On Tuesday morning’s The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy and Carmichael welcomed Tennessee state Senator Marsha Blackburn to the show and discussed her strategy on maintaining a bipartisan manner with her fellow Democrats in Washington.
Nearing the end of the segment, Blackburn explained her bill calling for mandatory DNA tests at the border to prevent the continuing of child trafficking and Carmichael questioned why such a common-sense law could not get passed.
Leahy: We are joined now on the newsmaker line by Senator Marsha Blackburn, welcome Senator Blackburn. Just for our listeners, the first time I met you was
Blackburn: Hello how are you today?
Leahy: We’re great. And just for our listeners, the first time I met you Senator Blackburn was in the 1990s when you were running for the state senate and it was an election. I went to vote at the little volunteer Williamson county fire station in Thomson Station. There was one person standing outside there at a little folding table. It was you.
Blackburn: It was me. That is right. I have always believed in outworking anybody around me. (Laughs)
Leahy: I can vouch for you. You were working harder than any other candidate back in the 1990s on that particular election.
Blackburn: I still am today.
Leahy: You are.
Blackburn: I just consider it such an honor to represent Tennessee in the US Senate. I loved my service in the House state senate. and the thing for me is public service is all about preserving faith, family, freedom, hope, and opportunity. And making certain that our children have freedom and opportunity and can really not only live but achieve their version of the American dream.
Leahy: Now your strategy I think has been very smart as a senator. I think you’ve been very conscious in this strategy. You have identified areas of potential bipartisan cooperation. I seem like about once a week you’re co-sponsoring a bill on good government issues with somebody from on Democratic side. How did you come up deciding that that would be part of your strategy?
Blackburn: One of the things that I do is to seek out individuals who share my view of making certain that we preserve our freedoms. And I approach, I’m always willing to have a conversation with anyone who wants to make the lives of Tennesseans better.
For me, it is natural to approach people and say, ‘I am working on an issue and I would love to spend a couple of minutes talking with you about it. Send you the text and the language of the bill I’m working on and ask for your co-sponsorship.’
Leahy: I think that’s worked out pretty well. You’ve been really leading the fight on the issue of border security. You’ve also said that basically every state now is a border state. I’ve noticed that you’ve got some legislation having to do with human trafficking that relates to both sides of the border. Tell us a little bit about that.
Blackburn: Yes I do. Recently I introduced legislation that would require a DNA test for individuals, adults who appear at our border and they have a child with them but they have no documentation to show that this is their child and they are bringing that child into the country. This is a 90-minute test. It would prove whether or not someone is related to that child. And then the test only cost a couple of hundred dollars.
And while that is expensive it is such small a price when you think about is happening with the sex trafficking and the gangs and the labor trafficking. And when you look at these programs that are so abhorrent the ‘rent a child program’ and the ‘child recycling program’ that the cartels are using to help push people into the United States.
And push them into these sanctuary cities and these distribution centers these cartels have set up on US soil evading our laws and pushing drugs. Human beings that they are trafficking and ruining the lives of these children. So this would require that test to be taken. And you know what is so interesting?
And I’ve heard this from border patrol, if there is a doubt as to whether it actually is a family member to an adult and if a border agent approaches this adult with a swab and says we’re going to take a DNA test sometimes they will relinquish the child and say this is not my child.
Leahy: On that topic, wasn’t there some sort of test study on this that said that 80% of the folks that they tested who were bringing a child with them actually weren’t related to them. Is my recollection right about that?
Blackburn: The border patrol has done some analysis and I don’t have those exact figures in front of me. I do know that initially over a short term period of time it was one out of every five children was being a trafficked child. Now think about those numbers.
When you say 20% of the children are being trafficked, these are children that maybe they’re going to a work gang. Or an MS-13 gang. Or they’re being trafficked into the sex trade. And their lives, they never have the opportunity for reaching their potential or living a productive life.
Leahy: We are joined in the studio here today with our good friend and our original all-star panelist, you know him, Crom Carmichael. You may remember Crom.
Blackburn: Oh yes! Absolutely! I know Crom.
Leahy: Crom was on the Teddy Barts Roundtable for many many years. Crom’s in here once a week talking about issues and Crom wants to say hello and has a question for you.
Carmichael: Senator, how are you doing?
Blackburn: I’m well.
Carmichael: Good good. I have a question on the issue that you’re talking about, what you’re talking about seems so common sense why doesn’t something as common sense as what you’re talking about becoming law?
Blackburn: Well, there are some on the other side of the isle Crom that actually want to decriminalize crossing the border. This would give us an open border. And you and I know that there is no way for a nation to protect their sovereignty if you open your border and say everybody come.
And by the way when you come we’re going to give you free healthcare and we’re going to give you government benefits. There is no way you would ever be able to stem that tide. And our border would be completely overrun at that point. There are some that want to abolish ICE and do away with ICE.
There are some who want to enact sanctuary city policies so that they can evade federal. And you know that when that happens if you say, ‘Ok, we’re going to allow the establishment of sanctuary cities so there can be an evading of immigration law.’ Then you’re going to see people say, ‘We’re going to set up a sanctuary city to evade environmental laws.
Or we’re going to evade IRS laws. You cannot pick and choose. We are a nation of laws and the rule of law. And if someone does not like a law that’s on the books they are welcome to try to change that. But until they do, it is the law. And our courts, this is what we function under. You have to look at the laws that are on the books and you cannot start this process of picking and choosing what you will and will not enforce.
It sounds like the gulf then between the Democrat party and the Republican party even on an issue as clear cut as the one you’re fighting for, it sounds like there’s no appetite on the other side for even a minority group of people on the other side to join with you to pass the common-sense legislation that you’re trying to pass.
Blackburn: Well there are some Democrats who say, and you’ve seen this play out in the Democrat debates. There are some and some of them are no longer on the stage who say, ‘Wait a minute. We cannot decriminalize crossing the border.’ Bear in mind, if a US citizen went to Mexico and then walked back across the border they would be apprehended. They would be handcuffed. They would be taken to jail for illegally entering the country.
And when you have someone who walks across the border who is not a US citizen and they walk up to the border patrol. And let me tell you something, I’ve been out on patrol with the border patrol twice this summer. We do not apprehend them, they come catch us. (Leahy laughs)
They walk right up to you with their hands in the air saying, ‘Asylum.’ They have been coached by the cartels. The cartels have set up websites to instruct people on how to book their travel. They function as a travel agency.
Leahy: It’s a plan basically Senator Blackburn, right? They’ve got it all set up.
Blackburn: Exactly. You know I was down there one day and within 30 minutes there were 12 people (Leahy laughs) that approached us to be apprehended. Four were from Honduras. It was a man, his wife, she was six months pregnant and 2 children. And at first, they tried to tell us they had walked from Honduras.
Leahy: Yeah, they walked all the way. Senator Blackburn, we are out of time here. But will you come back again? You’re doing great work up there.
Blackburn: Sure. Absolutely. I would love to come back.
Listen to the full hour:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Blackburn, are you willing to do the drudgery work that aliens have done for Americans, especially for rich white Americans like yourself, who are too lazy to do these jobs themselves? If people like you continue persecuting aliens and actually succeed in expeling all of them from the U.S., many white Americans will either have to do these manual jobs or those jobs just won’t get done, with disasterous results for the economy. Most aliens are decent law-abiding people who make every effort to contribute to this country. Some of these Central Americans that you are so bigoted against are close friends of mine. I trust them in my house far more than I would trust an I.C.E. agent. Many of the I.C.E. agents are thugs and sexually violent predators who target undocumented aliens to victimize. I.C.E. agents can get away with doing things to little children in detention that would land anybody else in prison and be considered a sex offense. Most of your drug dealers and rapists are regular American citizens, many with a white skin color like you!