Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Doug Collins
Interview
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And I am back with the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Congressman Doug Collins.
And, Congressman, I just want to wrap up what we were just talking about before we get into immigration.
It was just about three days before Hillary Clinton was to be interviewed before the FBI for the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mails. And her husband, Bill Clinton, met with Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in Phoenix.
You remember the day. I remember the day. And our viewers know exactly what went on there.
Do you think this is going to be part of any of these investigations, that e-mail investigation of Hillary Clinton, and why her husband met with the sitting attorney general? And, if I remember correctly, at the time, they said they decided to talk about grandkids.
COLLINS: That was the most reported grandkid conversation in history.
I think it's going to get caught up, because I think you may see some investigation in it. But I believe what the attorney general is looking at is, where did this come from? And I think there's some overlap between the players.
And I think that is one -- something that he's made very important. Field level officers didn't -- and field level out agents did not do most of the investigation. This was conducted at the senior levels at the Department of Justice.
So when you look at the Department of Justice's investigation, the Russian part, and then you also look how it came over from the midyear investigation, I think you're going to see a lot of overlap.
So there could be some questions there. We will have to see how the USA wants to do that.
BARTIROMO: Yes. I just find it so rich that here is Jim Comey criticizing Bill Barr, when, in fact, he was overseeing the FBI at the time that Hillary's husband meets with his boss, Loretta Lynch.
Let me move on to immigration, because the House Judiciary Committee this upcoming week is going to be voting on three immigration bills Wednesday, the first real action the House has taken on this issue, although you have a bill on the border crisis. Tell me about what you're going to be voting on this upcoming week.
COLLINS: Well, this week, we're going to be dealing with dreamers.
And this is -- again, the unfortunate part of what we have had, Maria, is for many of us who believe that there are bipartisan solutions, especially for immigration and for other things, the Judiciary Committee has really been on two tangents. And Chairman Nadler can't seem to get off of.
One is messaging bills that will never become law. And, if they did, they'd be very harmful, number two, not dealing with a crisis on the border. This week's dreamer bill is a very -- an expansion of amnesty for those who have came over, perceivably under those, the children who came over with no way of having any control over that by parents.
The bill has a lot of problems. We're going to be dealing with that in committee this week. But the question I have for my chairman and others in the Democratic Party is, why are we not focused on the crisis at the border that the president's been talking about for a long time, but now is averaging over the past week or so 4,500 apprehensions a day?
These are family units.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
COLLINS: And if anybody doesn't believe this is a crisis, number -- two things. One, this is bigger than the numbers when President Obama went on TV and made the plea saying, we have a crisis.
And we actually stayed that summer and gave more money. And there seemed to be bipartisan support at that point for the unaccompanied minors coming across the border.
Now, it seems like the Democrats simply want to use them as pawns. The other thing is, if you don't believe this is a problem, if you don't believe we need to fix it, which is what my bill does, is, there was a 51- year-old Honduras man the other -- just recently who had been deported once, who came over with a 6-month-old child that was not his relative, knowing that, once they got here, he would be treated differently because he had the unaccompanied minor with him.
Think about that for a second.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COLLINS: If you don't believe there's a problem, we got a problem.
BARTIROMO: Well, we're looking at pictures right now of when we did "Sunday Morning Futures" from the border in El Paso, Texas, just a couple of weeks ago.
And I'm talking to these children, one an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, who are alone. They crossed the border alone. The other woman, who was holding an infant, had been walking in hitchhiking for three months.
It's an incredible story, particularly what you see happening with children. So what did you think of the president's analysis this week, and his plan to tackle the border crisis, now 520,000 apprehensions just since October? We saw many of them while we were standing right there talking to Border Patrol.
COLLINS: The numbers are staggering.
And I'm proud of the president. I think that what the president has done is, he's taken a twofold approach. One, this week, he actually introduced and discuss legal immigration, which is something that is valuable to our economy, valuable to our nation and sovereignty as a status, is people who want to come here who can produce and be a part from all over the world, no matter where they come from, having that ability to come under our legal immigration system.
And I'm glad that he has focused on that, because that's something that, frankly, also the Democrats have ignored completely as well. But he also, again, continues the twofold purpose on the border itself.
That's where my bill comes in. That's what he has discussed in his. And that is dealing with the Flores decision, which means that we can't keep the unaccompanied minors in custody for more than 20 days. Then we also have the asylum fix in my bill, which is raising the credible fear standard.
Right now, more than 80 to 90 percent, once they cross the border and simply say, I have credible fear that if I go back to something would happen to me, they're let in. But when they actually come back, if they do come back to the immigration court, less than 10 percent are actually -- roughly around 10 percent are actually getting to stay under that standard.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COLLINS: We have got to fix that.
The last one is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which means that we cannot send an unaccompanied minor back to their home, if they're not in Mexico or Canada. This is where it's really -- these three areas, the Flores asylum and these trafficking victim, actually, is really the key crux of taking away the -- just the heinous act of letting people think that there is something better for him if they take on these trips, the young people that you saw, those children coming across.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COLLINS: Coyotes are giving two-for-one discounts if it's a child, because all they know is they have to dump them at the border, and that we have to take them, because we have a perverse incentive for folks around the world to get out of bad conditions that they're in and just simply make horrific trips here, when we need to have a legal, safe route for people to come...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COLLINS: ... but also need to control our borders.
BARTIROMO: It's a very dangerous situation. We will be watching, and I know Senator Lindsey Graham working on a similar piece of legislation as well over in the Senate.
Congressman, good to see you. Thanks so much.
COLLINS: Maria, take care. Have a good day.
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