Mark Metcalf - Former U.S. Immigration Judge Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This bipartisan bill is not about letting in. It's about
allowing people to stay in this country. Mark Metcalf, former
US immigration judge, joins US bipartisan bill. Mark it would
take certain undocumented illegals and allow them to stay. I
assume that we're talking about farm workers and in other
areas where there's a real concern that we could end

(00:22):
up with a shortage if we end up deporting everybody
who's here illegally.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well, this is nothing more than mass amnesty. Jimmy, We've
seen this before. In twenty thirteen, there was a well
comprehensive immigration reform bill improvisions in many cases in which
people were going to be allowed to remain in the
US without any idea of when they entered, and without

(00:48):
any what we would call objective measures by which to
say when they entered, how long they had been here,
and the proof that was going to be accepted by
USCIS the United States citizen Ship and Immigration Services would
have been nothing more than someone else who we don't
know anything about, verifying that the person had entered before

(01:09):
in this case, before twenty twenty one, in other words,
before Joe Biden let more than ten million aliens enter
the United States without us knowing much about them. So
this is a repeat We've seen it before. I don't
think this will make its way through Congress for the
same reasons the twenty thirteen Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill did

(01:31):
not survive. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
This one does not provide for a path that the citizenship.
It's a for a seven year period. I know what
happens after seven years they renew it again, or you
have to leave after seven years, or whatever the story
is there. But do you still think it qualifies as amnesty?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, this is an amnesty by another name. This is
nothing more than an attempt to allow people to remain
in the United States. And again, we don't know when
they entered, we don't know how they came in. They
were unvetted, and we're now saying, despite all of that,
we're going to allow these people to enter and claim
what would be called a parole status. The United States

(02:11):
is very generous to begin with one point three million
new citizens each year, one point three new million new
lawful permanent residents. We have what are called parole in
place for a leegal aliens who've been in the United
States and have a child in the United States military.
We are a very generous nation, but we've been taken
advantage of almost at every step, especially under the Bide administration.

(02:36):
So I don't trust this bill. I don't think it
does I don't think it would accomplish what these sponsors
are at. I think it's another step towards amnesty and
nothing more.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, if we can all agree that our immigration system
is broken and it needs to be fixed, is there
a plan that we can agree on that everybody can
agree on that makes sense as far as fixing them
problem that we have in this country.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yes, the answer is yes. First of law, you secure
the border, in other words, you contain the problem. Then
following that you begin to work your way through this population.
We have what are called permissions to stay. It's called
an application for a waiver of unlawful presence and it's

(03:25):
used by the hundreds of thousands every year in the
United States for aliens who fit that description. Now that's
how you start this thing off, and then you can
start reviewing these applications that many people don't want to
be reviewed. They don't want to come forward. What they
want to do, however, is stay, and when they get caught,
then they ask for the kind of relief that would

(03:48):
be contained in this legislation we've been discussing, but this
is rife with fraud. We don't know who they were
before they come forward, we don't know when they came in,
and none of this usually can be proven. So we
have to accept under most of these bills a verified
statement by someone We also don't know when they entered.

(04:09):
This is not a good piece of legislation.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
All right, sir, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Mark Metcalf,
former US immigration judge. It's five fifty six