Congressman Crenshaw talks border crisis, calls drug cartels 'existential' threat
HOUSTON - As a political chess match continues with lawmakers regarding immigration and the crisis at the U.S./Mexico Border, some are saying it's time to recognize how they are causing threats to the state of Texas.
During an interview with Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) a decorated Navy SEAL officer who has represented Texas' 2nd district since 2019, explained how the issue at the border is in fact a crisis.
**Read the full transcribed interview below**
Greg Groogan: Congressman Dan Crenshaw the word "crisis" gets used pretty commonly. Does what's happening on our border qualify?
Dan Crenshaw: It has completely overwhelmed our Southern border counties it has overwhelmed our resources, and it overwhelmed our sense of sovereignty its overwhelmed our ability to admit legal immigrants and legal asylum seekers who actually have a case. We have no legal system at all, so absolutely it's a crisis.
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GG: 2 million people so far this year - that's roughly equal to the population of the City of Houston? Is that sustainable? Is there any end in sight?
DC: You have a basic problem with illegal immigration one is the resources it draws upon local infrastructure, especially in the Southern areas, but it's also a problem of assimilation. How are we supposed to assimilate into our culture into our society that many people so quickly? No Civilization can do that. We have a process, we have a system, and all of these people want to cut in front of it and Democrats want to let them, and I'll tell you another reason it's a crisis - the Southern border is actually controlled by someone, it's just not the Mexican government it's not the U.S. government, but it is the drug cartels.
The Mexican drug cartel are putting Fentanyl over our border and killing about 80 thousand Americans a year and yet no one knows who the heads of the drug cartels are. We are not plastering their names and faces all over our news media for some reason and that's exactly what we should do because they are killing tens of thousands of Americans by poisoning them.
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GG: Is it time to label the drug cartels an existential threat to this country?
DC: Absolutely, absolutely whether we label them officially a terrorist organization or an international criminal organization, either way we need more law enforcement tools and potentially military tools to deal with them. We are at that point. We have a case where there are 80 thousand deaths a year, and we can directly draw it back to a specific organization just south of our border, and we don't talk about it like it’s an existential national security threat. We need to be talking about it that way.
GG: Two years into his term and President Joe Biden has chosen not to lay eyes on the challenge on the border. Even Democrats are privately fuming. Your thoughts?
DC: They should be fuming. It's unconscionable that a sitting President who under his constitutional duty is supposed to execute the laws of the land and faithfully is refusing to do so and he's refusing to even go down and visit it. But this administration doesn't care and listen it's not that they are incompetent, they do not want to enforce the border, they want illegal immigration.
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GG: Progressives have labeled the alarm as Xenophobic even racist. What do you think of those types of charges?
DC: Then maybe they need to explain why in South Texas you have Hispanic voters in droves voting Republican primarily because of the border issue again if they want to bypass honest debate and insult others and say they are racist or xenophobic because they want a secure border fine, but they are going to lose that argument because everybody knows it's disingenuous. It's about a moral issue of prioritizing legal immigrants who at least try to do it the right way and get in line like everybody else. Where is their outrage about anyone from any other country Hispanic Americans included who did it the right way and now feel there is an injustice against them because everybody else can just walk across?
GG: Governor Greg Abbott has been sending hundreds of immigrants, who have gone voluntarily, to northern cities. Good strategy? Bad strategy?
DC: Seems like a good strategy to me. It's gotten a lot of attention. That was the whole point. People say oh this is just political theater. You know what in this case I actually agree, but I also agree that that was the entire point and at least it's got us talking about it. Even though they look to put signs out in their yard that says "no human being is illegal", but I guess that's only true if it's not in your neighborhood right? So I love what these Governors are doing, and it calls out the hypocrisy of the Left here.
GG: Alright Congressman, is there any genuine, pragmatic bi-partisan move toward immigration reform and border security?
DC: I'm not sure Democrats care about this issue. I think they want the outcome that we are seeing.