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The Southern Border - Is Texas On To Something? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:13
  It's the final hour of the morning show with Preston Scott for this particular show
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  number four thousand, nine hundred and seventy four. It's Grant Allen over there
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  in Studio one. A salute. I'm here in Studio one. B.
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  I'm Preston Scott. Great to be with you this morning. Wherever however you
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  are listening to us. Thank you very much for making us part of your
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  morning, carving out some time. As always, we appreciate time of our
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  next guest, Jeeseus Rodriguez wakes up real early in Arizona to join us.
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  He a retired agent with the United States Border Patrol. Good morning, sir,
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  How are you? Good morning, sir. Just still still surviving this
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  one hundred and ten degree plus weather. Yeah, it's it's a dry heat
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  though, Jesus, it's a dry heat, right. It is dry and
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  it is no rain whatsoever, so it really is super dry. Man.
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  I remember living out there, and I remember those days. I also remember
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  a radio segment called dashboard Cooking, where we would give recipes for people on
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  how to prepare meals in their cars as it sat in the parking lot during
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  the day. Oh, I'm sure hand it's been pretty warm. Have you
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  ever done the old trick of frying an egg on the sidewalk? Yeah,
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  we used to put crayons two as kids out in the streets to see it.
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  How long would take before they would melt. It's all kinds of crazy
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  stuff people would do in that heat on sidewalks and asphalt roads. All right,
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  let me get your take on a few things that are in the news.
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  Number one, we've talked about states just sort of not all obviously,
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  some I guess, decide they want to be a welcome matt for people breaking
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  into our country, in our country and allowing drugs to flow freely. But
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  Texas has said enough and they've gone ahead and portioned off, portioned off the
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  Rio Grand River and put a floating barrier along their border. The federal governments
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  suing them, the Mexican government screaming and yelling. What were your thoughts when
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  you first heard the idea that they were going to put those barriers out there?
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  Actually, it's a pretty novel idea if you think about it, because
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  it's they're like, it's like a huge donut and it's spins in the in
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  the water itself. So as they try to to as I'm told, as
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  they try to get on top of it, it'll continue just to spin.
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  Yeah, and so you know, I mean that's that's a great idea.
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  I mean, it's something to the term and at least, you know,
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  slow them down a bit until you can get somebody there to you know,
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  to push them back if that's what it takes, whether it's the boat patrol
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  or it just out in the ground or even the air air unit. But
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  yeah, I mean that's a that's a great idea, that really is.
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  Have you heard from any of your colleagues on what their thoughts are of states
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  taking matters into their own hands. I mean, is there a sense of,
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  well, you know, we're being prevented from really doing our job,
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  so we get it, or is there a little resentment. No. I
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  think that most of a lot of the agents are welcoming of the of the
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  fact that you know, you've got some states settle that are trying to help
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  in that sense, to help mitigate some of that some of that illegal aliens
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  crossing into the country. But I mean, at the end of the day,
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  Preston and they still continue to come and if they don't come through there
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  through those areas in in in Texas Del Real, you know, Eagle Pass.
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  They're going to push them somewhere else. They're going to push them where
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  they don't have that kind of of a deterrence. So you know, you're
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  gonna see you may see a big increase in in New Mexico or the parts
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  of Texts, Arizona, you know, even California. So I mean,
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  the cartoon is not gonna not gonna stop pushing pushing bodies like that through through
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  those you know, if it's if it's a deterrence, they're going to find
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  a different, different route to take. In the course of our discussions,
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  we've talked frequently about recruitment and the challenge keeping the border patrol properly staffed.
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  Is that continuing, is that trend improving it all? Is it getting worse
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  or is it staying the same. I think most most agents I've spoken to
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  have said that it still remains the same. They're having a hard time recruiting.
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  But I think that's that's the law enforcement in general across the board.
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  I mean, you know, for me, local all the way down to
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  your state agencies are all having a hard time recruiting. You know, good
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  qualified applicants and you know, and with the climate the way it is,
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  you know, the anti law enforcement, you know, what person would want
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  to do something like you know, get into a career like that, especially
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  when you have all that secrutiny from you know, all these all these uh
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  snowflake groups as I call them, you know, all these groups and everybody
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  else. Welcome to the Mad Radio Network, where we challenge you to make
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  a difference in your world in a positive way, improving the lives of others.
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  It's the Morning Show with Preston Scott hey Zeus Rodriguez with US retired agent
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  US Border Patrol. Hey Zeus, I mentioned this to you in an email.
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  Came across some testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee which took place a
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  week ago, and a guy named Jason Jones, used to be a former
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  captain for Intelligence and counter Terrorism for the Texas Department of Public Safety, testified
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  and he held up a bunch of colored wrist bands and he said this represents
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  a different alien smuggling operation. He said, we have a virus of debt
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  bondage across the country and he's describing that the cartels have created now an organized
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  system based on color codes for smuggling people in and then holding them in essence,
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  in servitude until their debt to get into the country is paid. What
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  can you tell us about this kind of debt immigration processing that the cartels are
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  doing. So what I'm told pressing that there that is um when they get
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  off certain you know, off the buses are off the vehicle with certain locations
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  they're as they get off, they're sent to certain vehicles, other vehicles that
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  takes them that take them maybe further away from the from near the port of
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  entry, and so that's where they're they're being smuggled in. And I mean,
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  it's it's something. I mean, it's nothing new for these cartels to
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  come up with something, something new, right, I Mean, they're always
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  they're always thinking about how they can better streamline their system, because I mean,
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  that's what it is. It's just a huge system. And like I
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  mentioned before, it's it's there's so many tentacles involved with these cartels, you
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  know, from all the way from the recruiters that recruit people all the way
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  to the people that transport them to wherever their destination is going to be in
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  the US or beyond, you know, even into Canada. So I mean,
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  it's that doesn't surprise me. That's not surprising one bit. The organizational
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  structure of these cartels and their existence with that structure, with the nuance that
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  they involved themselves in so many different areas. Does that speak to just how
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  deeply rooted this is inside the Mexican government, not only the Mexican government present,
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  but also in the in the US. There's so many people in the
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  US involved. And in that they mean, they do a good job of
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  recruiting, looking for for people to transport in negalians or transport narcotics. I
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  mean, even social media has some of that. And I and I can
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  tell you that because I've heard that straight from from my son who told me
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  that, you know, they they recruit on social media openly, and you
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  know, and there's there's a link that they use and they know exactly what
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  they're talking about. And people go down there and pick up, you know,
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  either one of the two commodities and they and they move them north.
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  But it's it's it's long been believed that they own the Mexican government, that
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  government officials in the various states as well as the federal government of Mexico are
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  beholden to the cartels. Yeah, they sway a lot of power. Pressing
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  is that those cartels are they have a lot of power, and they have
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  a lot of of they have a lot of firepower too. Let's not kid
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  ourselves, but yeah, they do have quite a bit of power over people.
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  I mean money, that's a lot of money. I mean you if
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  you can imagine if you're smuggling let's say half a dozen or more, or
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  let's say Chinese nationals, they're what ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars a
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  pop to get them to you know, from where they're at and China all
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  the way over to the US. So I mean there's there's money to be
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  made on this. And and you know, the the punishments for smuggle the
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  aliens, the cartels know they're not as strong as as the drug violations because
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  I mean they know what the threshold is and and so they'll that's what they'll
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  they'll push it up to the very threshold of those kind of smuggling smuggling organizations
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  like that. And one of the smuggled people tell La on your phone with
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  the iHeart radio app and on hundreds of devices like Alexa, Google Home Xbox
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  and so knows and ihearts radio station talking about the southern border and all the
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  issues surrounding it with Jesus Rodriguez, retired agent with the United States Border Patrol.
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  You might not know it, folks, but Congress is debating an expansion
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  of the migrant worker program. There are a couple of visa programs, the
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  H two A and the H two B. The H two A is for
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  agricultural, H two B is for non agricultural, and they're they're talking about
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  an an adjustment to H two A JESEUS that would allow those workers that are
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  coming in seasonally right now to stay and work more permanently in the country.
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  And there are a lot of those that think that that's going to create a
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  huge problem for the industries that are seasonal. Give us your thoughts on the
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  whole entering the country to work UH programs and how we implement them. Well,
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  if you if you remember history, presson they had the Brothto program back
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  in the day, and they would bring workers into work and the agricultural fields.
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  And so I mean this is it would be something similar like that,
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  I would assume, But yeah, I mean as long as as long as
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  they're paying them to the correct wages and the and the workers are paying their
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  taxes and they're you know, with that with the mindset or the knowledge that
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  they know that they're here temporarily and they're gonna they're gonna send them back into
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  you know, or they're going to go back into their into their country.
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  That's I mean, there's a lot of work out there agricultural and most of
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  the workers that are that are involved in agricultural work are from from Mexico,
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  and especially in this area. I mean that's what we see a lot of
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  is is uh is people from Mexico coming in to pick watermelons, you know,
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  cantalopes. And then you have like ima Ema Valley, which is the
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  uh there's so much produce out there and during the winter months, and who
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  the majority of the people are picking it are people from Mexico. You could
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  pay you could pay twenty dollars an hour. And most people in America,
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  young people, entry level worker people, they don't want that work. Nope,
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  Oh no, it's backbrecking work. I mean, it's it's long hours,
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  especially like right now that they're picking melons out here, they're up at
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  four o'clock in the morning in the fields, and they're out there until you
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  know, ten eleven o'clock, you know, pitching melons and cantalopes and and
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  so it's and the heat's pretty pretty intense right now. So and like I
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  said, most of the probably ninety nine percent of the workers that I've seen
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  out there in the fields are are people from from Mexico. And so,
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  yeah, it is, it's it's it is a it's a hard job.
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  What's the golden question that employers avoid asking? I think they don't as long
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  as the person has the quote unquote right documents or social Security number, they
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  don't, you know, they can they I don't know, honestly, person,
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  how many of the employers run those social securities to that e verify I
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  think it is, and to check them see if the person really is who
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  they say they are. You know, that's that's a good question. I
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  mean, but you know, they may just take it on somebody's word and
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  employ them that way, and they probably pay them in cash. They don't
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  have to, you know, they don't have to put it on their books.
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  Tell me this in closing, if if if somehow the stars aligned and
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  you became the borders are for the United States southern border. What would policy
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  look like, more agents, more agents, and then the use of what
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  the military has the technology for detection purposes. That's huge. I mean,
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  if you can get more people out in the field, uh, and you
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  have that that technology that helps you detect what's going on. And then even
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  even the intel is a big piece of it as well. Uh. You
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  know that those are probably three things that I would I would definitely um,
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  you know, push for. But I mean you have to understand that that
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  people there as a lot of people that don't understand. They say they're they
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  understand the border, but they've they've never been there, they've never lived that,
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  they don't deal with it on a day to day basis. So it's
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  you can, you can add these pieces to that to that puzzle, but
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  it's a huge I mean, there's so many, so many pieces to the
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  to the border problem, and it's it's socioeconomic, it's I mean, it's
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  so many pieces that you know, from the from the law force, astandpoint.
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  You can address that piece, but there's other entities that need to come
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  into into the uh, into the picture, and also do their part.
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  If I were to ask you how much of the responsibility to fix the southern
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  border lies on the United States, How much of it lies on Mexico and
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  the other nations to the south. What would you say, I'd say,
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  probably, honestly, person nalety nine percent of it falls on our on our
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  lap as a country. We have to we have to secure our border.
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  That's what you know, when when I took the old you know, twenty
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  how there how many years ago, twenty five plus years ago, that's you
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  know, used word to to to uphold the constitution and to protect your your
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  country. So yeah, it's it's it falls on the government, un falls
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  in the US government to protect the border and to secure it, you know,
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  because it's just not people. It's fentonel. I mean, I'm sure
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  in Florida you're experiencing that, in Arizona, it's it's it's rampant everywhere.
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  And then the Latin Americ countries they're they're going to do their peace, but
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  they don't have the resources. They don't have that, you know, the
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  money to throw at border issues that they have they have, they have a
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  lot bigger problems than that. As always, I appreciate our time and thanks
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  so very much. We'll talk again soon. Thanks. Hey zeus. All
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  right, sir, take care, Thank you. Hey Zus Rodriguez with US
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  this morning. US Border Patrol retired our guest on the Morning Show with Preston Scott