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[0] Amid mounting pressure to take action to address the crisis at the southern border, the Biden administration has recently announced changes to immigration policies.
[1] It claims will bring down the historic number of illegal crossings.
[2] But some experts are skeptical.
[3] In this episode, we talk with a former Homeland Security official about the administration's new immigration policies, how much they resemble and differ from those under President Trump, and possible solutions to the border crisis.
[4] I'm Daily Wire editor -in -chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe.
[5] It's March 5th, and this is a Sunday extra edition of Morning Wire.
[6] Joining us to discuss the Biden administration's recently announced immigration policies and their potential impact is Chad Wolfe, former acting secretary of Homeland Security.
[7] Hi, Jab.
[8] So the Biden administration recently introduced a new immigration policy that seems to restrict entry for illegal immigrants, but you say this is just basically a watered down version of Trump's 2019 policy.
[9] Can you unpack that for us?
[10] Yeah, happy to do that.
[11] So, they unveiled about 153 -page asylum rule, which basically the intent, or at least what the Biden administration will say it does, is that if anyone approaches a southern border and claims asylum, but you haven't claimed asylum in one of these other countries that you have perhaps walked through or transited through, that you become ineligible for asylum along that southern border.
[12] And so in theory, that kind of makes sense.
[13] And it's very similar to a rule that we issued during the Trump administration that did just that that said you can't form shop asylum.
[14] If you're really fleeing for your life, you should seek refuge in the closest safe third country that you come across.
[15] The United States is not the only place in the world to claim asylum.
[16] And so on theory, this sounds like the right move.
[17] But if you look at the Biden administration's rule, it doesn't actually do that.
[18] And why do I say that?
[19] Because there's so many exemptions within the rule itself that it becomes non -enforceable.
[20] There's going to be so many exemptions from it that it's not going to make a material effect at the end of the day.
[21] And I'll give you a couple of examples.
[22] One is that they've tried to funnel a lot of people to use the CBP1 app at ports of entry.
[23] And they're going to tell you that if you can't access that mobile app for whatever reason, then you're not going to be barred from claiming asylum.
[24] What we also know about that mobile app at the same time is it continues to crash day after day after day as what's being reported in the media.
[25] And so one could claim that, hey, look, I tried to access the app.
[26] It was crashed, so you can't bar me from asylum.
[27] So that's kind of a strange exception, but they've written that into the rule.
[28] One is something else they call other exceptionally compelling circumstances.
[29] So that's up to a DHS asylum officer to say, yep, what you just described to me is compelling.
[30] So I'm going to exempt you from the asylum ban.
[31] They also exempt children and families from it.
[32] That's about 700 ,000 individuals a year.
[33] So there's a number of things the way they've written this, that it sounds good, but in reality, it's not going to have a material effect at the border.
[34] Now, there have been some congressional border hearings in recent weeks.
[35] What have we learned from those and is any action coming out of them?
[36] Well, it's tough.
[37] I don't know that we've learned anything new.
[38] I think what those border hearings, a lot of them have taken place either in Arizona or Texas.
[39] And I think the idea is there is let's actually talk to real Americans.
[40] Let's talk to ranchers and landowners and hospital administrators and other individuals that have been affected by the crisis that's been ongoing for the past two years.
[41] And let's get their take on this and border sheriffs and things of that nature.
[42] And so hearing what they describe, I think, is always useful, right?
[43] It's better to come from them than it is from, you know, someone in D .C. that's talking about it.
[44] I think a couple of things that we heard in those hearings was that board Sheriffs are having a real struggle.
[45] They're seeing more crime.
[46] They're seeing more individuals coming across that border, commit crimes or are impacting the public safety in their specific community.
[47] So I think that's one thing.
[48] We heard from a regional administrator, hospital administrator, saying that the overwhelming people that they are seeing now are illegal aliens.
[49] And that's having an effect not only in the type of care that they can deliver to that community, but it's also having an effect on the financial resources of those hospitals.
[50] Hospitals, for the most part, are for -profit, institutions.
[51] And they require people to pay.
[52] And as we know, a lot of these folks that are crossing the border are unable to pay.
[53] And so the question is, who picks up that bill at the end of the day?
[54] So they talked a lot about that.
[55] And then a few talked about their relationship with DHS and their relationship with Secretary Mayorkas.
[56] And I should say they didn't give him high marks.
[57] They're very, very frustrated with him.
[58] The lip service that he is paying to a lot of border communities saying that he's going to help, but then not delivering any real results.
[59] And so I think you have continued frustration along the border and in other communities across the country because a politician or a secretary can say all the good things that they want to say, but the proof is in the pudding.
[60] And it's what you deliver and are you having a material effect on the crisis?
[61] And we're just, we're not seeing that at the moment.
[62] Do you see any solutions here?
[63] How can the Border Patrol possibly handle this massive influx of migrants?
[64] So it's a tough question.
[65] There's not just one answer.
[66] There's a variety of different things that have to be done all at the same time and kind of choreographed.
[67] And the reason I say that is during the four years, I was in the Trump administration dealing with this.
[68] You know, it ebden flowed for us as well.
[69] We had a crisis in 2018 and in 2019 where we saw a number of what we called migrant caravans approaching the border where there were several thousands.
[70] And we really tried to understand what was going on.
[71] And so we developed a sort of a comprehensive approach to it.
[72] Not only do you need to engage your partners in the South, that's Mexico, it's Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and even others, and bring them into the solution set there and really talk to them about how they secure their borders.
[73] And how do we cut down on this?
[74] Because illegal immigration is not good for anyone.
[75] It's not good for their countries.
[76] And it's certainly not good for the United States.
[77] Two, it's how do you communicate that to the American public and to the would -be cartel members, smugglers, and traffickers?
[78] Are you holding people accountable?
[79] And then what are the policies that the U .S. government, you know, you have the ability to control that, what are those policies that you put in place?
[80] Are you deterring illegal behavior or are you incentivizing illegal behavior?
[81] And so I think what we see over the past two years is a set of policies that are incentivizing it.
[82] So as I look at the landscape today, and I hear different members of Congress saying, well, we got to give more resources to the department.
[83] They need more manpower.
[84] They need more border patrol agents.
[85] They need more technology and more equipment.
[86] And all of that may be true, but I look at the underlying policies.
[87] And if you're not going to change the underlying policies, I would prefer not to give the department more resources to continue to execute a failed policy, which I believe they've been doing for two years.
[88] You've really got to fix some underlying policies that they are pursuing.
[89] And then you can get the manpower.
[90] in the technology resources sort of right -sized.
[91] But unless you're, if the Congress and others are going to continue to ignore the broken asylum system and the immense amount of fraud and how people abuse that every day to get into the country, everything else you're doing is just, you know, its improvement around the edges.
[92] Now, border security is also about national security, and we've had some major developments on that front with China and revelations about its surveillance efforts after the spy balloon incident.
[93] The Biden administration, claim that these same things were actually happening during the Trump administration.
[94] What did you see during your time there?
[95] Do we have any evidence that the Chinese actually did fly surveillance missions over the U .S. during Trump's presidency?
[96] Yeah, it's a good question.
[97] I mean, I've gone back, at least in memory, because really didn't take any products with me or documents.
[98] I don't recall being ever briefed about any such balloons during my time as acting secretary.
[99] During that time, that was about 14 months, I read what we call the president's daily brief, the PDB, which is the same intelligence that the president gets.
[100] Now, I needed to do that, obviously, to protect the homeland, but I don't recall during that period of time either, any mention of these balloons and any type of intelligence reporting.
[101] So if it was occurring and, you know, the intelligence community was picking up on it, at least from my perspective, it was not being communicated upwards.
[102] Because had it, you know, had it been, we would have taken some action.
[103] The president would have taken some action.
[104] So I feel very confident about that.
[105] There's a number of threats to the homeland.
[106] We would talk about that often.
[107] This is one.
[108] We didn't talk about specific Chinese balloons.
[109] We certainly talked about the Communist Party of China and the maligned, you know, intent that they have here in the, in the U .S. And I talked about that pretty extensively, but not as it related to any type of balloons.
[110] Now that we do know about some of these surveillance operations and with the Department of Energy's conclusion that the COVID virus likely did leak from the Wuhan lab.
[111] What actions should the U .S. take in regard to China?
[112] Yeah, I think we need to continue to be aggressive.
[113] I think a strategy that we undertook during the Trump administration, I would have liked to have seen that same type of vigor continue during the Biden administration.
[114] The Biden folks will continue to say kind of the right things, but they are negotiating and doing that from a very weak position.
[115] And so I think we need to understand what China is, and that's an adversary.
[116] They're not a friend to us at the end of the day.
[117] Yes, we still may need to trade with them and do certain things from an economic perspective.
[118] But their intent, and they've proven this over and over and over again, is they are no friend to the United States.
[119] And I think until the American people and lawmakers and policymakers get serious about that, the better off will be.
[120] and certainly a number of administration officials during the Trump administration took that threat seriously, including myself at Homeland Security, but others did as well.
[121] So I think whether, again, you're talking about surveillance technology or you're talking about, you know, COVID -19 and the like, I think you've got to be honest with the American people.
[122] You got to tell them what the threat is.
[123] You don't need to continue to tell them, hey, it's a balloon, but they're not really, you know, they're not picking.
[124] up anything, we've negated that.
[125] The American people are like, that just doesn't make any sense.
[126] This idea that it didn't originate from a lab, even though I think most common people would be like, well, that kind of makes sense.
[127] There's a really high security lab there in Wuhan.
[128] It probably came from the lab one way or another, whether it was intentional or unintentional.
[129] And of course, that is the news that is coming out over the last several days.
[130] So I think a lot of things that people say, you know, and have been thinking over the past several years about China.
[131] you're starting to see a lot of that validated.
[132] But now you need to ask the question, what's the strategy?
[133] What's the federal government strategy to really combat some of this malign Chinese influence here in the homeland as well as overseas?
[134] And that's not an easy question to answer, but it needs to be at the top of the National Security Council and others in the White House.
[135] They need to be dealing with this every day, meetings every day on this if they want to get their around it.
[136] This week is the 20 -year anniversary of DHS, and obviously you were acting secretary of DHS under Trump.
[137] How do you believe the department has done over the past two decades?
[138] Has it, is it fulfilling its purpose?
[139] Yeah, well, I think that's certainly open for debate.
[140] I would say, obviously, in the aftermath in 9 -11, DHS was created to prevent a terrorist attack here in the homeland.
[141] And for the most part, I would say that's not just a DHS function, right?
[142] There's a whole of government approach when we talk about keeping bad people and bad things out of the country.
[143] But if you were to grade DHS just on that alone, you would say, okay, they've been somewhat successful.
[144] We haven't had a major, major terrorist attack here in the homeland of the likes of 9 -11.
[145] But I think there's a lot of room to improve.
[146] There's a lot of efficiencies to gain.
[147] There's a lot of different ways that the department could be doing their mission, spending taxpayer dollars a lot better at the end of the day.
[148] So I'm not one of those folks that advocate to a abolish the department.
[149] I don't think that worked very well pre -9 -11.
[150] So I think there is utility and usefulness in a department of Homeland Security, exactly how that looks, how it's structured, and how it fulfills its mission.
[151] I've certainly got some thoughts on and I think others do as well.
[152] Well, Chad, thank you so much for joining us.
[153] That was former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, and this has been a Sunday Extra edition of Morning Wire.