Texas Think Tank Focuses on Chaos at the Border

EDITOR'S NOTE: Although this podcast was available on our website on January 20th, we failed to publish it on the RSS feed on that date but corrected the mistake as soon as it was known.

Summary

An April 2021 Harvard-Harris poll showed that 80 percent of voters believe that the border is “a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately” and that 85 percent want stronger borders. The largest state think tank in the country, Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), agrees. The Honorable John Hostettler, vice president of the TPPF federal affairs initiative, States Trust, joins Parsing Immigration Policy to talk about policies and actions that states can take to secure the border.

Hostettler, a former six-term Indiana congressman and Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, served at the time that President George W. Bush tried to ram through an immigration proposal, which traded an amnesty for those already here in exchange for promises to enforce the law in the future. His experience in policy and immigration provide a perfect background for a discussion on border security, asylum, human and drug smuggling, and border barriers. What can state and local jurisdictions do to resolve the security and humanitarian crisis at the border – a necessity prior to any conversation about amnesty?

In this week’s closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, describes how the Mexican government is pretending to secure their southern border and cooperate with the Biden administration, while actually busing migrants to the U.S. border using a model Mexican reporters call “operación hormiga” - an “ant operation.”

Host

Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Guests

The Honorable John Hostettler, vice president of the TPPF federal affairs initiative, States Trust.

Related

New Harvard-Harris Poll Shows Broad Opposition to Biden’s Border Policies

In Historic United States First, National Guard Soldiers Start Arresting Illegal Migrants on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Texas State Troopers “Overwhelmed” Securing the Border

Mexico’s Duplicitous ‘Ant Operation’ Moved Tens of Thousands to the U.S. Border Sight Unseen — and Will Again Through 2022

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Intro Montage

Voices in the opening montage:

• Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.
• Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.
• President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.
• Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.
• Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.
• Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.
• Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.
• Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.
• Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.
• Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".