Dr. Dawn Buckingham - Texas Land Commissioner Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, there's no tunnels of love at the southern border,
let's be clear about that, but there might be cartel tunnels.
Doctor down Buckingham, Texas Land Commissioner joins us, I assume
that you're going to be doing the survey, doctor Buckingham,
because you suspect that there are tunnels there. In fact,
one was found in that that long ago.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Right, you're exactly right, and good morning to you and
all of your listeners. Thanks so much for having us on.
But I tell you, at the General Land Office, we've
been at the forefront of the border security, walking hand
in hand with the Trump administration, with Texas, everyone working together.
But now that the legal migrants can't just freely walk
across the border because Biden's no longer in office, now

(00:37):
they're happening to tunnel under It reminds me of that
song going on a bear hunt. Can't go over it,
got to go under it. But that's fine. We're going
to find them and root them out. And we know
it doesn't matter where they hide, whether they try to
slither into a crack and the earth, We're going to
find them and we're going to root them out, and
we're going to do everything we can to get complete
operational control of our border.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I'm assuming that there are plenty of very rural areas
along the southern border where somebody could go on detected
for a great period of time. I'm told that the
Hudspeth County in particular seems to be a target. That's
what just a little bit south and I think east
of El Paso.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It is. And we have hundreds of thousands of acres
on the border in that region, and so we've always
done air surveillance and foot surveillance of our properties. We
keep a really close eye on them. But now with
this extra eye, knowing that the cartels are trying to
do this, we saw a tunnel pop up, and we've
seen them pop up in San Diego and El Paso,
so we know that they're thinking about it. There's some

(01:34):
new technology on the forefront to help us detect these tunnels.
I think that RFP for the federal government went out Monday,
and so we'll be working in concert, of course, with
Border Patrol, with the local officials to do everything we
can to both detect and then shut down these tunnels.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
How much how much does drone technology help with this?
I don't know, you know, how good drones are spawning
what's going on underneath the ground, But they're asked tom
up somewhere on our side of the border, just like
it has to be getting somewhere on that side of
the border. Right.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
We have drone surveillance, and then of course Border Patrol
has their big surveillance balloons. But especially when you get
to the infrared technologies where you get heat signatures, you
can tell when those people are popping up out of
the ground a little easier. All of a sudden, you
see heat signatures where there were none before. That's a
really good indicator. So our folks are on it. We're

(02:27):
of course all stepping up to the line every way
we can, and we'll continue to look for ways. I mean,
the cartels, it's a multi billion dollar business. My understanding
is they make more money off the human trafficking than
they do off the drugs. And of course we're recovering
enough drugs at our border to kill every man, woman
and child in America multiple times over. So we've got
to stop this deadly flow of drugs. But we also

(02:48):
have to stop this human trafficking. And you know, when
you're a multi billion dollar business. You're going to find
a way to try to survive. So they're going to
get continually more ingenious, and we're going to have to
match that, and we are. We're going to match them
step for step and hopefully get ahead.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Has the increased ice enforcement and deportation says that led
to a decrease do you think in human smuggling here
in Texas?

Speaker 2 (03:10):
You know, there is no doubt that, you know, the
the mass migration across the border has fallen to just
almost not even a trickle. So the huge, the huge
progress that's been made for the people just walking across
is amazing, you know, as law enforcement root out all
of these these these poor trafficked individuals. Right, it's modern

(03:34):
day slavery, truly chattel slavery. Seeing the largest expansion in
our in the entire time frame of man living on
the earth, and so we just need to do everything
we can to stop it. And you know, part of
that is cutting off the supply chain, but part of
that is cutting off the demand chain and making those
consequences worthy of the of the crimes those people are committing.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Amen. All right, doctor Buckingham, thank you for your time.
As always, Texas LAN Commission doctor Dawn Buckingham is seven
twenty six