Unveiling Immigration Truths: Dan Stein Exposes Policy Failures & Solutions - EP 29 - Reasonable Arguments

Episode Transcript
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(00:52):
Hey there, another great episode on in store today.
Who do we have Jennifer?
We do.
Today we have Dan Stein, who is a long, long time former president of the Federation forAmerican Immigration Reform, also known as FAIR.
He has been one of the most influential voices in the national immigration debate for overfour decades.

(01:14):
Dan joined FAIR back in 1982, led the organization for over 20 years and has testifiedbefore Congress more than 50 times.
His work focuses on the legal, economic, and social impact
of immigration, especially what happens when it's not well regulated.
FAIR pushes for policies that prioritize national interest, secure borders, andsustainable growth.

(01:38):
So let's welcome Dan to the show.
Hello, Dan.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
So one of the questions that we found interesting when we asked it from our other guestwas, how did you get into immigration?
Back in the 1970s, I was working for Congress on international drug control policy andbecame very interested in international development programs in Latin America, crop

(02:08):
substitution programs, eradication programs for coca crops and marijuana.
And over time, it became clear to me that a lot of these petty despots in Latin Americawere using out migration as a way of avoiding internal political and economic reform.
And so it became clear that border security was a key part of advancing US foreign policyin terms of bringing about positive political change back in the home countries.

(02:35):
So I went to work for FAIR to work on what I thought would be one of the most importantissues over the next 40 years, as it turned out to be, immigration.
And all this time, nothing has changed my mind about A, the importance of the issue, andB, the fact that the way we practice immigration policy often runs contrary.
to our US foreign policy interests globally.

(02:57):
And so after about 43 years at fair, I decided about two months, well, three weeks ago toretire.
But you know me, I'm always gonna be in the mix on this thing because immigration is gonnabe a major part of the political debate for the next hundred years.
That makes sense.
My dad's wife retired in December and she's still working.

(03:20):
So hopefully you're actually retiring and going to enjoy life a little bit withoutworking.
Right, that-
at this maybe kind of a swan.
Well, you know, so we have a list of questions for you, but we're happy to go in anydirection.
But I really am interested in kind of you.

(03:42):
have a unique perspective.
You're the fourth person we've had in a four part series.
We may add a fifth, which would be our local sheriff and how immigration is impacting ushere in Sarasota County.
But from a national stage, you're the fourth person and you kind of have a uniqueperspective of helping others versus protecting.

(04:03):
ourselves.
And so there's a lot of people trying to escape dangerous places around the world.
And how do we help those folks without putting our own country at risk or for us becomingstretched too thin?
Well, the U.S.
can't be the home of last resort for all the world's displeased and dispossessed.

(04:25):
And the fact is that there's an international obligation of all community of nations totry to provide sucker and support for people who are in truly life-threatening situations.
And because the U.S.
has advanced several concepts of freedom and market capitalism and other things, we'veseen a tremendous advance in the average incomes of people all over the world beyond

(04:47):
anything that was ever anticipated 50 years ago.
50 years ago, there was enormous catastrophizing about worldwide famine and about die-offsand everything else because of projections about agricultural production and things like
that, as well as the success of market capitalism has been able to produce standards ofliving that far exceeded anybody's projections back then.

(05:10):
But the reality is there's still about three billion more people, three billion morepeople on the planet now than when I started working on the issue.
And so there are hundreds of millions of people who have everything to gain and nothing tolose by trying to get into a handful of countries that have a strong social safety net and
have essentially an actuarial income stream because of that social safety net that dwarfsanything like their standard of living back in the home country.

(05:38):
So trying to find those people who are truly, you know, political refugees, people who arefearing for their lives for political reasons.
or people whose lives are in some kind of danger because of those activities versus peoplewho simply want to improve themselves economically by making a move is like finding a
needle in a haystack.

(05:59):
And our country, like all other countries that enjoy Western democratic traditions, aneffort to try to provide the procedural process that's due to make sure we get the facts
to figure out who's entitled to protection and who isn't.
And then once you get that protection,
then you ultimately have to make sure it's temporary, right?

(06:19):
Not permanent, because there's so many who would theoretically qualify, while ensuringthere's a fair share responsibility globally, while at the same time realizing that not
everybody's gonna be able to move, and that the ultimate solutions of course would betemporary resettlement near the home country with ultimate repatriation when it's safe to
do so, while advancing ideas that bring about democratic.

(06:43):
capitalism, market capitalism under a democracy, self-governing republic that has provento be so successful so far in this country.
In other words, it's like a global rule, a golden rule for the global village.
Right?
We would want to treat people who come to our shores the way we would want our peopletreated elsewhere.

(07:05):
Right?
And the fact of the matter is the vast majority of countries are not so hospitable.
The U S over the last 50, 60 years can take its place next to anybody for its generosityand tradition.
Think about the numbers of people this country has absorbed and assimilated.
over the last 50, 100 years from all over the world.

(07:26):
One of this engine of assimilation that somehow digested as Israel's Zangwill said 100years ago to create a nation of immigrants, somehow a melting pot out of so many different
traditions to assimilate them into one common language and cultural tradition.
Quite amazing.
Well, and I think what you said is, and that's kind of the first time that I've heard thatis where, actually vetting people before they come in.

(07:55):
So, are you in a situation where you're not safe or whatever it is, then we can make thatdetermination and bring you in.
But obviously that is not what has happened, especially over the past four years with howmany people that have crossed the border and not for those reasons, I'm sure.

(08:16):
I think that's a great idea to, okay, let's talk about it and tell us why you need to behere and let us make that decision, I guess.
Well, right.
mean, you know, in the end, a successful immigration system allows in the people whoshould be here and keeps out the ones who don't.

(08:36):
And unfortunately, you know, the politics of this country are pretty much broken at thispoint.
You see this hardened polarization that we've hardly ever seen before, not since beforethe civil war, really.
Why it is, is of course a big topic of discussion.
It's beyond the scope here.
But in the course of working on one issue for so many years and working with so manyamazing and intelligent, bright people who had a lot of foresight, people who founded FAIR

(09:04):
back in 1979, 78, they were amazing men and women who were thinking about the issue goingon 40, 50 years from now, recognizing that there was a strong bipartisan consensus that
the rule of law was a cornerstone of citizenship and that secure borders are thedefinition of modern nationhood.
And then if you lose control of your borders, as Ronald Reagan said, you're not a country.

(09:28):
And most other countries around the world understand basically that if you lose control ofyour borders, you know, you're not a country.
Well, the Democratic party throughout most of the 20th century was anchored by a strongcommitment to organize labor from Sam Gompers, founder of Organized Labor all the way
through about 1995.
The Democratic party was wedded to this strong unionized labor tradition.

(09:53):
and stood for very strong border security.
Everybody in the 1960s, 70s, illegal means, hey, illegal, right?
You cross the border illegally, you're jumping in line.
That's contrary to the American value system.
Cheaters don't prosper.
You don't break the law to get ahead of the line.
That's not the American way.

(10:14):
Fairness is still very much an American concept.
And we basically believe in that.
So when Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 bill that had an amnesty, everybody from ChuckSchumer, I know Chuck's lying when his mouth is moving, all the way to Ronald Reagan.
This is the last amnesty we're going to do, right?
Because in the end, as I say, respect for law is what matters.

(10:38):
That bill was supposed to get control of the borders.
And of course it did not.
And there's a lot of reasons why, but the immigration issue is ultimately motivated bygreed, intolerance.
exploitation.
mean, much of the debates about everything from slavery all the way through modern laborcontracting and guest worker programs is about the conditions under which labor is brought

(11:02):
into this country from other countries.
And this is ultimately, you know, getting a little far afield here.
But the bottom line is for the average American here, you don't see the consensus aboutthe rule of law animating the discussion because the Democrats
And I'm not just picking on them.
The Republicans have issues too, but the Democrats abandoned their commitment to thetreatment of the average American worker.

(11:28):
When Bill Clinton and others signed these trade agreements that outsourced all thismanufacturing, the Democrats lost this manufacturing base, blue collar Democrats became
Reagan Democrats, and they had to find a new constituency.
And then a great book by David Horowitz called the shadow party 2005 described.

(11:49):
how George Soros and the radical left were taking over the Democratic Party.
And the Democratic Party had to create a new constituency, which turned out to be thismosaic of identity politics.
And they decided that immigrants represented this emerging minority that they couldexploit, started really under Obama, second term, but then Bill Joe Biden took it downtown

(12:09):
with this complete destruction of American border control.
And now, even now you see it with Chris Von Houghton, my Senator.
Ugh, and Jamie Raskin, my representative, I'm going to kill myself.
Basically, they're flying down there to bring back an MS-13 gangbanger because they feelhe was wrongly deported even though he'd had his day in court twice, thumbed his nose at

(12:32):
our legal system, and had absolutely no right to be here.
So, I mean, the Democrats have gone full on crazy, lunatic.
And suddenly it's like illegal doesn't mean anything.
Citizenship doesn't mean anything.
There's no longer any sort of
consensus about what the rule of law matters in immigration policy.
And you wonder, it all started with Obama under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivalsprogram.

(12:55):
No legislation is going to get through Congress when the Democratic Party doesn't see anyvalue, if you will, in working to restore a functioning immigration system.
They want chaos.
The organizations that have attacked FAIR over the last 30 years, like the SPLC youmentioned, Jennifer, are basically

(13:16):
And the ACLU look at what they want.
If you want to know what those organizations want, it is what you saw under Joe Biden.
Chaos, anarchy, collapse of the rule of law, millions and millions of aliens bust into thecountry.
No vetting, terrorists, terrorist watch lists, murderers, criminals.
They don't care.
They don't care what the costs are to taxpayers, education, housing, healthcare.

(13:40):
They don't care.
Okay.
All they want to do is re-engineer the American electorate.
as Elon Musk said, to their political advantage.
So now that we've all seen it, nobody supports it.
So, and that's the point we're trying to understand.
So is it about votes?
Is it about cheap labor?

(14:02):
Is it about just the whole thing?
Yeah.
I mean, a great environmental writer, Edward Abbey said, conservatives have their cheaplabor, liberals have their cheap votes.
The business community, in particular, big agriculture has been the raspberry seed in ourwisdom tooth for decades.
They always want some kind of snap your fingers and Jose and a bunch of guys in the backof a pickup show up to pick strawberries.

(14:29):
Of course, the Japanese and the Netherlands, they would have automated this stuff a longtime ago.
But every time we talk about border security, they come to Congress and go, we got to havea guest worker program.
The guest worker program that they're demanding is totally unworkable.
So what they really want is a continued flow of illegal labor, which is very costlybecause they work in the fields for a while.
Then they go to the cities and they bring their families and then they have to be replacedwith more and this is continuing streams like a stepping stone, but they're very powerful.

(14:58):
in the Republican party, but also in the Democratic party.
And then on the left, yes, there are books who can read.
mean, the democratic operatives have written that are flat out saying, oh, you know, wehave a lock on people of color.
want to replicate with the Hispanic community, the kind of political loyalty we've seenfrom the African-American community and just basically run rough shot over the pre 1970

(15:22):
American post, you know, descendant of immigrant stock that's here because
They're so loyal.
Well, Donald Trump has demonstrated there's a few flaws in the theory.
And in fact, Biden was so irresponsible.
I mean, I think the country would have been better off if Biden had been alive while hewas president.
But anyway, I'm just kidding around here.

(15:45):
But the point is, the point is that Trump took advantage of the incredible colossalpolitical mistakes that frankly, Hillary Clinton made in 2016 too, which is somewhere
along the way.
Barack Obama has not been able to convince his so-called successors that abolishingborders is something neither party, neither party's base really supports.

(16:09):
But it gave Trump an enormous opportunity.
it's some, and what the most interesting thing about it is the Democrats seem to havelearned absolutely nothing from the mistakes that they're making.
They're just doubling down.
Well, and it seems like an issue where, you know, they're cutting off their nose to spitetheir face because what we're seeing, you know, in a diverse state like Florida,

(16:31):
especially down in Miami and Southeast Florida, you know, prior to Barack Obama, westarted to see this generational shift of African Americans to the Republican Party.
Barack Obama certainly stopped that and for that period of time.
But now we're starting to see that shift again.
And certainly in
You know, for instance, the Cuban community has been Republican, but you started lookingat other South American, Central American communities where they came and voted Democrat.

(17:01):
The Puerto Rican community voted Democrat.
And now we're seeing as they're here generationally, they're voting more and moreRepublican.
And, you know, so it's one of these things that where Democrats are really short sighted,not only are they put it compromising the safety and integrity of the very fabric of our
country.
But they are, you know, the long-term is these folks aren't gonna vote for them anyway,because once they become economically involved in America, they know that their only

(17:29):
chance for true economic freedom is what Republicans stand for, not what Democrats standfor.
And so it's just, you know, I just keep going.
It's just a frustrating hypocrisy that the Democrats continue to portray.
But it starts with our children in a way.
And so a lot of this impacts, you know, people starting out in their careers and jobs foryoung Americans.

(17:55):
you know, so how, what kind of information have you seen where this is truly impacting,you know, kind of starting, people starting out in their careers, starting out in life, or
even teenagers looking for jobs?
wow.
I mean, this is a huge topic, but you you have to, you have to go back to the, to the late1980s and the dawn of the computer industry with mass production of laptops and things

(18:24):
like that.
And they went to Congress and they said, you know, we need temporary skilled workersbecause there aren't enough Americans to do this job.
they pushed Congress to create the H1B program.
And this thing is now going on for like,
Now the so-called shortage has gone on for decades because once they get addicted to aforeign labor flow, it drives out American workers.

(18:48):
mean, de Tocqueville, when he was writing Democracy in America, pointed out that slavelabor and free labor can't coexist in the same labor market for the same basic reason.
Guest workers drive out American workers because their expectations are skewed in thewhole bunch of ways, including their exploitable status.
But then we signed all these agreements where we outsourced millions and millions ofmanufacturing jobs.

(19:13):
And the reason, the theory was back then that we were going to be the knowledge dominantsociety.
And JD Vance made this really important speech to the innovation society a few weeks ago,explaining how these assumptions turned out to be wrong.
The belief was back then that we could send manufacturing overseas, but retain.
R &D research and development and design, computer aided design manufacturing, high valueadded manufacturing here.

(19:41):
And the problem was that none of them anticipated the advent of the internet and itsutility worldwide in moving knowledge work around the world.
At the same time, country lost control of its borders.
And so all the assumptions that were in play in the early 1990s about what kind of economywe were going to have,

(20:01):
high value added manufacturing, knowledge work, service work.
Americans were going to be trained in all this knowledge work, great education, relativelyfew people in schools because the birth rate had declined in the 70s, not taking any
factor of immigration into account.
that for those jobs that were in the non-export competing sector, like janitorial work,service work, hotel, restaurant, they would be well-paid unionized jobs.

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And that was what the American people were sold.
None of that happened.
Instead, know, foreign workers were brought in.
They started basically stealing technology, taking it back home.
The company started outsourcing smart work, knowledge work overseas.
And now Americans are suddenly competing in a worldwide labor force.

(20:51):
And naturally there are all these, I mean, if you at least look at manufacturing, Trumpthinks we're going to be able to compete in manufacturing with countries like China, but
they're
The pay scale is so dramatically different.
It's going to be kind of a challenge to do that.
Well, young Americans today basically are being told, well, you're not good enough to doany job in your own country.
There are always foreign workers out there who are going to bring in these skills and dothem better.

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So between that and the population growth that's resulted from immigration, crowding outhousing, bidding up housing costs, supply stock isn't there.
mean, young people today can't get a leg up.
They can't achieve.
economic security for family formation.
And as a result, they don't have the economic security to even start families.

(21:38):
know, and yeah, women want to be in the workforce, but at the same time, they can'tfunction on one income.
And to be able to step out of the labor force with young children is not affordable forfamilies.
So the women are waiting longer and longer.
And then by the time they're ready to have kids, it's much more difficult.
Maybe they'll have one or two, but you see the decline in fertility where it's subreplacement fertility now.

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And all these factors play into the fact that there's this congestion effect of bothmassive immigration and outsourcing at the same time.
So you wonder why there's like at a time when there should be a strong economic future forour young people today, they don't A, see anything being actually built in this country.

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There's no real manufacturing going on.
It doesn't fire their imaginations and B, the conventional path toward college.
with this enormous debt isn't really producing, guaranteeing the skills to do the kinds ofjobs that needed to be done in this country in the future.
I mean, I got a grandson, he's smart as a whip.
I don't see any effort.
He's in what, sixth, seventh grade?

(22:42):
I don't see any effort by these tech companies to go out there and recruit people like himand get him channeled into the right path forward to the jobs that are needed tomorrow
because they still believe they can rake off people from India and China.
to do these works.
And then they go to Congress and go, we can't get Americans to do the job.
Well, you you told us there was a labor shortage in 1980, 88, 89.

(23:05):
You've had plenty of time to train Americans to do the job.
Why would they care about the quality of public education if they think they can just keepbringing in these folks from overseas?
So, I mean, and then when you get to the lower end of the economic, I know you've talkedto a number of folks on this issue, so I don't want to repeat what they've already told
you, but the data are clear here.
When it comes to people with a high school degree or less, this massive inflow of peoplewith less education, a high school degree or less, fifth grade education, illiterate in

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any language, we're a post-industrial superpower information society.
Last thing we need to be doing is bringing in people who are more appropriate for the ageof the buggy whip and the Model T.
We don't need this massive surfeit of unskilled labor, but we're bringing it in eitherillegally or not.
And then you wonder why...
wages have been stagnant and why American men, born men, native born American men are alldropping out of the labor force.

(24:01):
And they've been crowded out of everything.
these wages that they're paying under the table, the aliens, whatever, you can't surviveon them.
mean, just this stuff is like basic common sense, supply and demand.
You keep increasing the supply, employers like it.
They love it.
And I'm sure in Florida, Governor DeSantis is doing a great job down there.
He's got the legislature whipped into shape.

(24:22):
But there's always going to be these businesses down in Florida going, we got to raisewages, you know, know, if you're a marginal employer and, and the problem is if you're an
employer who's trying to do the right thing, pay competitive wages.
the guy who's using the illegal labor is going to be able to undercut you cause he'sshortchanging on the labor costs, right?
It's called privatizing the profits of low wage labor while you commonize the costs on thecommunity for education, all that kind of stuff.

(24:48):
So it's, it's,
complicated issue, but it's killing the job prospects for young people.
Well, I
guess I just don't understand how, how do the Democrats like not number one, see this asan act of slavery and not see what it is doing to our country or like, how are they

(25:11):
benefiting enough to...
make this a reality that could essentially ruin our country.
Like I just, don't understand that.
And that's my, you I'm not the high level thought process on the political side of it.
So me being a regular Americans, like I don't get it.
If you're willing to sacrifice the productivity for the labor cost, mean, if you've givenme three slaves and all I have to do is give them a room and three meals a day, I'll make

(25:44):
money if they're at all productive.
It's apparently a preferred alternative to automation, robotics, things like that.
I mean, the best thing we could do for our economy would be to shut off the supply of lessskilled labor for a sustained period of time.
And we would see the introduction of all this labor saving technology right across theboard, agriculture, all the way up to like home health care and everything else.

(26:08):
But if the alternative is being able to bring people in who are willing to work all dayfor a bucket of fish heads, employers would prefer that.
That's, you know, this is part of the debate that went on a hundred and some years ago,led to the very first immigration restrictions in 19 at the federal level, 1916, 1920,
1922.

(26:29):
But those restrictions were hard fought.
And the only reason that American business actually finally agreed to support therestrictions that brought down the huge Ellis Island wave was because of fear of the
contagion from the Bolshevik revolution.
And evidence that too many of the immigrants who were coming in to work in the sweatshopswere sympathetic to what was happening in Russia.

(26:52):
Now, I don't know what it would take.
I maybe Trump's election.
vindicates the idea that some of these tech company gurus who've been so, you know,adamant about foreign labor, I Elon Musk is basically talking at two levels.
He's talking one about if you don't give him his H1B workers, he's going to kill you.

(27:13):
But on the other hand, he's saying we're bringing in so many immigrants that it'sdestroying our civilization.
So, I mean, it's kind of, you got to kind of thread the needle.
But the point is that's a tectonic shift in the tech company reception of this.
And maybe they're beginning to realize that there is a level at which you can destabilizethis wonderful American experiment.

(27:35):
Remember, sorry about my cold.
It used to be called the immigration and naturalization service.
That's what it was called, the INS for decades.
Immigration was the first step.
Naturalization, oath of allegiance.
That was the last.
When you immigrate, you had to wait a five years or so.

(27:55):
before you took the oath of allegiance.
Now, what did you learn in that period of time?
Well, what does it mean to live in a self-governing Republic, a democracy?
And what it means is you're not loyal to a potentate, a thug, a dictator, a tribal chief,a strong man, you know, a murderer, whatever.
You basically are a citizen in a self-governing democracy.

(28:17):
You're an office holder as a citizen participating in that process, selecting yourgovernment, selecting your governor.
And that's a big change from historically what was done, right?
Kind of like the equivalent would be Adam Smith's invisible hand that somehow things gobetter when people are able to do what they want to do instead of centrally directed

(28:39):
conduct in a communist or fascist regime.
Right?
So you're teaching them something about what it means to be an American politically,historically, what have you.
And ideally you're teaching people about what market capitalism is and why it's anefficient.
done properly allocation of resources, right?

(28:59):
If you don't teach people those fundamental lessons about what it means to be an American,you bring people in at a level where they're basically bringing bad ideas into the country
to the point where, you know, they're met here right off the boat by left-wing AOC typeswho are trying to convince them, you know, the problem is there's, or Bernie Sanders.

(29:21):
I mean, look at Bernie Sanders.
He hasn't changed his tune in what?
50 years, he still, but he goes to find these young audiences who were still gullibleenough to listen to his nonsense about, you know, income inequality is somehow a bad thing
because, you know, people, some people work harder than others and some people have bettercapability or skills than others.
But in any case, that process of molding people into being an American is the key toassimilation for large numbers of people.

(29:49):
The level of immigration has to be guided by
factors that include the assimilability, think that's the right word, of the people comingin, the volume, the velocity, how fast they're coming in and what they're meeting when
they get here, right?
Do we as a nation have the confidence to stand up for what we ultimately have, this greattradition, the glory of the English language, which is a fabulous creation, rich, diverse

(30:15):
from so many sources that came into Great Britain and brought it, came here, our sort ofAnglo-American system.
of governance, understanding of property rights and its role in freedom and building asociety and all these things that go along with what makes democratic freedom possible in
the allocation of political power and votes.

(30:38):
Immigration tends to corrupt the process because some people make a lot of money offimmigration, Jennifer.
Your question is really about why is it so hard to get right?
Because immigration is
about exploitation and about greed and about making money using marginal labor instead ofinnovation and in productivity advances.

(31:00):
And so because in both sides of the spectrum, it serves certain people's interests.
It becomes hard for our two party system to find the center.
Now there used to be a center back in the eighties and nineties.
As I said earlier, there was a political center.
You had Rockefeller Republicans.
But people who believed fundamentally in the rule of law, cultural conservatives who likedto the stability of the American culture and the, in the cultural community.

(31:28):
And then you had people who were big government liberals, Eugene McCarthy, governor DickLamb, who understood that if you don't know how many people you're going to be serving in
the country, you can't deliver good government services.
Right?
You issue a bond, you build a school, but the school's overcrowded suddenly because peoplehave come in illegally and they put their kids in the school.

(31:49):
Our kids are getting hurt, right?
I think about what Biden did to public education, overloading our public schools, becausethe Supreme Court demanded in 1982, we provide education at taxpayer expense.
They call it free public education.
Like something's free, right?
Anyway, and the point is here you have unaccountable Supreme Court justices putting thismandate on taxpayers to provide education for anybody coming in, putting 10 kids in public

(32:15):
school.
What do think that did to public education?
Right?
the Supreme Court, I think it was Potter.
No, was Brennan who wrote the decision.
we don't see any economic burden of kids going into public schools.
Well, that was 1982.
You should look at it now.
And that kind of unfunded mandate is part of the problem.

(32:36):
And that's the last problem, which is that the state and local taxpayers are the ones whopay most of the cost for this uncontrolled immigration.
the federal level, you have lawyers and the Judiciary Committee.
People like that who basically go, yeah, we'll let another couple hundred million in.
No problem.
We'll let the state and local taxpayers deal with it.
And you you have this disconnect.

(32:58):
So I mean, there are all these structural reasons why immigration policy is so hard to getsolved.
You know, as Mark Korkorian, I think may have said to you, there are winners and losers,right?
Okay, well, right now, what Donald Trump has done,
Is vindicate the interests of the populist wing of the Republican party.

(33:19):
He's basically kicked out the Bush entrenched, you know, wing of the party, the elites,the country club guys, you know, all those, and basically said the populist party part of
the party is going to rule for awhile.
Now the Bush wing, they don't like that.
They're upset.
We heard them on the never Trumpers, but you know, as I believe somebody said, who was ithere?

(33:41):
The people rule, right?
And in the case of what we see with Donald Trump, that's what we're seeing.
So maybe something will get done.
Well, you certainly have, you know, packed a lot in there, you know, as far as, you know,housing and education.
And the one thing that I don't know that you touched on is public health.

(34:04):
And, you know, what kind of impact does this have on our health system?
Like here in Sarasota, we have, you know, a public, supported hospital and, know, aportion of our property taxes go to support that hospital and into do the care, which.
Of course, includes a lot of emergency room care for illegal immigrants.

(34:25):
But from your global or national perspective, what's that this influx?
mean, we're not importing nurses and doctors for the most part, or Biden didn't importnurses and doctors that came across the southern border.
It's people who need nurses and doctors.
So what are your thoughts and what are you seeing from the national perspective on that?

(34:48):
Well, healthcare is one of the major costs, education, healthcare, housing.
I mean, these are some of the major costs of immigration.
You know, the people who come in who are doctors, very small number of percentage, we'retalking about the overall immigration level.
No, what the world is supplying is people who, as I say, are illiterate in any languageand have fifth grade education and they don't have health insurance and naturally, you

(35:12):
know, there's a Hippocratic oath, public institutions are supposed to try to help people.
whether they can pay or not.
But in the end, know, Barack Obama stood up at his State of the Union and Joe Thomas setup, Obama said, illegal aliens are not going to get access to Obamacare.
And Joe said, you lie.

(35:34):
It was a big scandal.
my God, you know, as if somehow the Democrats are models of decorum when it comes toRepublicans giving a State of the Union.
In any case,
Naturally, Obama, Biden just said, yeah, we're by the way, we're going to give illegalaliens Obamacare.
And, by the way, and of course Gavin Newsom struggling with a two plus billion dollardeficit in California is busy giving illegal aliens healthcare.

(36:00):
I mean, you know, when it goes beyond just the cost of healthcare, you also have thisabsurd interpretation of the 14th amendment.
A woman comes in El Paso hospital 45 minutes before delivering a baby and the baby's a UScitizen.
And entitled to the rights and privileges of U.S.
citizen.
And of course, we're responsible for the health care of the the child, citizen child too.

(36:24):
you know, the way this again is privatizing profits, commonizing costs.
No way the framers of the 14th Amendment ever anticipated this kind of stuff going on.
In 1867, most people didn't go more than 30 miles from their place of birth their entirelives.
And you didn't have birth certificates.
Everybody knew who you were.
You know, you're either the town drunk or the sheriff.

(36:47):
And, uh, you know, we have these antiquated ideas.
And so, you know, part of the healthcare costs is ultimately like some absurd number,like, you know, 40 % of mothers giving birth to children in our house, public hospitals
are here illegally.
We have birth tourism, same thing there.
Um, I mean, the cost of healthcare is already very high and certainly trying to provideemergency public healthcare.

(37:13):
which is mandated for all these people is a massive burden on our health care system.
Then you get into the problem of unvetted people coming into the country, resurgence ofthings like tuberculosis, right?
We had COVID come in, we had lots of things like that, resurfacing of measles, things likethat.

(37:33):
have polio is now back, unvetted.
Are we supposed to...
support the Chinese government and assuming that they're going to protect us from Chinesevisitors coming in and it's a great job with COVID, my goodness.
I mean, all kinds of reasons why you have to have strict vetting.
And it's so funny that Biden would have let the borders get so bad out of control afterhaving just gone through a pandemic.

(38:01):
Yeah, that seems crazy.
Yeah, please.
So, and this is gonna be a weird question, but what does it look like actually coming inthrough the border?
Like, it like a turnstile?
Is it like an amusement park?
Is it like customs?

(38:22):
What does it look like?
Well, it's kind of like a line at Disney World in a way.
I mean, you got to wait at the port of entry and you get screened by an officer.
If you have a passport, examines it for you.
of everybody coming in?
No, I mean, they take biometrics of certain people who are non-citizens.

(38:42):
They, particularly if you come in and make a humanitarian claim for asylum or what haveyou, if you're released on recognizance and given an order to show cause or an order to
report on a certain date, they're doing biometric identification.
The port of entries are relatively orderly, but they're overwhelmed.
You go to the San Ysidro port of entry down there near San Diego.

(39:03):
And you'll see lines and lines of traffic most days as people wait in line to go through.
In most cases, you know, if you're a US citizen, it's fairly obvious.
They ask you a few questions and you wave you through.
But if you're from another country, they inspect your passport and you don't have properdocumentation.
They don't let you come in.
If you try to make a humanitarian claim or you're in one of these crazy parole programsthat Biden put over, know, they, they, they take down your information, take the biometric

(39:32):
fingerprints and
and maybe they believe you're a flight risk, they'll give you an ankle bracelet and sendyou on your way.
Or if they think you're a flight risk, they'll put you in detention.
But where?
Yeah, where would they be a flight risk to?
Well, I mean, if they're not going to show up for their court hearing, but they've made anasylum claim.

(39:55):
In fact, Congress has mandated asylum claimants be detained.
of course, administration has always claimed they don't have the space.
I mean, one of the reasons why the Trump administration is trying to send folks toGuantanamo is there's only so much detention space.
And Biden did everything he could under, with Secretary Mayorkas.
Guy ought to be tried for treason, for God's sake.

(40:17):
you know, closed all these detention centers and the, and the Democrat states don't wantprivate detention facilities in their states.
I mean, I mean, you have to realize Jennifer that we're dealing with one entire politicalparty that wants to sabotage all immigration enforcement.
You know, once somebody gets into the, what you notice in this whole problem is thatgetting into the country is a lot easier than removing them.

(40:44):
It's like they, you know,
All kinds of ways people can get into the country without inspection, overstay a visa, lietheir way through a port of entry, fraud, whatever.
But like the Democrats and their allies all know that the removal process requires thiskind of immigration court proceeding.
It's elaborate.
Trump has tried to short-circuit that with some folks with the, with the Alien Act from1797, 98.

(41:12):
And, uh, you know, he's, of he's getting.
blow back from some of the courts about using such an old law.
But in the end, you know, the procedural process is due in a removal proceeding iscumbersome enough to take, you know, if you want to deport a million illegal aliens in one
year, it's pretty hard to do with the court backlogs that we have now in the court systemitself is a whole different topic set up because the advocates did not like the fact that

(41:40):
hearing officers back in the 1980s were
immigration officers that were part of the enforcement division.
mean, immigration is a civil matter.
It's not a criminal matter.
If you remove somebody back to the home country, you're not putting them in jail.
You're sending them home.
Very different.
Chris Van Hollen is saying, this guy we want to bring back from El Salvador is a Marylandman.

(42:02):
Stephen Miller said, no, he's not a Maryland man.
He's an El Salvadoran citizen.
doesn't belong here at all.
But I mean, that's where the Democrats came
blurring citizenship and all these other statuses.
Well, I mean, when you have one entire political party that opposes state and localcooperation, sheriffs, because they're elected officials, are one of the few local

(42:24):
officers who are able to really speak out in opposition to the Democrats' opposition, ifyou will, to these state and local cooperation agreements with federal immigration
authorities, which are critical to actually identifying and removing these overstayers,people here illegally generally.
mean, the Democrats and their allies have put up these walls between the federalgovernment and the state government, isolated the enforcement authorities at the federal

(42:50):
level.
And that's why there's no interior enforcement.
And this has to be turned around.
I mean, we're not going to be sustained as a country if we don't find a way toreinvigorate interior immigration law enforcement.
And that's what Trump is desperately trying to do.
And he's got some good folks there in Miller, Tom Homan, good friend, doing a really greatjob.

(43:12):
Well, and you mentioned, you know, kind of your congressman and your senator.
And, know, it's frustrating to me when we hear people use the term, you know, long-termlegal resident instead of green card holder, you know, just crazy terminology to make them
sound more legal and more permanent and more, you know, like a citizen when they're simplynot citizens.

(43:35):
You know, they're, green card holders.
We may be, it be allowed them here, but it goes back to what you said at the beginning ofthe show, which is
you know, hey, if you're here as a guest, act like a guest and you'll get treated likeone, you know, but if you're going to come down and, you know, try to, you know, exert
your non-existent First Amendment right by burning down buildings, that's not acting likea guest.

(43:57):
And you should be deported if you do that if you're not a citizen.
And quite frankly, the citizens who do that should be in jail.
And, you know, I just wrote a newsletter on subsac that went out this morning that wastalking about
Abrego Garcia and how, how convoluted the press has screwed up, you know, John Robertsorder and, know, and, and how they, you know, John Roberts didn't mandate that we go get

(44:22):
him and bring him back.
They're like, he kind of shrugs a little bit and says, Hey, do what you can, you know, andkeep the lower court updated, you know, type of thing.
And so, you know, if I'm allowed to take a two page letter and turn it into eight words,
But that's a frustrating thing.
I think we kind of covered most of the points we had, but we wanted to have just kind of afun question.

(44:48):
If you were talking to a group of high school students, college students, what do youthink is the number one thing that those young people misunderstand about legal or illegal
immigration?
Well, is ultimately about who we are, we the people.

(45:09):
It's about who we are, who we become, what kind of nation we're going to be.
A country should really do its own work.
And in the end, if you allow the forces of greed and exploitation and power to takecontrol of immigration policy, they will destroy not only your futures, but our national
destiny.
Immigration implicates every public concern.

(45:32):
you as a young person will ever be concerned about the rest of your life.
It touches everything from entitlements, fiscal sanity, labor force equity, environmentalconcerns, pollution, resource usage, resource allocation, certainly issues like traffic
congestion, housing availability, cultural cohesion, quality of education.

(45:57):
It goes on and on and on.
immigration policy touches on everything you will be concerned about for the rest of yourlife.
And therefore you better go about the business of understanding who comes in, how many,and most importantly, how a nation like ours should enforce the rules.
And it looked like you were going to say something to Jennifer, but if you had a magicwand and you could make a law or let's keep it to two laws, you know, what do you think,

(46:27):
what would be the magic wand you would wave and say, this fixes it?
If you don't play by the rules, you don't play the game.
But you made that simple.
I like it.
So.
That's right though.
I mean, it's that simple.

(46:48):
You know?
I mean, I think it's that simple.
just, this is just amazing to me.
Just all of this is crazy.
And we both have learned so much through this entire series.
And you would be surprised, Dan, how much the four of you did not talk about the sametopics.
You know, it's complete.

(47:09):
These were, you know, because we kind of worried about it.
It's like, these could kind of run into being the very same show.
And every show was so unique.
And you all brought every single one of you brought such a breadth of knowledge to.
to our viewers and our listeners that just incredible knowledge.

(47:32):
know that, you I like to think that I'm up to date on most things, you know, maybe an inchdeep and a mile wide, but I've learned an incredible amount.
You shared, you know, you're sharing your knowledge today.
Do you want to ask the final closing bonus closer question, Jennifer?
So let's say that nothing changes, right?

(47:53):
It stays the way that it is.
And what is the real risk to America if we keep doing what we're doing now?
That's an excellent question, Jennifer, because what we saw under Joe Biden exposessomething that we have been concerned about from the very beginning of fair and we're the
granddaddy organization.
And I am of course, the best of the guests.

(48:16):
And I know that's probably axiomatic, but the truth is, I'm just kidding.
The truth is.
No, it's absolutely true, but we've said that to all of them.
Yeah, thank you.
I'll take it.
The truth is, there's always been this concern that an unprincipled executive presidentwould take advantage of the asymmetry in how the courts are willing to hear complaints on

(48:42):
immigration by allowing in millions and millions of aliens without any legal authority.
In other words, if the ACLU thinks that somebody's been wrongly excluded like this clownfrom El Salvador.
They can litigate it to the Supreme court.
But if Joe Biden lets in two, three million people here who have no right to be here,courts go, you don't have any standing.

(49:05):
You can't show direct injury.
And so the courts are basically almost silent about it.
Well, we always knew that unless Congress steps up and closes these loopholes, whichthey've tried to do in so-called HR two from last Congress and creates a standing
provision.
which they did do in the Lake and Riley bill, to allow Americans and states affected byimprovidently admitted, illegally admitted aliens by an unprincipled president, they can

(49:35):
go to court to stop it.
And that has to happen.
Congress has to do this because otherwise, as you saw under Trump 1.0, the minute Bidencomes in, he's reversing all these executive orders and all these good policies.
So then all of a sudden,
AOC gets elected president.

(49:55):
I know we're all going to Canada.
And she just does everything and starts this nonsense again.
So this is, this is the great danger this country faces.
An unprincipled president for partisan purposes, power politics, vote packing, whateveryou want to call it.
Let's the borders get out of control on purpose purely for vanity, partisan gain, whateverreason.

(50:20):
And nobody can stop it.
This is the great danger.
We will cease to be a functioning nation.
Everything we care about that we like about this country or used to like will be gonebecause no nation can sustain massive uncontrolled immigration on an unending basis
because you know what?

(50:40):
There's more of them than there are of us.
Very simple.
So this just brings, because I'm a big conspiracy theory person and let's go to the autopen.
if we get.
I know.
So we find out that the person, that the immigration, everything was signed by the autopen.

(51:05):
And then we maybe find out who was in charge of the auto pen one day.
I mean, is that even possible?
Well, the auto pen was wielded by Barack Obama.
Everybody knows that.
I contrary to the American tradition, Obama didn't leave Washington afterward and go backto, you know, chop wood and cut bush or whatever.

(51:29):
What did Reagan do on his ranch?
Clear brush.
Or like Harry Truman, go back and be a country lawyer.
mean, he did.
became a painter.
Yeah.
with Michelle Obama, apparently.
Let's hope Hunter Biden becomes a good painter too.
But no, Obama stayed here and he said what he wanted.
mean, everybody knows this.

(51:49):
I mean, he had his buddies in this all this.
He directed who the staff were.
I mean, the beautiful thing about the whole thing was that Obama had this whole thingorchestrated.
He directed the White House staff.
He met with them all the time.
Everybody knows what was going on here.
Had a nice big mansion in Kalorama, know, a nice place in Hawaii and his place in thevineyard.
That was great stuff.
He had a good time.

(52:10):
The only thing that went wrong was that Biden broke the deal.
Biden was supposed to be a one-term president and he turned around and went, you know,hey, Jill and I, man, we're digging this, you know, and basically our whole family's
corrupt and we want to make sure they don't get prosecuted, Joe needs another term.
And Biden and Barack's like, hey man, that wasn't the deal.
It's like, hey, you what are you going to do about it?

(52:31):
Anyway, that blew up in his face.
That was the beauty of the whole thing.
But yeah, was clearly Obama and his apparatchiks, Susan Rice and all those crazies thatwere in the White House.
So no conspiracy at all, Jennifer, just Barack Obama.
That's a conspiracy in itself, so I'm going to stick with that.

(52:52):
Well, you're new to politics, Jennifer, but sooner or later you're going to learn you'regetting lied to every minute.
So the fact that the legacy media is desperately trying to hang on using whatevertechniques they are.
mean, it's kind of interesting to behold.
I I was actually trained years ago by a Pulitzer Prize winner with Newsday, which wasreally a great newspaper in Long Island for many, many years.

(53:17):
And I remember when we used to be able to go on TV and have policy debates on differentsides and people could make up their minds.
And the big thing that's collapsed in our society is debate.
mean, the left doesn't want to debate.
There's no debate.
So I don't know why people would want to cable news, so-called news, because I findone-sided panels where everyone's agreeing with each other is boring.

(53:46):
and doesn't illuminate anything.
They pitch these softball questions to their buddies and of course they're working offtalking points from either the White House or the Democrat, whatever.
And it's like, this is not interesting at all.
You want to hear a debate, a real debate by policy experts.
The four or five people you had on immigration, every one of those folks, I know all ofthem, I'm sure, could have been, probably hired some of them and probably fired some of

(54:11):
them, could have been, you know.
fabulous on a national debate stage, but you can ask every one of them.
How many times have you been involved in a strong, good forensic debate on immigration inthe last 10 years?
I think Mark Krikorian's been on a few, but very few.
mean, in the old days, it was like every week back in the 80s and 90s.
The debate has disappeared.

(54:33):
Terrible loss for the American people.
doesn't even seem like people can have conversations today about politics and exactly.
Yeah.
reflexes.
We need honest, reasonable arguments.
How about that?
Honest.
And I appreciate the public service you all are doing.
Thank you.

(54:53):
Thank you.
Is there anything that we did not cover that you would like to say before we sign off?
No, out of respect for your time.
I can talk about this for three days.
There's almost nothing about the topic.
I don't know.
if there's something that, yeah.
if you went for three days, you would beat Cory Booker's new Filibuster record, right?

(55:16):
Yeah, I wonder if he had a tent like Edward Everett did at the Gettysburg Address, youknow, and I admire his bladder.
Yeah, I always say that, you know, ending a filibuster on April 1st may not have been yourbest timing.
Like, who cared?
Who cared?
Jennifer, do you have any other questions?

(55:39):
Dan, thank you so much for your time.
We really appreciate your time and knowledge.
It's been incredible.
Thank you.
My pleasure, anytime.
Good luck.
hold still for one second and we'll be right back.
Yeah.

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Unveiling Immigration Truths: Dan Stein Exposes Policy Failures & Solutions - EP 29

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Unveiling Immigration Truths: Dan Stein Exposes Policy Failures & Solutions - EP 29