Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Rep. Vasquez unveils 'New American Immigration Plan'

Transcript

Rep. Vasquez unveils 'New American Immigration Plan' · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ms NOW has learned that the Department of Homeland Securities
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: plan to convert eleven former retail distribution warehouses into ice
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: atention megacenters.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Is facing a big.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Legal challenge for sewage, specifically issues regarding water supply, wastewater processing,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: or both, and some of those issues will cost tens
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of millions of dollars to fix. That's if they're fixable
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: at all. Warehousing detainees is the next phase of the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: DHS effort to make good on President Trump's campaign pledge
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of mass deportations, and to make that happen, the agency
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: has hurried through purchases of existing buildings rather than constructing
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: new ones. The Associated Press recently cited a senior DHS
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: officials saying the department would pause warehouse purchases and quote
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: scrutinize the ones it's already built. But new DHS Secretary
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullen has given no indication the agency is
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: abandoning the warehouse model, which is still plagued with all
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: these issues. I want to bring in here on set.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Democratic Congressman Gave Vasquez of New Mexico. He's a member
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of the House Agriculture and Armed Services Committee. You spent
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: part of the recess peer actually visiting some of these
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: detention centers. I know that you went to one that
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: was in Montana, I believe. Can you talk a little
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: bit about the problems that you're seeing on the ground
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and the ways that the administration is or isn't addressing
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: them when lawmakers like you have brought it to their
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: attention because you have.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, April sixth I visited Camp East, Montana, which
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: is actually an Alpaso, Texas right on the border. You know,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: it's a facility. It's one of the largest facilities of
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: its kind. At the time, it was holding about eight
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: hundred folks. It has a capacity about five thousand. Look,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: what I saw was a makeshift essentially prison in the
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: middle of the Chihuahuan desert, places where it reaches up
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: to one hundred and five hundred and ten degrees during
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: the summer. I saw a contractor there that had no
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: experience building such a facility. In fact, I think that
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: was their first contract. And I saw a report by
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: the IG that was just released days before I visited,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: citing inadequate healthcare. Three deaths that had happened at that
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: detention center since the time it's been open and facilities
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: honestly that were more came to a high maximum security
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: prison than for folks the majority of whom were there
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: that had not committed a single violent crime. And I
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: got to speak with detainees and see some of the
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: issues that they were facing. But you know, it's substandard
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: living for this country and for our values that we have.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: For the amount of people in there who some have
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: been in this country for twenty two years without a
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: speeding ticket, to be behind Concertina wire, not be allowed
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: access to their medications, not be allowed to communicate with
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: their American relatives, I mean, just shameful, and especially the
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: tax payers are footing the bill for facilities like this.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've heard stories like this from across
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: facilities across the country, and it's lawmakers have not been
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: quiet about it, nor.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Should they be.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: The reporting has been good about it, and yet the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: administration what.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Are they saying?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I don't know how they can justify
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: this exorbitant amount of money that they are spending to
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: stand up this network of detention centers across the country.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Every taxpayer in the United States should be enraged because
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: they're not paying market prices for these properties. They are
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: just hurling money all across the country hoping that some
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: of these facilities can be retrofitted without doing the adequate
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: of vetting.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Or even bringing in the right contractors.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Right when you're talking about scaling up attention to this level,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is like Stephen Miller's dystopian fantasy is
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: to have a network of warehouses that are holding people,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: mostly Latinos, mostly Hispanics, immigrants all across the country.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: There is no due diligence. Money is being blown, and
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: this is all from that seventy.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Five billion dollars that ICE was essentially gifted by Republicans
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: in Congress through the Reconciliation Bill.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought it back to that central
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: point because the Department of Homeland Security is still shut
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: down or open questions about when Congress will actually move
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: to reopen it and if that deal includes any kinds
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of guardrails, which is why Democrats have said, we're not
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: voting for this until we start figuring out how to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: regulate this agency around the deportation agenda. I think there
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was some thinking when Senator Mark Wayn Mullen became Secretary
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullin that there would be greater transparency that
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he's someone who was a member of Congress. Have you
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: noticed a difference in the information flow from the Gnome
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: era at DHS to the Mullen era.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not, And in.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Fact, just as of yesterday, I sent another letter.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: To the Department of Homeland Security and so.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: I specifically, you know, I had listed about forty questions
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: that I wanted to answer, basic questions such as standards
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: of care inside the facility. Out of those forty or
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: so questions, I have one question answered. As a member
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: of Congress that has oversight duties that should be a
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: steward of those tax dollars and how they're being used.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Look, this is why they did this under the cover
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: of the Reconciliation Bill.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: The seventy five billion dollars that ICE has has no
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: directives on how it is to be.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Spent, no control of Congress.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: This was done on purpose, essentially to keep members of
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Congress from having accountability in this process of standing up
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: these facilities.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: And I'm sad to say that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Look, Senator Mark wyn Mullen, I hope that he brings
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: a different approach, especially to enforcement.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Activities at Ice.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: But what I've seen so far is that every member
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: of the president's cabinet has one boss, and it is
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: not the American people. It is not the Constitution, it
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: is not the rule of law. It is the president
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: and his advisors. And so I don't expect anything different.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And it's also not being responsive, at least not yet
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: to oversight requests from members of the body that he
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: was once a part of, both in the House and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in the Senate, even though his Senate term was much
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: shorter than his time spent in the House. I think
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it's also important to point out that you're not someone
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: who comes to this conversation just with criticisms of the
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: way the administration is carrying out this policy. You are
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: also someone who is trying to propose solutions, and I
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: wonder if you can briefly talk us through those, as
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: well as whether or not you think that they can
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: gain any traction in this Congress, because there's a very
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: slim number of Republicans who are open to doing something
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: on immigration origins are slim? Is that an opportunity for
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: someone like you?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely is, And.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Look, we've seen that the American people, the majority of
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: the American people disapprove of the handling of immigration enforcement
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: by this administration, and as Democrats and some Republicans, hopefully
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: we should be able to come together with a plan.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: To fix it. So how do we fix these issues
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: that we currently have.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I represent a district with the one hundred and eighty
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: miles of the US Mexico border, A district that, before
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: the gats and purchased was Mexico and before that the
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Greek Treaty of Guadalupe, A district that thrives on international trade.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: We also grow the world's finest green and red chili
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: we have.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I know, I've been there.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, it is wonderful and really an economy that depends
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: in so many ways on migrant labor and on the
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: backs of migrants.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Our economy has been built across the country.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: And so if we're going to talk about reforming our
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: immigration system, one, we have to start with border security, right.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I have three ports of entry.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Most of the illicit drugs and illicit trafficking of goods
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: and people comes through our ports of entry. We got
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: to shore up to support the technology that currently exists.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, we can fly to the moon, we can.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Damn sure secure our ports of entry, and we should
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: be investing in that rather than these warehouses across the country.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: We have the technology, ASTs, aerostats, force multipliers, We need
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: comms infrastructure on the border. Democrats should be supportive of
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: this in general to strengthen border security. Now, this is
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: what CBP agents in my district on the ground have
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: asked me for.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: Second, we have to have a competitive economy and we
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: have to realize that in places like the caregiving economy
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: as an example, or for farm workers or other manual
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: labor jobs. When you talk to employers, they say, look,
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: if we didn't have immigrants, our businesses would shut down tomorrow.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And I think that is one of the economic underpinnings
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: of this argument. And frankly, Democrats are playing catch up
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: when it comes to legislating and policy building around immigration.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: It seems like you've put together a bit of a
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: framework and we'll see ultimately where it goes, even as
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you make these criticisms against the administration on deportation. We'll
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: leave it there for now. Democratic Congressman Gave Vasquez of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: New Mexico, thank you for coming on