Brent Smith - Kinney County Attorney Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Seven, twenty two is our time here in Houston's Morning News. Well,
not saying that you need to don't need to get
a good lawyer's son, but evidently we don't need as
many attorneys for illegals as we once did. Brent Smith
joins us Kinny County Attorney as the caseloads creator. According
to the Texas Scorecard, the Texas Supreme Court has decided

(00:21):
they're going to end the state run program providing illegal
aliens with defense attorneys. Has the caseload really cratered that much?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean, the caseload has gone down the you know,
the encounters have gone down, their rest have gone down.
But you know, one thing to point out is the
emergency order.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
That goes away.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
It just goes back to the counties to appoint those
defense attorneys and it no longer is a state program
with the states appointing them on behalf of the county.
So we had a meeting yesterday and the county judge
and I have been discussing, you know, how we're going
to do it, and it kind of just red redoes

(00:58):
the logistics operation long star on the deployment of council.
But we have seen lower rest numbers though.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
That's good as a matter of fact, that the rest
of the amount of people at the border looking to
come across the border is just almost completely dried up.
But what you're saying is is that the state was
kind of forced to do this, Not that because they
wanted to spend a bunch of money on defense attorneys
for illegal aliens, but because we were so overrun there
for a while that the counties couldn't handle this themselves.
They needed the extra help. Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, And but I just want to point out, though
you know, the border is secure, you know it's getting
more secure, but you know, the interior of the state,
we're still seeing all kinds of cartail activity within the
state of Texas, and I think that's something we're going
to have to address. There's no way around that.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Brent. Do you do you folks talk directly with ICE?
How does that relationship work? In other words, when you
feel that you've got cartel members operating in your county,
what do you do? Who do you contact? Do you
contact the state? Do you contact ICE? Who do you
talk to?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
You know? Yeah, usually our sheriff, you know, we'll contact
ICE or DHS and try to do joint operations with
the federal government. But you know, in my role as
the prosecutor, you know, there's a detainer put on them
when they're in county jail, and then once they get
out of county jail and serve their sentence, then they're
handed over to ICE and who have ICE detainers on them.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
And of course, the difference between Texas and a lot
of other states is that we are completely cooperative with ICE, right,
I mean, they know exactly when somebody's getting out so
they can be there to pick them up, unlike a
lot of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states where they don't
want to cooperate with ICE.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, they should. I mean, it's state law that we
cooperate with ICE. So if you know, some some liberal
counties in Texas may not want to, but it's against
state law to do so.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, the good news about the liberal counties here, So
they may not like to, but they generally follow state law,
unlike unlike some other states where they decide to make
it up themselves. I guess that's true.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
All right, all right, well, I'm glad to hear that.
That's that's that's just continued good news if you were
to ask for any sort of help, is there other
than you know, with help rounding up cartel members and
just trying to keep everything safe in Kenny County. If
any other area that you would look for or want,
either state or federal help, where would that be.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
It's going to be the Interior Enforcement. You know, we
have a big job on our hands. I think too
many people think that, well, Trump's elected, the border secure,
our job is done. But it's direct to opposite. You know,
now that Trump's elected, we need to help him and
through the Interior Enforcement, counties across the state of Texas
have got to step up and help the federal government

(03:31):
and their mission to security, and not only the border,
but the state and the United States and the Texas
legislature just doesn't seem like they have an appetite for
border security. Because the way I look at it is,
if we had another border crisis tomorrow, what new tools
do we have now to counter this? And right now
we have no new tools. We have nothing new that
wasn't there five years ago. And to me, that's not

(03:54):
learning from the past to be proactive in the future.
You know, there are several bills that have been filed
in the state legislature, but Austin doesn't seem to be
willing to do much to get ready for the next time,
because the fact is, unfortunately, sooner or later, we're going
to have another open border president and I don't think
Texas wants to go through what we just did, and

(04:15):
so we have to be proactive and preparing for the
future and looking.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Forward, Well said Sir Well said, thank you, Brent Smith,
Kinney County Attorney. At seven twenty seven