June 17, 2025 • 36 mins
Today on the Jimmy Barrett Show:
- Center for Immigration Studies' Art Arthur on the need for Congress to act
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
The youth panel.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Breaking down the world's nonsense about.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
How American common sense. We'll see us.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Through with the common sense of Houston. I'm just pro
common sense for Houston. From Houston. This is the Jimmy
Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind dot Com. Now
here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Hi, Welcome to the show. Today. It's our Tuesday edition.
We're counting down. Now, get ready to go to Greece
taking a group of kt r H listeners. We leave
on Thursday. Man, that's gonna be a long day. I'll
tell you what. The only the only thing about this
(00:51):
trip I'm not looking forward to is about a time
I'm gonna be sitting on the plane. I don't know
what your talance level is for flying, but my talent
levels about three four hours. So when I have to
exceed three or four hours, then I start getting kind
of antsy and I can only watch so many movies
(01:13):
and uh, you know, do that to try to occupy
my time before I started driving myself crazy. And that's
the only bad thing is I got we got a fly.
We're flying from Houston to Newark, which should be adventure
in and of itself, you know, I'm hoping that everything
in Newark is going to be okay. And then we're
(01:35):
flying Newark to Athens. So we leave like Thursday morning.
Our our crews leaving on a different airline. The people
are going along on the trip or leaving on a
different airline. We're on United, you know, because we have
miles with them and all that kind of stuff. Anyway,
we're going to be flying to Newark. I think they're
(01:55):
flying to JFK. We're going to meet up with them
in Athens. We get it in about an hour for
the rest of our crew gets in, so that's where
we're going to meet up with him. And it's like
three hours to Newark, and then we've got like forty
five minutes to an hour I think, to get to
the next plane. And then it's about a nine hour
flight to Athens from Newark. So you put nine and three.
(02:18):
Oh yeah, that's like twelve twelve hours, twelve hours of
flying in a twenty four hour period. It's not my
idea of a good time, but the payoff will be
when we get there. And I'm looking forward to meeting
our crew, our listeners who are going along on the trip.
I don't know if this could be the first of
many listener trips that we're going to do, or if
this could be one of only trips that we do.
(02:40):
But I know we're going to Greece and we're looking
forward to it, so it's good. I know we'll have
a good time once we get there. I know we'll
have a good time. I'll be sure to send back
pictures so that we can share the pictures with you.
All Right, I want to talk about, speaking of foreign countries,
I want to talk about President Trump doubling down on
(03:00):
sanctuary cities. In sanctuary states, you know, the ones that
are protesting the hardest, the loudest, and the most angry.
They're still rioting in Los Angeles. That still continues. So
President Trump's response to that is to say, Okay, in
that case, I think we're just going to We're going
(03:20):
to up the amount of deportations we're doing in Los Angeles.
We're just going to send more ice into Los Angeles
to round up more of the illegal population. By the way,
one million so far, one million illegals have self deported.
That's pretty amazing. I mean, don't you think that was
kind of the desired effect all along was to have
(03:43):
illegals go back home with their own volition. And I
think the ad that was run featuring Christy Nome was
highly effective, where she basically says in this commercial, hey listen,
if you hear illegally, go home self deport and you
can have an opportunity to come back. If you don't
(04:05):
and we have to come get you and deport you,
then you will not ever be welcomed back. I think
that's a pretty compelling message. Go back, do it the
right way, and we'll talk about it now. Some things
are going to have to happen from Marion two. The
visa system needs to work better. We are going to
need We're going to need people for other countries to
do jobs to work in this country. There are plenty
(04:29):
of jobs that Americans will do with the proper amount
of pay, but there are plenty of jobs that Americans
still are not going to do. I don't know too
many people outside of people with a criminal record, who
are willing to work in a meat packing plan, for example.
That's not the kind of job your average American is
going to want to have. And they had a raid
the other day of one and they just basically they
(04:51):
had hundreds of illegals that were working at this meat
processing plan. Dan Crenshaw, I know, I know, I know,
I'm not hiring Dan Crenshaw these days either. But I
did see him on Fox Business and he was talking
to Maria Bartaroma about the one million aliens who have
self deported and how we're seeing a positive impact already
(05:13):
on wages here in the United States.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Here he is, we need workers, right, but that's never
been a good excuse for illegal immigration. It's a good
excuse for improving our visa system and getting more visas
into places like agriculture and construction. And I know the
President made some comments on this recently that hey, he's
been listening.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
We hear you.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
We do need more visas on this regard, but that's
never been an excuse for keeping illegals here. You know,
this is, this is this should not be a two
difficult ideas to hold in your head at the same time.
You know, and you look at you look at the
numbers of deportations. I was looking at him recently, and
you look at President Bush's numbers, you know, in the million.
(06:00):
And President Obama was, of course nobody. Nobody's broken his record. Uh,
you know, Biden was a line but even in the
Trump administration, even in the first Trump administration, I think
it was around a million.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, what I understand.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
So, I mean, look, look, President Trump's got to play
catch up if anything.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Definitely, it really does.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
When you hear all of these other former presidents speak,
they sound exactly the way President Trump is speaking. I mean,
they all admitted the issue and wanted to fix it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, and it has to be fixed. And Congress has
been so bad about fixing that stuff. They just they
just need to get their act together, really and and
to get it fixed. All right, coming up, Here's here's
something we did this morning, and I want to do
a little bit more of it today. If there's one
thing we can all agree on here in Houston is
that the traffic is awful and the drivers not us.
(06:51):
Of course we're great, we're great drivers. But those other people,
those those other people who don't listen to our radio stations,
they're not very good drivers, and they won't get off
their cell phones, and they're speeding and their tailgating, and
road rage is the problem. Road rage is enough of
a problem where mayor John Whitmeyer evidently is making it
a priority for I fort five and I fifty nine.
(07:12):
They're increasing patrols. They've written something like three hundred citations
just in the last week alone of people doing reckless
driving and tailgating and all the aggressive driving habits that
lead to road rage. I don't know that that really helps,
because I don't see them keeping up that enforcement level
for any great length of time to have any real impact.
(07:35):
So I kind of challenged our morning show listeners to
come up with some ideas of ways we could diffuse
the road rage situation because we are the number one
city in the entire country when it comes to road rage.
More on that coming up next. Jimmy Farrett show. Here
an a of nine fifty KPRC. All right, but it's
(08:08):
come to the road range. There's a lot of a
lot of reasons behind road rage. And when you ask
people about road rage, generally, what we do is we
have a tendency to blame the other people. In other words, well,
he cut me off, or yo, he's driving, he's driving
(08:29):
below the speed limit in the passing lane. You know,
all the things that aggravate us about driving. But the
reality is that there's nothing really new about those things.
I mean, people have been doing that forever. This is
this is not a brand new development. This has been
going on forever. What has changed over the course of
the last ten years, in particular, is how we are
(08:50):
reacting to it. Yeah, the reaction used to be you
might get you might get angry, you might yell, you
might pound on your steering wheel, but you certainly didn't
chase after somebody who you thought cut you off, or
you know, chase up to them, start flipping them the finger,
roll down your window, yell stuff at them. Those are
(09:13):
the things that lead to road rage. By the way,
have you ever been flipped off by anybody? I've only
had that happen once here in Houston. It was it was,
it was really it was an amazing thing. It was
a female who did it. That's what was so strange.
I'm trying to I'm trying to merge onto the idea,
(09:33):
you know, the sixth End Loop, and she's trying to
get off the sixth End Loop, and she's driving really
really fast, and she's just determined she's going to get
in there any way she has to. And you know,
she was driving very aggressively and very very fast, and
I just kind of looked at her, gave her, gave
her a side look, and she's going by, I didn't
(09:55):
say anything, I didn't do anything, and she gives me
the finger, and I'm going, wow, that's That's the first
time I ever had female road rage. Women, even women
are not as patient as they used to be with
bad drivers. That is what's changed over the course of
ten years. More than the bad driving, it's how we
(10:18):
react to the bad driving. And I'm not sure why
that is. I don't know that anything that the mayor
is doing is really directed towards our reaction to something
that's done to us, because that part of it we
can control. But anyway, here's here's here's the report from
our television partner, KPRC two on the road rage statistics
(10:42):
and why Mayor Whipmeyer feels compelled to do something about it.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
We've all seen bad driving on our highways like I
forty five and US fifty nine. Houston Mayor John Whibmeyer
says it's gotten out of control and it's time for change.
We drove on forty five and fifty nine on Monday.
We spotted one drive ever running a red light, several
tailgaters and a few who cut us off.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We're going to focus more and more on traffic enforcement.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
Houston Mayor John Whitmyer says the bad driving, including road rage,
has gotten out of hands. He announced the launch of
a new traffic safety initiative targeting these two highways.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
I think that's a great idea if law enforcement are
going to actually be out there.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
Reverend Roland Mouton lost his identical twin brother, Pastor Ronald
Muton to a roadraage shooting three years ago. It happened
on the I forty five feet a road near Gold Street.
Speaker 8 (11:32):
Never know when you may be the next victim. You know,
these days you can just look at somebody at own
drive and it might cost your life.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
KPRC two looked into how many people have been shot
from road rage cases in the Greater Houston area over
the last ten years. We obtained numbers from the Gun
Violence Archive showing in twenty fourteen that number was ten.
In twenty nineteen, it was twenty nine, in twenty twenty
four it was eighty four. Houston also ranked number one
in road rage across all cities between twenty fourteen and
(12:02):
twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (12:02):
Three be intended to grow across Houston and let individuals
know that we will not tolerate road rate.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
The mayor's new initiative is part of his bigger plan
for public safety, in which he campaigned on muton hopes
Houston drivers can pack patients before getting behind the wheel,
so what happened to his brother doesn't happen to anyone else.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
I think we could ever get people to get have
more patients and be more courteous at driving.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We can stop some road rate.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
We could stop people from getting you know, hyped up
and angry at one another.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Why you're so angry? I don't know why we're so
much more angry. I just know that we are, and
I think we're Maybe we're just angrier in general about
politics and everything else. Maybe maybe it's got Maybe it's
just we have lost our collective patients. Do you think
(12:57):
that might be part of the problem, that we've lost
our collective patients. I think that might be part of
the problem. So so when I asked the listeners this
morning on ktr H, you know, to offer up some
solutions to road rage. Some some of them were focused
on things that people need to do differently to keep
from pissing you off in others Towards the end where
(13:17):
Mark Fark focused on how we personally react to somebody
who's cut us off or or done something along those
lines so that we don't get overly aggravated and do
road rage. So let's let's share a couple. We'll start
with some of the ideas on ways to eliminate some
of these drivers who are causing us to have road rage.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
This is Blake and Kay.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
All I gotta say is preach it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Sky might get those slow people out of the left lane.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Hey morning guys. Uh, people who left you a lane
on their cell phone looking at it while they're driving. Uh,
to correct that, enforce it.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
More and force the law on the on the hands
free it's it's getting out of hand.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It really, it's getting bad.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
It's pissing a lot of people off, and a lot
who are just not putting up with anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
By the way, I got.
Speaker 9 (14:06):
More Photoshop magic coming your way, Mike.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
You'll have a great day.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So about the hands free thing. Hands free is definitely
part of the solution. The problem with hands free is
that the problem is not the conversations I refuse to
believe that we cannot walk in chew gum at the
(14:34):
same time, I know that you can get engrossed in
a conversation. In fact, I saw it yesterday. I'm behind
this guy driving, an older guy driving a pickup truck,
and he's going twenty eight to thirty miles per hour
in the thirty five mile per hour zone. Now, maybe
part of that is he's an old guy and that's
(14:55):
his comfort level. He feels comfortable driving at that speed.
He doesn't, he wasn't. He's not interested in driving the
speed limit. But this is a road where it's one
lane in each direction, so him going below the speed
limit is slowing me down. And I'm trying to figure out.
I'm trying to figure out why he can't at least
go the speed limit. I mean, come on, can we
(15:15):
get the traffic moving here a little bit. Finally got
to a point where the road wide not and get up.
I could get up beside him to see him, and
he is very actively engaged in a telephone conversation. He's
holding a cell phone and he's very actively engaged in
a conversation. So I'm sure he never saw me behind him,
you know, right up on his tail, trying to encourage
him to speed up just a little bit. But I'm
(15:39):
not going to get angry about that. I mean, it's
a couple of minutes out of my day. It's all
it's all right, it's all good. But there are plenty
of other people who I see every day, and I
talk about this all the time, and I guess it's
frustrating because you know, we've made laws all around the country,
including here in Texas, about texting and driving. But the
(16:00):
fact of the matter is is the law is is
it's not enforceable. It's not enforceable. It's very rare that
a police officer is going to see you doing this.
On that rare occasion, then maybe if you're doing something
else that first of all, you're you're going to have
to be doing something that gets his intension, weaving in
(16:21):
traffic or doing something along those lines. Just driving too
slow is or is not going to get the job done.
So the chances of a police officer actually seeing what's
going on with you and you're being so distracted by
your cell phone, it's fairly rare. As a driver, we
see it all the time, and you can make it
as illegal as you want to, But if you're not
(16:42):
catching people doing it, running tickets for it, then there's
there's not a belief that it's going to be enforceable.
And if it's not going to be enforceable, then people
aren't going to worry about it. If they don't. People
don't mind when it comes to driving. People don't mind
breaking the law if they don't think they're gonna get
caught breaking the law. All right, now, it's for the solutions.
(17:02):
What do we need to do to do a better
job of channeling our anger when somebody does something to
us on the road.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
Hey, Jamie, that's Mike from Magnolia. One thing we as
great seven forty listeners can do to alleviate some of
the road rages for us to pay attention. Look in
your mirror, look behind you. If you see somebody coming
up hot you're doing eighty in a fast lane, get
over and give them the lane. You can always get
back over. Pay attention and we can be a little better.
Speaker 10 (17:29):
One thing you can do to help with road rage,
I believe is just leave ten minutes earlier then you
need to, so that you don't have so much pressure
when you run into a delay on the freeways or
the roadways and you can get to work a little
bit early. That's okay, have a good day. So this
is Terry for Richmond.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
All right, Terry, thank you. It's not feeling pressure to
get to work that makes me angry. Anyway, maybe it
makes you angry or where maybe you feel pressure. If
you're already running late, you're more likely to explode because
you've got people doing things that are keeping you from
getting to work. It's just the behavior in general, you know.
(18:10):
And I think from my own standpoint, I only speak
for myself. From my own standpoint, I see people doing
things that I think are kind of disrespectful, you know,
are kind of narcissistic or selfish. If you're sitting in
the passing lane doing the speed limit or less than
the speed limit, and you've got people up behind you
and you don't care the thre ut behind you, well,
(18:31):
I'm going to speedload. I don't care you want to
pass too bad, this is my lane. You know, that's
a narcissistic approach to think that you're doing when you
think you're the only one on the road and what
you're doing is the only thing that matters. That's a problem,
and that might be more of a societal problem and
a personality problem, and that it is anything else. All right, quick, look, right,
we are back with Born a moment Jimmy Barrett Show.
(18:53):
You're on a nine fifty KPRC. All right, we're joined
(19:14):
by Art Arthur, Center for Immigration Studies. He's warning us,
and rightfully so, by the way, that Congress needs to act.
Now we're hearing about all these deportations. We've had one
million people supposedly who have self deported. That's much appreciated.
Let's start with that, Art Arthur. That's a pretty great
thing that one million people have self deported. That means
(19:34):
that they've gone back on their own. We didn't have
to round them up, we didn't have to put them
in the detention center. That's part of the solution to
the problem, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Actually, it's important to note, Jimmy that there is a
two track program that the administration is running right now.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
One of those tracks is very high profile.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's in which Tom Home and Christy Nome and Ice
officers and agents another federal aide go out onto the
streets and round up criminal aliens. But the self deportation
part of this is as important, and arguably it's more effective.
The administration has embarked on a multimillion dollar ad campaign
(20:16):
to encourage those here unlawfully to go home and those
who haven't come in yet not to enter illegally, and
it's also offering payments to those who are here unlawfully
to go home, And together with that enhanced ice enforcement,
we're actually seeing a movement of people voluntarily out of
(20:38):
the United States who are going home without having to
be arrested, without having to be detained, and without us
having to necessarily pay for the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Cost of their removal.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Well in then return for them, they have an opportunity
to come back. And that's where I think, and we'll
get into this in a little bit, but that's where
fixing the visa program would probably come in very handy,
because there are people who are going home that honestly
probably are employed in jobs that most Americans won't do,
and we probably would like to have them as part
of the labor force, and they probably are fine citizens
(21:11):
who haven't done anything wrong while they've been here. We
just need to do the job of vetting them appropriately
before we give them a visa, and if we need
to create more visas for things like agriculture jobs. Then
we need to do that, right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, It's also important to note the fact that there
is a underutilized non immigrant program for agricultural workers, the
H two A program. It's a little bit difficult for
employers to use, and you know, there are a lot
of requirements, but it's there and it is effective. But
(21:44):
I think a lot of employers are willing to simply
look the other way when somebody gives them fogus documents
and you know, put them out, you know, working on
the ranches and the farms in America, I think that
we need to push that more. If it needs to
be fixed, let's fix it. Because what we really want
you've touched on the key point there is vetting. We
(22:04):
want to know who's in our country. We want to
make sure that they're not criminals. We want to make
sure that they're going to work hard, follow our rules,
and you know, if they end up staying, we want
to make sure that they're going to adopt our values exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
In other words, assimilation, which is a word we don't
hear often enough anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
All Right, we know you remember that under the Biden administration,
they actually banned the word assimilation. They substituted the word integration,
which put the onus on the American people to actually,
you know, change themselves so that, you know, our society
could move forward. Trump has moved back to assimilation and
it is key to future happiness for Americans and immigrants life.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
All right, Art, Let me let me ask you about
the court system too, because your background, of course, you
spend some time as an immigration judge. So let me
ask you a little bit about what we need to
do other than hire a whole bunch more immigration judges.
What do we need to do to speed up this process? Well,
how do we avoid going forward? I mean it's too
late for right now, but going forward, when we have
(23:05):
these people who are going to apply to come back
into the country, how do we go about speeding up
the process here so that we don't have people waiting
for years to get their day in court.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
That answer is simple, and it's detention. You mentioned the
fact that I was an immigration judge. I spent eight
years on the bench in it attained court and I
could generally turn my cases around in about three weeks
to a month, Pops. If an individual is arrested and
they're released and they're put into immigration court. That process
(23:38):
expands to about three and a half years to five years.
That's way too long, and it gives individuals the opportunity
to simply disappear into society. Detention is better because it
puts the burden on the United States government to pay
for the housing, the food, the medical care for those individuals,
rather than fosting those costs off on New York and
(24:00):
Philadelphia in Houston.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Okay, But in order to do that, how many more
detention facilities would we need to create? How many more
beds would we need to have above and beyond the
ones that we've already filled up.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
That's the million dollar question, or probably the nine billion
dollar question. We need about one hundred thousand daily detention beds,
and right now we have about fifty four thousand. So
the big beautiful bill that is pending before the Senate
right now provides funding for one hundred thousand beds, but unfortunately,
at the moment it's stuck in the Senate. The quicker
(24:39):
that moves through the Senate, the quicker that ICE can
start securing those beds, that it can start expanding the
detention and that it can start adjudicating paces. People who
deserve to stay will get to stay. Those who should
go home are going to have to leave.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Okay, well you said, as you said, stuck in the Senate,
and unfortunately, what we don't know is likely what's going
on in the Senate. We're also starting here stories about
things that are being weeded out of the House bill.
Not that we should be surprised by that, but you
don't know until the voting process actually occurs what's staying
in and what's gotten cut from that big beautiful bill.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So I think the immigration funding is going to remain.
Were starting to see some pushback from progressive Democrats in
both the House and the Senate who are opposed to
any additional immigration enforcement. They're taking advantage of their demagogue and
what's going on in California and various cities across the
(25:40):
United States to say that Trump is going too far.
But in reality, Jimmy, Donald Trump's not doing anything that
Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Or George W.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Bush or any of the four presidents that I served
under did. And yeah, you know, I do actually have
some perspective on that legislative process. I was a staffer
free years and move the number of bills through. It
requires compromise. It's a grueling process for outsiders, but you know,
the ideally it results in a better product.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Yeah, well, well, I guess time will tell us on
that or if we get a product at all, because
the clock is a ticking. Do you think there's any
way we get a big, beautiful bill by the fourth
of July.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I think the fourth of July is going to be
a lift. But the hard stop for Congress is.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The August recess.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
People don't appreciate the fact that Congress is a lot
like college. It generally has, you know, two semesters and
a big break in August when everybody can go home,
recharge and you know, talk to the constituent. So that's
actually going to happen. That's going to be the deadline
that I think John Thoon, the majority leader in the Senate,
(26:50):
is shooting for, and I think we're going to try
to get that back to the House so that they
can go to what's called a conference committee where any
resolve any issues are resolved, and where a final bill
could be sent to both chambers for a final vote.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, you and I talked a little bit to get
back to the detention beds for just a moment. I
think there's like forty one thousand something like that currently
that they're completely filled. But you were saying this morning
that we used to have an arrangement with like local jails,
for example, to provide some housing for detainees, and the
Biden administration, you know, put so many hoops and whistles
(27:27):
and regulations on that that most of these jails that
were doing that for us stop doing it. So that's
something that needs to be fixed and fixed pretty quickly,
wouldn't you think?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, And that's absolutely the case. There are county jails
across the United States that are happy to rent out
their access beds to immigration enforcement and their private enterprises
like GEO that run their own detention facilities that could
easily be switched over to immigration detention. But you know,
(28:00):
as we discussed this morning, and as you just mentioned,
the Biden administration puts so many restrictions on those facilities.
Many of them simply said, the money's not worth that,
we're going to go home. The key point to keep
in mind is it's about one hundred and fifty dollars
per day per bed. The longest Congress can provide that money.
Everything else is just logistics, getting those beds online, getting
(28:25):
people into those beds, getting the process moving, and getting
our immigration system back on track and restoreing credibility.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Okay, and now we're back to Congress, and they're the
ones that have They're the ones that have to get
the job done on this That's where the funding comes from.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Absolutely. And you know, to Congress's credit, even at the
end of the last Congress, they were preparing for the
big beautiful bill. We heard things come out about both
the House and the Senate. They more or less knew
how this election was going to turn out, who was
going to have control, and you know, they started making
their plans early. This process is actually a lot further
(29:03):
down the line than I think most Americans appreciate. It's moving,
not moving at the speed we like. It's certainly not
moving at the speed that Donald Trump wants, but.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
It's moving all right.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Art, Hey, thank you as always, appreciate your time, my friend, Take.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Care, Jimmy, the pleasure's mine.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
You have a great day you too. That's Art Arthur
Center for Immigration Studies back with more in a moment,
Jimmy Vert Show you're an am nine fifty KPRC. All right,
(29:43):
let's before we wrap up today's show, let's do a
update here, because Governor Abbit's been taking a little bit
of a victory tour and I and I honestly, I
can't say I blame him for taking a victory tour
over property taxes, because, let's face it, at least we
are moving in the right direction, maybe not as far
(30:04):
in the right direction as many of us would like
to go. I hate property taxes. I'm more of a
I'm more of a consumption tax kind of a guy.
I don't think that we should, you know, penalize people
for making a good income. I don't think we should
penalize people for owning a nice house. I think we
should we should just go ahead and fund things through
(30:28):
sales taxes and those types of things. And it's a
consumption tax. It gets everybody. If you're a homeowner, you
pay property taxes. If you're a render, I guess technically
you kind of do. It's reflected in your rent, but
you don't directly pay property taxes. And probably most renders
don't think of themselves as paying property taxes. We don't
(30:48):
pay a state income tax, thank god here in Texas.
So I'd rather switch it over to a consumption tax.
But anyway, the governor's taking a victory tour over the
property tax bills that got placed, just in case you
don't recall exactly what those bills are. And by the way,
basically all this does is puts it on the November ballot.
(31:09):
That part scares me just a little bit because this
is not a presidential election year, so there will be people.
There'll be a lot of people who will sit by
the sidelines. Hopefully though they'll they'll know that this bill
is something they need to get out and vote for
for property tax relief. And there will be enough people
(31:29):
conservatives who want property tax relief versus the progressive left,
which will i'm sure do some sort of a campaign
against it to try to get people to vote against you,
to vote against this constitutional amendment. But here is the
report just kind of reminding us of what this is
all about from CBS Texas.
Speaker 11 (31:48):
Stay lawmakers say they did their part and now it's
up to residents and business owners to make it final.
Voters are going to have to approve this constitutional amendment
during the election this November. Now, just a short time ago.
Governor Greg Abbott signed the three bills into law during
a ceremony at the Ropes and Ranch, a retirement community
here in Denton. The law will benefit seniors and other
(32:10):
Texas homeowners. If voters approve, the home seat exemption will
increase from one hundred thousand to one hundred and forty
thousand dollars for most homeowners, and it will take effect
this year. For seniors over sixty five and the disabled,
the homestead exemption will rise to two hundred thousand dollars.
And so here's how all this is going to translate
(32:31):
to savings on your property tax bill. The average homeowner
will save nearly an extra five hundred dollars on their
property taxes, and when you combine the savings from twenty
twenty three, which are still in effect, that will total
seventeen hundred and fifty dollars. For those sixty five and
older in the disabled, they'll get an extra nine hundred dollars,
bringing their total savings to more than twenty three hundred dollars.
(32:55):
And with an increase in exemptions for businesses on their
property taxes, the savings could be about twenty five hundred dollars.
For homeowners, the home set exemption will be reflected on
their school property tax only, which is the largest portion
of the bill. The state will use less property tax
money to fund public schools and instead rely more on
sales tax and other state revenues. For business owners, they'll
(33:19):
see their exemption increase reflected on not only their school
but their county and city property taxes as well. The
governor explained why the constitutional amendment is so important.
Speaker 12 (33:30):
We know there would be generations of other leaders leading
the state. We want to make sure that we do
more than just pass a law for the session that
could be overturned by a majority next session. We want
to make sure that we pass laws enduring that would
require two thirds votes, which mathematically would mean as it
concerns increasing attax.
Speaker 11 (33:49):
Now, the governor says he hopes to in the future
further restrict local government cities and counties from having their
property taxes go up.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, those of us who live in Harris County can
relate to that one, right. Yes, of course, we very
much would like to prevent Harris County government from figuring
out loopholes like our hurricane that is included in this
bill by the way, So that's something else we'll be
voting on November.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That should be enough.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I would hope to get a big turnout for Harris County,
at least for parts of Harris County, the more conservative
parts of Harris County where I happened to live, our
little conservative stronghold in Harris County, what's left of it.
Of course, if I were smart, I would just move
to Montgomery County and not have to deal with any
of this. But then again, who wants to sell your
house right now?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
And I will say this, my property taxes, even on
what's been done so far, my property taxes went down
quite a bit. They basically they went down. They went down.
They were about seventy eight I think at the peak
it was like seventy six hundred or seventy eighth hundred
dollars a year, and now it's down to forty nine
(35:03):
hundred dollars a year. So there's been a significant decrease.
And that figure, by the way, that I'm now paying
for my home is just a little bit less than
what I was paying in property taxes when I lived
in Virginia. And Virginia is the state that still has
the state income tax.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
So I.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Just say that from our perspective here, we would prefer
not to have a property tax. I mean, it's a
lot of things we'd like to not have. But I
will say this sometimes, if you've lived somewhere in another
state where they tax you more, then you can appreciate
where we're at here in Texas as far as at
least trending here in the right direction. All right, listen,
that's it for today. You'll have a great day. Thank
(35:46):
you for listening. I will see you tomorrow morning, bright
and early, starting at five am over on news Radio
seven forty KTRH. We are back here at four on
AM nine fifty KPRC.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Then thought the Defender and the band f
Well, what we need is more common sense.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
The youth panel.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Breaking down the world's nonsense about.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
How American common sense. We'll see us.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Through with the common sense of Houston. I'm just pro
common sense for Houston. From Houston. This is the Jimmy
Barrett Show, brought to you by viewind dot Com. Now
here's Jimmy Barrett.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Hi, Welcome to the show. Today. It's our Tuesday edition.
We're counting down. Now, get ready to go to Greece
taking a group of kt r H listeners. We leave
on Thursday. Man, that's gonna be a long day. I'll
tell you what. The only the only thing about this
(00:51):
trip I'm not looking forward to is about a time
I'm gonna be sitting on the plane. I don't know
what your talance level is for flying, but my talent
levels about three four hours. So when I have to
exceed three or four hours, then I start getting kind
of antsy and I can only watch so many movies
(01:13):
and uh, you know, do that to try to occupy
my time before I started driving myself crazy. And that's
the only bad thing is I got we got a fly.
We're flying from Houston to Newark, which should be adventure
in and of itself, you know, I'm hoping that everything
in Newark is going to be okay. And then we're
(01:35):
flying Newark to Athens. So we leave like Thursday morning.
Our our crews leaving on a different airline. The people
are going along on the trip or leaving on a
different airline. We're on United, you know, because we have
miles with them and all that kind of stuff. Anyway,
we're going to be flying to Newark. I think they're
(01:55):
flying to JFK. We're going to meet up with them
in Athens. We get it in about an hour for
the rest of our crew gets in, so that's where
we're going to meet up with him. And it's like
three hours to Newark, and then we've got like forty
five minutes to an hour I think, to get to
the next plane. And then it's about a nine hour
flight to Athens from Newark. So you put nine and three.
(02:18):
Oh yeah, that's like twelve twelve hours, twelve hours of
flying in a twenty four hour period. It's not my
idea of a good time, but the payoff will be
when we get there. And I'm looking forward to meeting
our crew, our listeners who are going along on the trip.
I don't know if this could be the first of
many listener trips that we're going to do, or if
this could be one of only trips that we do.
(02:40):
But I know we're going to Greece and we're looking
forward to it, so it's good. I know we'll have
a good time once we get there. I know we'll
have a good time. I'll be sure to send back
pictures so that we can share the pictures with you.
All Right, I want to talk about, speaking of foreign countries,
I want to talk about President Trump doubling down on
(03:00):
sanctuary cities. In sanctuary states, you know, the ones that
are protesting the hardest, the loudest, and the most angry.
They're still rioting in Los Angeles. That still continues. So
President Trump's response to that is to say, Okay, in
that case, I think we're just going to We're going
(03:20):
to up the amount of deportations we're doing in Los Angeles.
We're just going to send more ice into Los Angeles
to round up more of the illegal population. By the way,
one million so far, one million illegals have self deported.
That's pretty amazing. I mean, don't you think that was
kind of the desired effect all along was to have
(03:43):
illegals go back home with their own volition. And I
think the ad that was run featuring Christy Nome was
highly effective, where she basically says in this commercial, hey listen,
if you hear illegally, go home self deport and you
can have an opportunity to come back. If you don't
(04:05):
and we have to come get you and deport you,
then you will not ever be welcomed back. I think
that's a pretty compelling message. Go back, do it the
right way, and we'll talk about it now. Some things
are going to have to happen from Marion two. The
visa system needs to work better. We are going to
need We're going to need people for other countries to
do jobs to work in this country. There are plenty
(04:29):
of jobs that Americans will do with the proper amount
of pay, but there are plenty of jobs that Americans
still are not going to do. I don't know too
many people outside of people with a criminal record, who
are willing to work in a meat packing plan, for example.
That's not the kind of job your average American is
going to want to have. And they had a raid
the other day of one and they just basically they
(04:51):
had hundreds of illegals that were working at this meat
processing plan. Dan Crenshaw, I know, I know, I know,
I'm not hiring Dan Crenshaw these days either. But I
did see him on Fox Business and he was talking
to Maria Bartaroma about the one million aliens who have
self deported and how we're seeing a positive impact already
(05:13):
on wages here in the United States.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
Here he is, we need workers, right, but that's never
been a good excuse for illegal immigration. It's a good
excuse for improving our visa system and getting more visas
into places like agriculture and construction. And I know the
President made some comments on this recently that hey, he's
been listening.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
We hear you.
Speaker 5 (05:36):
We do need more visas on this regard, but that's
never been an excuse for keeping illegals here. You know,
this is, this is this should not be a two
difficult ideas to hold in your head at the same time.
You know, and you look at you look at the
numbers of deportations. I was looking at him recently, and
you look at President Bush's numbers, you know, in the million.
(06:00):
And President Obama was, of course nobody. Nobody's broken his record. Uh,
you know, Biden was a line but even in the
Trump administration, even in the first Trump administration, I think
it was around a million.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, what I understand.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
So, I mean, look, look, President Trump's got to play
catch up if anything.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Definitely, it really does.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
When you hear all of these other former presidents speak,
they sound exactly the way President Trump is speaking. I mean,
they all admitted the issue and wanted to fix it.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, and it has to be fixed. And Congress has
been so bad about fixing that stuff. They just they
just need to get their act together, really and and
to get it fixed. All right, coming up, Here's here's
something we did this morning, and I want to do
a little bit more of it today. If there's one
thing we can all agree on here in Houston is
that the traffic is awful and the drivers not us.
(06:51):
Of course we're great, we're great drivers. But those other people,
those those other people who don't listen to our radio stations,
they're not very good drivers, and they won't get off
their cell phones, and they're speeding and their tailgating, and
road rage is the problem. Road rage is enough of
a problem where mayor John Whitmeyer evidently is making it
a priority for I fort five and I fifty nine.
(07:12):
They're increasing patrols. They've written something like three hundred citations
just in the last week alone of people doing reckless
driving and tailgating and all the aggressive driving habits that
lead to road rage. I don't know that that really helps,
because I don't see them keeping up that enforcement level
for any great length of time to have any real impact.
(07:35):
So I kind of challenged our morning show listeners to
come up with some ideas of ways we could diffuse
the road rage situation because we are the number one
city in the entire country when it comes to road rage.
More on that coming up next. Jimmy Farrett show. Here
an a of nine fifty KPRC. All right, but it's
(08:08):
come to the road range. There's a lot of a
lot of reasons behind road rage. And when you ask
people about road rage, generally, what we do is we
have a tendency to blame the other people. In other words, well,
he cut me off, or yo, he's driving, he's driving
(08:29):
below the speed limit in the passing lane. You know,
all the things that aggravate us about driving. But the
reality is that there's nothing really new about those things.
I mean, people have been doing that forever. This is
this is not a brand new development. This has been
going on forever. What has changed over the course of
the last ten years, in particular, is how we are
(08:50):
reacting to it. Yeah, the reaction used to be you
might get you might get angry, you might yell, you
might pound on your steering wheel, but you certainly didn't
chase after somebody who you thought cut you off, or
you know, chase up to them, start flipping them the finger,
roll down your window, yell stuff at them. Those are
(09:13):
the things that lead to road rage. By the way,
have you ever been flipped off by anybody? I've only
had that happen once here in Houston. It was it was,
it was really it was an amazing thing. It was
a female who did it. That's what was so strange.
I'm trying to I'm trying to merge onto the idea,
(09:33):
you know, the sixth End Loop, and she's trying to
get off the sixth End Loop, and she's driving really
really fast, and she's just determined she's going to get
in there any way she has to. And you know,
she was driving very aggressively and very very fast, and
I just kind of looked at her, gave her, gave
her a side look, and she's going by, I didn't
(09:55):
say anything, I didn't do anything, and she gives me
the finger, and I'm going, wow, that's That's the first
time I ever had female road rage. Women, even women
are not as patient as they used to be with
bad drivers. That is what's changed over the course of
ten years. More than the bad driving, it's how we
(10:18):
react to the bad driving. And I'm not sure why
that is. I don't know that anything that the mayor
is doing is really directed towards our reaction to something
that's done to us, because that part of it we
can control. But anyway, here's here's here's the report from
our television partner, KPRC two on the road rage statistics
(10:42):
and why Mayor Whipmeyer feels compelled to do something about it.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
We've all seen bad driving on our highways like I
forty five and US fifty nine. Houston Mayor John Whibmeyer
says it's gotten out of control and it's time for change.
We drove on forty five and fifty nine on Monday.
We spotted one drive ever running a red light, several
tailgaters and a few who cut us off.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
We're going to focus more and more on traffic enforcement.
Speaker 7 (11:07):
Houston Mayor John Whitmyer says the bad driving, including road rage,
has gotten out of hands. He announced the launch of
a new traffic safety initiative targeting these two highways.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
I think that's a great idea if law enforcement are
going to actually be out there.
Speaker 7 (11:23):
Reverend Roland Mouton lost his identical twin brother, Pastor Ronald
Muton to a roadraage shooting three years ago. It happened
on the I forty five feet a road near Gold Street.
Speaker 8 (11:32):
Never know when you may be the next victim. You know,
these days you can just look at somebody at own
drive and it might cost your life.
Speaker 7 (11:40):
KPRC two looked into how many people have been shot
from road rage cases in the Greater Houston area over
the last ten years. We obtained numbers from the Gun
Violence Archive showing in twenty fourteen that number was ten.
In twenty nineteen, it was twenty nine, in twenty twenty
four it was eighty four. Houston also ranked number one
in road rage across all cities between twenty fourteen and
(12:02):
twenty twenty.
Speaker 8 (12:02):
Three be intended to grow across Houston and let individuals
know that we will not tolerate road rate.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
The mayor's new initiative is part of his bigger plan
for public safety, in which he campaigned on muton hopes
Houston drivers can pack patients before getting behind the wheel,
so what happened to his brother doesn't happen to anyone else.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
I think we could ever get people to get have
more patients and be more courteous at driving.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We can stop some road rate.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
We could stop people from getting you know, hyped up
and angry at one another.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Why you're so angry? I don't know why we're so
much more angry. I just know that we are, and
I think we're Maybe we're just angrier in general about
politics and everything else. Maybe maybe it's got Maybe it's
just we have lost our collective patients. Do you think
(12:57):
that might be part of the problem, that we've lost
our collective patients. I think that might be part of
the problem. So so when I asked the listeners this
morning on ktr H, you know, to offer up some
solutions to road rage. Some some of them were focused
on things that people need to do differently to keep
from pissing you off in others Towards the end where
(13:17):
Mark Fark focused on how we personally react to somebody
who's cut us off or or done something along those
lines so that we don't get overly aggravated and do
road rage. So let's let's share a couple. We'll start
with some of the ideas on ways to eliminate some
of these drivers who are causing us to have road rage.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
This is Blake and Kay.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
All I gotta say is preach it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Sky might get those slow people out of the left lane.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Hey morning guys. Uh, people who left you a lane
on their cell phone looking at it while they're driving. Uh,
to correct that, enforce it.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
More and force the law on the on the hands
free it's it's getting out of hand.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It really, it's getting bad.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
It's pissing a lot of people off, and a lot
who are just not putting up with anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
By the way, I got.
Speaker 9 (14:06):
More Photoshop magic coming your way, Mike.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
You'll have a great day.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
So about the hands free thing. Hands free is definitely
part of the solution. The problem with hands free is
that the problem is not the conversations I refuse to
believe that we cannot walk in chew gum at the
(14:34):
same time, I know that you can get engrossed in
a conversation. In fact, I saw it yesterday. I'm behind
this guy driving, an older guy driving a pickup truck,
and he's going twenty eight to thirty miles per hour
in the thirty five mile per hour zone. Now, maybe
part of that is he's an old guy and that's
(14:55):
his comfort level. He feels comfortable driving at that speed.
He doesn't, he wasn't. He's not interested in driving the
speed limit. But this is a road where it's one
lane in each direction, so him going below the speed
limit is slowing me down. And I'm trying to figure out.
I'm trying to figure out why he can't at least
go the speed limit. I mean, come on, can we
(15:15):
get the traffic moving here a little bit. Finally got
to a point where the road wide not and get up.
I could get up beside him to see him, and
he is very actively engaged in a telephone conversation. He's
holding a cell phone and he's very actively engaged in
a conversation. So I'm sure he never saw me behind him,
you know, right up on his tail, trying to encourage
him to speed up just a little bit. But I'm
(15:39):
not going to get angry about that. I mean, it's
a couple of minutes out of my day. It's all
it's all right, it's all good. But there are plenty
of other people who I see every day, and I
talk about this all the time, and I guess it's
frustrating because you know, we've made laws all around the country,
including here in Texas, about texting and driving. But the
(16:00):
fact of the matter is is the law is is
it's not enforceable. It's not enforceable. It's very rare that
a police officer is going to see you doing this.
On that rare occasion, then maybe if you're doing something
else that first of all, you're you're going to have
to be doing something that gets his intension, weaving in
(16:21):
traffic or doing something along those lines. Just driving too
slow is or is not going to get the job done.
So the chances of a police officer actually seeing what's
going on with you and you're being so distracted by
your cell phone, it's fairly rare. As a driver, we
see it all the time, and you can make it
as illegal as you want to, But if you're not
(16:42):
catching people doing it, running tickets for it, then there's
there's not a belief that it's going to be enforceable.
And if it's not going to be enforceable, then people
aren't going to worry about it. If they don't. People
don't mind when it comes to driving. People don't mind
breaking the law if they don't think they're gonna get
caught breaking the law. All right, now, it's for the solutions.
(17:02):
What do we need to do to do a better
job of channeling our anger when somebody does something to
us on the road.
Speaker 9 (17:08):
Hey, Jamie, that's Mike from Magnolia. One thing we as
great seven forty listeners can do to alleviate some of
the road rages for us to pay attention. Look in
your mirror, look behind you. If you see somebody coming
up hot you're doing eighty in a fast lane, get
over and give them the lane. You can always get
back over. Pay attention and we can be a little better.
Speaker 10 (17:29):
One thing you can do to help with road rage,
I believe is just leave ten minutes earlier then you
need to, so that you don't have so much pressure
when you run into a delay on the freeways or
the roadways and you can get to work a little
bit early. That's okay, have a good day. So this
is Terry for Richmond.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
All right, Terry, thank you. It's not feeling pressure to
get to work that makes me angry. Anyway, maybe it
makes you angry or where maybe you feel pressure. If
you're already running late, you're more likely to explode because
you've got people doing things that are keeping you from
getting to work. It's just the behavior in general, you know.
(18:10):
And I think from my own standpoint, I only speak
for myself. From my own standpoint, I see people doing
things that I think are kind of disrespectful, you know,
are kind of narcissistic or selfish. If you're sitting in
the passing lane doing the speed limit or less than
the speed limit, and you've got people up behind you
and you don't care the thre ut behind you, well,
(18:31):
I'm going to speedload. I don't care you want to
pass too bad, this is my lane. You know, that's
a narcissistic approach to think that you're doing when you
think you're the only one on the road and what
you're doing is the only thing that matters. That's a problem,
and that might be more of a societal problem and
a personality problem, and that it is anything else. All right, quick, look, right,
we are back with Born a moment Jimmy Barrett Show.
(18:53):
You're on a nine fifty KPRC. All right, we're joined
(19:14):
by Art Arthur, Center for Immigration Studies. He's warning us,
and rightfully so, by the way, that Congress needs to act.
Now we're hearing about all these deportations. We've had one
million people supposedly who have self deported. That's much appreciated.
Let's start with that, Art Arthur. That's a pretty great
thing that one million people have self deported. That means
(19:34):
that they've gone back on their own. We didn't have
to round them up, we didn't have to put them
in the detention center. That's part of the solution to
the problem, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Actually, it's important to note, Jimmy that there is a
two track program that the administration is running right now.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
One of those tracks is very high profile.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's in which Tom Home and Christy Nome and Ice
officers and agents another federal aide go out onto the
streets and round up criminal aliens. But the self deportation
part of this is as important, and arguably it's more effective.
The administration has embarked on a multimillion dollar ad campaign
(20:16):
to encourage those here unlawfully to go home and those
who haven't come in yet not to enter illegally, and
it's also offering payments to those who are here unlawfully
to go home, And together with that enhanced ice enforcement,
we're actually seeing a movement of people voluntarily out of
(20:38):
the United States who are going home without having to
be arrested, without having to be detained, and without us
having to necessarily pay for the.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Cost of their removal.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Well in then return for them, they have an opportunity
to come back. And that's where I think, and we'll
get into this in a little bit, but that's where
fixing the visa program would probably come in very handy,
because there are people who are going home that honestly
probably are employed in jobs that most Americans won't do,
and we probably would like to have them as part
of the labor force, and they probably are fine citizens
(21:11):
who haven't done anything wrong while they've been here. We
just need to do the job of vetting them appropriately
before we give them a visa, and if we need
to create more visas for things like agriculture jobs. Then
we need to do that, right.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, It's also important to note the fact that there
is a underutilized non immigrant program for agricultural workers, the
H two A program. It's a little bit difficult for
employers to use, and you know, there are a lot
of requirements, but it's there and it is effective. But
(21:44):
I think a lot of employers are willing to simply
look the other way when somebody gives them fogus documents
and you know, put them out, you know, working on
the ranches and the farms in America, I think that
we need to push that more. If it needs to
be fixed, let's fix it. Because what we really want
you've touched on the key point there is vetting. We
(22:04):
want to know who's in our country. We want to
make sure that they're not criminals. We want to make
sure that they're going to work hard, follow our rules,
and you know, if they end up staying, we want
to make sure that they're going to adopt our values exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
In other words, assimilation, which is a word we don't
hear often enough anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
All Right, we know you remember that under the Biden administration,
they actually banned the word assimilation. They substituted the word integration,
which put the onus on the American people to actually,
you know, change themselves so that, you know, our society
could move forward. Trump has moved back to assimilation and
it is key to future happiness for Americans and immigrants life.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
All right, Art, Let me let me ask you about
the court system too, because your background, of course, you
spend some time as an immigration judge. So let me
ask you a little bit about what we need to
do other than hire a whole bunch more immigration judges.
What do we need to do to speed up this process? Well,
how do we avoid going forward? I mean it's too
late for right now, but going forward, when we have
(23:05):
these people who are going to apply to come back
into the country, how do we go about speeding up
the process here so that we don't have people waiting
for years to get their day in court.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
That answer is simple, and it's detention. You mentioned the
fact that I was an immigration judge. I spent eight
years on the bench in it attained court and I
could generally turn my cases around in about three weeks
to a month, Pops. If an individual is arrested and
they're released and they're put into immigration court. That process
(23:38):
expands to about three and a half years to five years.
That's way too long, and it gives individuals the opportunity
to simply disappear into society. Detention is better because it
puts the burden on the United States government to pay
for the housing, the food, the medical care for those individuals,
rather than fosting those costs off on New York and
(24:00):
Philadelphia in Houston.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Okay, But in order to do that, how many more
detention facilities would we need to create? How many more
beds would we need to have above and beyond the
ones that we've already filled up.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
That's the million dollar question, or probably the nine billion
dollar question. We need about one hundred thousand daily detention beds,
and right now we have about fifty four thousand. So
the big beautiful bill that is pending before the Senate
right now provides funding for one hundred thousand beds, but unfortunately,
at the moment it's stuck in the Senate. The quicker
(24:39):
that moves through the Senate, the quicker that ICE can
start securing those beds, that it can start expanding the
detention and that it can start adjudicating paces. People who
deserve to stay will get to stay. Those who should
go home are going to have to leave.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Okay, well you said, as you said, stuck in the Senate,
and unfortunately, what we don't know is likely what's going
on in the Senate. We're also starting here stories about
things that are being weeded out of the House bill.
Not that we should be surprised by that, but you
don't know until the voting process actually occurs what's staying
in and what's gotten cut from that big beautiful bill.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
So I think the immigration funding is going to remain.
Were starting to see some pushback from progressive Democrats in
both the House and the Senate who are opposed to
any additional immigration enforcement. They're taking advantage of their demagogue and
what's going on in California and various cities across the
(25:40):
United States to say that Trump is going too far.
But in reality, Jimmy, Donald Trump's not doing anything that
Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Or George W.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Bush or any of the four presidents that I served
under did. And yeah, you know, I do actually have
some perspective on that legislative process. I was a staffer
free years and move the number of bills through. It
requires compromise. It's a grueling process for outsiders, but you know,
the ideally it results in a better product.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Yeah, well, well, I guess time will tell us on
that or if we get a product at all, because
the clock is a ticking. Do you think there's any
way we get a big, beautiful bill by the fourth
of July.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I think the fourth of July is going to be
a lift. But the hard stop for Congress is.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
The August recess.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
People don't appreciate the fact that Congress is a lot
like college. It generally has, you know, two semesters and
a big break in August when everybody can go home,
recharge and you know, talk to the constituent. So that's
actually going to happen. That's going to be the deadline
that I think John Thoon, the majority leader in the Senate,
(26:50):
is shooting for, and I think we're going to try
to get that back to the House so that they
can go to what's called a conference committee where any
resolve any issues are resolved, and where a final bill
could be sent to both chambers for a final vote.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
Yeah, you and I talked a little bit to get
back to the detention beds for just a moment. I
think there's like forty one thousand something like that currently
that they're completely filled. But you were saying this morning
that we used to have an arrangement with like local jails,
for example, to provide some housing for detainees, and the
Biden administration, you know, put so many hoops and whistles
(27:27):
and regulations on that that most of these jails that
were doing that for us stop doing it. So that's
something that needs to be fixed and fixed pretty quickly,
wouldn't you think?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, And that's absolutely the case. There are county jails
across the United States that are happy to rent out
their access beds to immigration enforcement and their private enterprises
like GEO that run their own detention facilities that could
easily be switched over to immigration detention. But you know,
(28:00):
as we discussed this morning, and as you just mentioned,
the Biden administration puts so many restrictions on those facilities.
Many of them simply said, the money's not worth that,
we're going to go home. The key point to keep
in mind is it's about one hundred and fifty dollars
per day per bed. The longest Congress can provide that money.
Everything else is just logistics, getting those beds online, getting
(28:25):
people into those beds, getting the process moving, and getting
our immigration system back on track and restoreing credibility.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
Okay, and now we're back to Congress, and they're the
ones that have They're the ones that have to get
the job done on this That's where the funding comes from.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Absolutely. And you know, to Congress's credit, even at the
end of the last Congress, they were preparing for the
big beautiful bill. We heard things come out about both
the House and the Senate. They more or less knew
how this election was going to turn out, who was
going to have control, and you know, they started making
their plans early. This process is actually a lot further
(29:03):
down the line than I think most Americans appreciate. It's moving,
not moving at the speed we like. It's certainly not
moving at the speed that Donald Trump wants, but.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
It's moving all right.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Art, Hey, thank you as always, appreciate your time, my friend, Take.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Care, Jimmy, the pleasure's mine.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
You have a great day you too. That's Art Arthur
Center for Immigration Studies back with more in a moment,
Jimmy Vert Show you're an am nine fifty KPRC. All right,
(29:43):
let's before we wrap up today's show, let's do a
update here, because Governor Abbit's been taking a little bit
of a victory tour and I and I honestly, I
can't say I blame him for taking a victory tour
over property taxes, because, let's face it, at least we
are moving in the right direction, maybe not as far
(30:04):
in the right direction as many of us would like
to go. I hate property taxes. I'm more of a
I'm more of a consumption tax kind of a guy.
I don't think that we should, you know, penalize people
for making a good income. I don't think we should
penalize people for owning a nice house. I think we
should we should just go ahead and fund things through
(30:28):
sales taxes and those types of things. And it's a
consumption tax. It gets everybody. If you're a homeowner, you
pay property taxes. If you're a render, I guess technically
you kind of do. It's reflected in your rent, but
you don't directly pay property taxes. And probably most renders
don't think of themselves as paying property taxes. We don't
(30:48):
pay a state income tax, thank god here in Texas.
So I'd rather switch it over to a consumption tax.
But anyway, the governor's taking a victory tour over the
property tax bills that got placed, just in case you
don't recall exactly what those bills are. And by the way,
basically all this does is puts it on the November ballot.
(31:09):
That part scares me just a little bit because this
is not a presidential election year, so there will be people.
There'll be a lot of people who will sit by
the sidelines. Hopefully though they'll they'll know that this bill
is something they need to get out and vote for
for property tax relief. And there will be enough people
(31:29):
conservatives who want property tax relief versus the progressive left,
which will i'm sure do some sort of a campaign
against it to try to get people to vote against you,
to vote against this constitutional amendment. But here is the
report just kind of reminding us of what this is
all about from CBS Texas.
Speaker 11 (31:48):
Stay lawmakers say they did their part and now it's
up to residents and business owners to make it final.
Voters are going to have to approve this constitutional amendment
during the election this November. Now, just a short time ago.
Governor Greg Abbott signed the three bills into law during
a ceremony at the Ropes and Ranch, a retirement community
here in Denton. The law will benefit seniors and other
(32:10):
Texas homeowners. If voters approve, the home seat exemption will
increase from one hundred thousand to one hundred and forty
thousand dollars for most homeowners, and it will take effect
this year. For seniors over sixty five and the disabled,
the homestead exemption will rise to two hundred thousand dollars.
And so here's how all this is going to translate
(32:31):
to savings on your property tax bill. The average homeowner
will save nearly an extra five hundred dollars on their
property taxes, and when you combine the savings from twenty
twenty three, which are still in effect, that will total
seventeen hundred and fifty dollars. For those sixty five and
older in the disabled, they'll get an extra nine hundred dollars,
bringing their total savings to more than twenty three hundred dollars.
(32:55):
And with an increase in exemptions for businesses on their
property taxes, the savings could be about twenty five hundred dollars.
For homeowners, the home set exemption will be reflected on
their school property tax only, which is the largest portion
of the bill. The state will use less property tax
money to fund public schools and instead rely more on
sales tax and other state revenues. For business owners, they'll
(33:19):
see their exemption increase reflected on not only their school
but their county and city property taxes as well. The
governor explained why the constitutional amendment is so important.
Speaker 12 (33:30):
We know there would be generations of other leaders leading
the state. We want to make sure that we do
more than just pass a law for the session that
could be overturned by a majority next session. We want
to make sure that we pass laws enduring that would
require two thirds votes, which mathematically would mean as it
concerns increasing attax.
Speaker 11 (33:49):
Now, the governor says he hopes to in the future
further restrict local government cities and counties from having their
property taxes go up.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Yeah, those of us who live in Harris County can
relate to that one, right. Yes, of course, we very
much would like to prevent Harris County government from figuring
out loopholes like our hurricane that is included in this
bill by the way, So that's something else we'll be
voting on November.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That should be enough.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I would hope to get a big turnout for Harris County,
at least for parts of Harris County, the more conservative
parts of Harris County where I happened to live, our
little conservative stronghold in Harris County, what's left of it.
Of course, if I were smart, I would just move
to Montgomery County and not have to deal with any
of this. But then again, who wants to sell your
house right now?
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:41):
And I will say this, my property taxes, even on
what's been done so far, my property taxes went down
quite a bit. They basically they went down. They went down.
They were about seventy eight I think at the peak
it was like seventy six hundred or seventy eighth hundred
dollars a year, and now it's down to forty nine
(35:03):
hundred dollars a year. So there's been a significant decrease.
And that figure, by the way, that I'm now paying
for my home is just a little bit less than
what I was paying in property taxes when I lived
in Virginia. And Virginia is the state that still has
the state income tax.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
So I.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
Just say that from our perspective here, we would prefer
not to have a property tax. I mean, it's a
lot of things we'd like to not have. But I
will say this sometimes, if you've lived somewhere in another
state where they tax you more, then you can appreciate
where we're at here in Texas as far as at
least trending here in the right direction. All right, listen,
that's it for today. You'll have a great day. Thank
(35:46):
you for listening. I will see you tomorrow morning, bright
and early, starting at five am over on news Radio
seven forty KTRH. We are back here at four on
AM nine fifty KPRC.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Then thought the Defender and the band f
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