Live from Virginia Friday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia; WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 p.m.) Hampton Roads; WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and weekdays 6-10 a.m. and 24/7 stream – host Fredericks welcomed US Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA-1) on the show to discuss the chaos at the southern border and questioned how states are going to manage the influx of illegal migrants.
Fredericks: Rob Wittman, thanks for being with us. I was kind of flabbergasted by Kelly’s response, Rob. The number of people that have sold David out. They look at the polls, Rob. Look, you’ll be coming on my show for eleven years every Friday. We have no script. I have such respect for you and your family.
And I mean, the people that are throwing Perdue under the bus because he’s behind in the polls like PACs that aren’t spending money for them, that the money was raised for them. It’s just unbelievable. I don’t know how you guys in Washington deal with the backstabbers. I don’t know how you do it!
Wittman: (Chuckles) It can sometimes, John, be a very opportunistic world, as I call it. But that, unfortunately, is the realm of politics.
Fredericks: You have to go home every night and take out the garbage, walk the dog.
Wittman: That’s right. Catherine keeps me well grounded. I don’t care about Washington.
Fredericks: You told me one night that I’ve got to go. I got to fill her car up with gas. That’s a really good husband that fills the car up for gas with his wife at 9:00 at night.
Wittman: That’s right.
Fredericks: You’re a good guy, Rob. All right, let’s get to the border. This is unbelievable. So we know we’re going to get this invasion of 20,000 people a day. So yesterday, basically, Biden says we’re going to give everybody an iPhone.
We’re going to pay for their lodging in hotel rooms. We’re going to give them vaccines. He said they’re even considering pulling staff out of Veteran Affairs hospitals to make it happen. They’re going to give them transportation, work permits, and cash payments. What exactly is this?
Wittman: John, it is absolutely unconscionable, first of all, to take health care workers away from our VA hospitals that are already pushed to the max. I mean, I was at Hampton, Virginia the other day, and I mean, they are just so overwhelmed and doing everything that they can.
And now you’re going to take resources away from that effort? You’re going to have this mass influx of people coming into the country. You’re going to be dropping them off unannounced in places all across the United States, which in many instances can overwhelm communities.
And they’re the ones that have to deal with putting the resources forward for these people that are coming in. Not to mention, John, what doesn’t get mentioned in all of this, too are those folks that are unapprehended.
I mean, there are tens of thousands of people that come across each month that are not apprehended. And we know that some of those folks are here with bad intentions. And those things, I think, are incredibly problematic also.
Look at the amount of Fentanyl that’s coming across the border. Enough Fentanyl has come across the border in the past year, enough to kill every American by a factor of 10. Or some say 100.
But no matter what, that influx of drugs, of individuals, are being exploited coming to the border and then a mass influx of these folks into the country. And then you’re going to turn around and give cell phones to these individuals?
What about taking care of the people that are here? What are we doing to make sure we’re doing the things necessary for the folks that are here and taking care of them, instead of saying, Hey, now, we’re going to bring all these folks in and give all these handouts. And by the way, who’s paying for that?
There are still folks out there that are working hard every day and are paying for that, and they look at that and go, wait a minute. I struggle to buy my own Smartphone. In fact, a lot of folks don’t even have a Smartphone, and yet they’re going to use their tax dollars to buy a smartphone for somebody else.
The idea that this is what you would do in our country where you should be following the law, there should be an orderly flow in how people want to come into the country you should have to come here legally. The Remain in Mexico policy should be there.
If you want to pursue asylum and do it properly, you ought to have those places set up in the Triangle Countries. And, John, this has gotten now much bigger than the Triangle Countries. It used to be Triangle Countries in Central America.
But if you look at the composition of people that are coming here now, there’s a mass influx of people from around the world because they know, how do you get here? You don’t have to even try to come here illegally, you fly to Mexico, you take an Uber to the border, and walk across.
Fredericks: Unbelievable.
Wittman: I Mean, it’s unreal. There’s not another country on the face of the earth that has this sort of chaotic and I argue threatening immigration policy.
And this is not only hurtful to the people that are getting exploited trying to come here, but this is a homeland security threat. So in every way, this is the wrong way to go about this.
Fredericks: So what do we do? I guess this is the frustration we’re going to get the estimates from Mayorkas says 18 to 20,000 people a day flooding the border. When he was asked, Kiara, do we have this tape here that I want to run for Rob?
(Alejandro Mayorkas clip plays)
Fredericks: Reaction.
Wittman: First of all, you are sending the message out there for people to come here en masse. And there is no way that you can, I believe, properly respond to that surge. And the Secretary is making a very myopic statement on that.
He’s saying, well, all we’re going to do is to make sure that we bring people into the country and then all the things that they’re going to do, which, by the way, ordinary citizens in the country have to work very hard to do.
Now they’re going to be giving that to folks that are coming here illegally. And it’s mind-boggling to me. And what they do not acknowledge is the impact that this will have on communities when. These folks come here and they unannounced go into these communities.
And then the local boards of supervisors, the local city councils and the states have to deal with this mass influx of folks that now overwhelm the ability for, let’s say, a school system to be able to deal with that, for local services, to be able to deal with these individuals that come in. And there will be a demand that comes with these individuals that come to come to the country.
It’s so unbelievable that you would allow this chaotic system to occur and the threats to the homeland that comes with it and the exploitation of folks that are coming here that happen with that. I mean, it’s a humanitarian crisis, and yet this is the way they’re going to go about doing this.
And I just can’t for the life of me understand why don’t you want to have an orderly process for folks to be able to come here if they’re seeking asylum instead of saying come in and we’ll figure it out later? And you know, there’s no way that with these amounts of people coming in that your immigration courts can in any way, shape or form have these hearings.
There have been millions of people that have come here since this policy has been changed the day the President was sworn into office. And there’s no way that you can properly adjudicate all these cases of people that are coming here for asylum.
And first of all, that’s making an assumption that every one of those people is going to go through the process to seek legal status. And we know that a lot of them do not do that. So now you have folks around the country that are, first of all, not here legally, have not pursued the system properly. And then the impact that they have on communities.
And for some that they may be here for less than noble purposes services. It’s just unbelievable that we find ourselves in this situation where we have this chaos and how we are allowing folks into this country.
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