Annotations for People: Watson-muriel

How about the immigration laws that are not being respected by Mexican nationals and others from South America? Those laws need to be respected, too. [background music]

I would like to see that border secured and I would like to see good business being transported back and forth between Mexico and the United States. I'm a member of the San Jacinto Chamber of Commerce and they're constantly saying that business is good between Mexico and the United States, but the drug smuggling and the alien smuggling distorts that good business and healthy climate. And unless we secure the border... No, I don't want it closed. I want it secure. I have no objections to legal immigration. But illegal immigration hurts everybody.

Well, that's incredible.

Well, then- [interruption]

How about the immigration laws that are not being respected by Mexican nationals and others from South America? Those laws need to be respected, too. You can't ask for respect for the laws on the one hand and ignore the other laws

We understand that, but what about the Mexican government's responsibility on this?

The host country has a responsibility.

Hey, there's no denying that.

Yes, it is, because we haven't been doing it for the last 20 years.

It's possible by the will of the people. Obviously, the Gallup Polls have said they want to put an end to illegal immigration. Those people who would like to immigrate to the United States, many of them want to come to just work. We have those facilities in hand to allow them to work legally, so that they can come back and forth. All of those mechanisms need to be brought forth by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor, and to do it legally. There is no reason why we as a nation have to cope with this kind of silent invasion and the abuse that goes on both sides of the border. Border patrol agents are abused too.

Yeah, well, the rock was the first form of execution in written history. And when you've got 15-year-old kids in a pack of 200 throwing rocks at one single Border Patrol agent, his life is in danger. I have friends who were in the helicopter that was shot down by the bandits who didn't want the helicopter flying over that international line. I have Border Patrol agents that are shot at, Border Patrol agents that are rocked. All of these kinds of abuses go on, and Congress just sort of sits back-

That's not true.

When you say that no complaints are recognized, every time there is something that goes on as far as the Border Patrol is concerned, depending on the jurisdiction, either the sheriff's investigators take over, or the FBI takes over, or the San Diego police take over.

Many of them have. Internally, they have been prosecuted.

Well, you know, prosecution follows through-

How many of many have been shot and killed by smugglers and bandits down on the border? We don't have any track of that either.

The Border Patrol is just simply a policing arm of the United States government. And like all police agencies, it's suffering the same form of criticism that every other police force in the country is facing. But it is one of the tightest, one of the firmest, one of the most obvious to the public. I mean, they work down there in a fishbowl.

Well, I think what I'm hearing from Mr. Martinez is the fact that he would like to have open borders, and I think that sort of debate has to take place on the floor of Congress. We cannot have a law and then not enforce it. We cannot expect anarchy not to be taking place at those ports of entry. I mean, it's happening in New York State, it's happening in San Francisco, happened right here in San Diego. As long as people seem to feel that they can come to this country without permission, then we're going to have constant anarchy and danger to the people involved and to the law enforcement officers who are put out there by Congress to maintain that law.

Thank you.