Live from Washington, D.C. Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Ira Mehlman, the director of communications for FAIR to the microphone to describe the purpose of the event and intentions of the Biden administration through immigration policy and open borders.
Leahy: We are delighted to welcome to our microphones right now, the Director of Communications for Federation for American Immigration Reform Ira Mehlman. Ira, welcome.
Mehlman: Good morning. Thanks for being here at our event.
Leahy: Well, thank you for this event. It’s a spectacular event. A spectacular setting here on the rooftop of the FOX News building. And how did you come about to do this?
Mehlman: We couldn’t do it indoors this year.
Leahy: Mask mandates.
Mehlman: Mask mandates. But this is a beautiful location. We can actually kind of crane your neck a little bit. You can see the capital building right out there. It’s a perfect location for members of Congress to come over. As long as the weather holds we’ll be good.
Leahy: Very impressive. And you’ve been with FAIR since 1986?
Mehlman: I think that’s a misprint. But I’ve been here a long time.
Leahy: You actually do every job. When I came to register there, you were registering me here.
Mehlman: Yes.
Leahy: Very good. Very good.
Mehlman: We do it all.
Leahy: So talk to me a little bit about the message of this event and why we’re here. We got a nice little summary of it, but you can express it so more articulately than I could in just reading your summary.
Mehlman: This is kind of a reminder to the American public and to the members of Congress that the immigration policy is the American people’s immigration policy. We the American people, the primary constituency for the U.S. immigration policy.
We understand that people all around the world have an interest in our immigration policy. But the policy is there to protect the interests of the American public and to enhance the interests of the American people.
So that’s what we’re trying to get across here. And clearly, under this administration, the interest of the American people is not even an afterthought. They’re not a thought at all.
Leahy: You’re talking about the major news media outlets. They are not reporting this at all in a serious way, are they?
Mehlman: No. They will go down there and take some pictures of what’s going on at the border but they really don’t cover the issue and what the impact is on the country. We know that the media have lost any sense of objectivity when it comes to reporting things.
They report slivers of truth that serve their political interests. The fact is, what’s going on down there is a national tragedy. It is a threat to national security.
It’s a threat to national health. It’s a humanitarian crisis. You cannot look at the people coming across in the situation that they’re in and feel good about it. It is not even good for the people who were coming across.
Leahy: One of the things that you say in your article here that I got when I registered with you and you gave this to us, let me read this and just get your reaction.
As pretentious as it sounds, those of us who are here this week as organizers, guests, and broadcasters are the last line of defense in the Biden-Harris, Schumer-Pelosi, and The Squad efforts to inflict irreparable damage to the country.
Mehlman: Once people are in the United States, they’re not going anywhere. And that is what is going on right now. The Biden administration recognizes that they have a limited opportunity now, during the time that they control both houses of Congress and the White House to get as many people in here by whatever means necessary.
Because once people set foot in the United States, it is virtually impossible to remove them. So they’re creating facts on the ground. These people are going to be here. They’re going to start pressing for amnesty for them as well as the other people who are here already.
We keep hearing that the administration is stumbling at the border. They are not. This is a deliberate policy. They’re doing exactly what they set out to do. This is not mismanagement. It’s bad policy, but they’re accomplishing what they set out to do.
Leahy: It’s intentional.
Mehlman: Absolutely.
Leahy: They’re intentionally violating our immigration laws, and they are bringing in as many illegal aliens as they possibly can.
And you mentioned something interesting during this now two-year window until the midterm elections, I suppose what would happen in the midterms, what would happen in January of 2023?
If the Republicans took over the House, maybe the Senate would the Biden maladministration begin following the rule of law?
Mehlman: That’s questionable. The administration has asserted that they have virtually unlimited discretionary power to decide which laws to enforce, which laws not to enforce. There would at least be congressional oversight if the Republicans were in control of Congress.
They would be able to hold hearings. They would be able to issue subpoenas. There would be more leverage. It’s also going to come down to the courts. The courts have ordered the administration to start enforcing laws. President Biden came into office saying he was not going to deport anybody.
You have a judicial order saying no, Mr. President, you can’t simply decide to negate the entire body of laws by saying you’re not going to enforce it. These are things that are going to have to play out politically.
Even after a midterm election in which the Republicans might take control of Congress, there is still going to be an enormous power in the hands of the administration and we’re going to have to keep fighting them as well.
Leahy: How can we fight them effectively?
Mehlman: Through public pressure. It’s easy to say that the American public really is in control here. We are not. We know that elections result in just a different party taking control and ignoring the interest of the American public. We have to keep at it. We have no choice because clearly the people in positions of power, both in Congress and the administration, are ignoring the will of the American public. There is no simple solution.
Leahy: Now, I’m afraid to say I agree with you on that Ira, and I’m always an optimist. I’m always a pro-American kind of guy, right. And yet you look at what’s happening to this country. It’s being destroyed with the immigration policy.
We won’t even get into the mess in Afghanistan. I personally think that was an intentional destruction of our presence there by the Biden maladministration. I look at the polls right now and every single approval poll that comes out shows that.
And it depends on how low he can go. But the Biden approval rating, depending on who you talk to, he’s underwater. Depending on which poll, 32 percent approval to 44 percent approval.
He has less public support than Jimmy Carter. And yet I don’t think it matters one bit to him or to his regime. They intend to break the law.
Mehlman: They do. What we’re getting is a dictatorship in four-year increments. If a president can come into office and say, I don’t like laws that are on the books, so I’m simply not going to enforce them, that leads us down a slippery slope.
This is precisely what the Founding Fathers sought to avoid when they created a separation of powers. And that really is a concern. Not just in immigration, but in a whole range of policy issues.
But you mentioned Afghanistan, the Defense Department, the intelligence agencies, the same people who warned him about what was going on in Afghanistan are now warning that it poses a threat of terrorism coming to the United States. Now, if you have an enhanced threat of terrorism and open borders, that is not a good combination.
Leahy: We see reports where the countries from which the illegal aliens have entered the United States, I guess what’s the number 1.5 million in the past eight months?
Mehlman: Something like that.
Leahy: Yeah, something like that. And you think, well, they’re off of Mexico. They’re not all from Mexico. Where are some of the countries they are from?
Mehlman: We’re dealing with the Haitians coming up now from Central and South America. But you have people from, I think, 160 countries who have come into the country illegally over the past eight months or so.
Many of them are from countries that are known to harbor and support terrorists, the Taliban and ISIS, Al Qaeda. They’re not stupid.
Leahy: No. They’re not stupid. They want to destroy us but they are not stupid.
Mehlman:Â They understand what our vulnerabilities are. They understand that an open border is an opportunity for them to carry out acts here in the United States.
They understand how easy it is to get into Mexico or some of these Central American countries that come up across the border. We’re playing Russian roulette here.
Leahy: What’s the likelihood that in this past eight months, of the 1.5 million that there is a significant number of them that are terrorists that intend to do harm to America now that they’re here?
Mehlman: Well, it doesn’t even take a significant number. We learned on 9/11, 19 people created an awful lot of destruction. I think we reasonably have to assume that among that million and a half people, there are at least enough people who come in with mal intention to cause an awful lot of havoc here in the United States.
Leahy: Last question. The Biden administration must know this. Do they not care that terrorists are coming in over the southern border?
Mehlman: Look, I’m sure they don’t want terrorists in the United States, but the primary objective is getting as many people in here as possible.
Leahy: So this is collateral damage?
Mehlman: Collateral damage.
Leahy: Ira Mehlman, director of communications for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It is a delight, as always, to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Mehlman: Thank you.
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Ira Mehlman” by FAIR.
