I Visited a Migrant Processing Facility. This Is What I Saw.

Rachel del Guidice

Politics,

"I think, first and foremost, the people of ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] are doing phenomenal work and they’ve done phenomenal work in the midst of a massive crisis that overwhelmed the border with limited resources." 

The Department of Homeland Security expects the number of new illegal immigrants coming to the U.S. to top 1.1 million by the end of the fiscal year in September. The border crisis is much talked about in Washington, but little progress is being made to address it. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., recently took a trip to the border to see for himself what things are like. The Daily Signal spoke with him, as he shares his thoughts in an exclusive interview. 

Rachel del Guidice: We’re joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Congressman Mark Green of Tennessee who actually just came back from a trip to the border where [he] spent several days in El Paso.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us today.

Rep. Mark Green: Rachel, thanks for having me on the show.

del Guidice: It’s a pleasure to have you with us. So you just got back from El Paso and you saw up close and personal the situation that we’re in right now at our southern border. What are your major takeaways from this trip?

Green: I think, first and foremost, the people of ICE and [Customs and Border Protection] are doing phenomenal work and they’ve done phenomenal work in the midst of a massive crisis that overwhelmed the border with limited resources.

Now, with the 4.6 billion, they have resources to add facilities and resources. Food, water, all that stuff, trash, all the things that you have to do when you run an operation like they do. But just, first and foremost, their hard work and dedication to America.

I think No. 2 would be the absolute absurdity that our asylum laws have become and the perverse incentives that [they are] causing.

And I’ll give you an example. I think it was Monday night, I did a ride along with [Customs and Border Protection]. I’m out on the border, riding around with agents, and they apprehended three people in a family, a husband, wife, and a child that were from Brazil.

Now, Brazil is not any country that’s … nobody is suspecting Brazil of creating political refugees, etc. But they flew to Panama, and then from Panama flew to Cancun, and then from Cancun, a combination of bused and walked to our border, walked across, and they came up to the Border Patrol agents.