border Patrol Agent

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript