Fox News "Sunday Morning Futures" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Andy Biggs

Interview

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Congressman, thanks for joining us.

REP. ANDY BIGGS (R-AZ): Thanks for having me, Charles.

PAYNE: All right, so, six months ago, the media laughed at President Trump. They said it was all make-believe.

And, all of a sudden, we have got these record-breaking numbers of families, unoccupied children. Everyone agrees it is a crisis.

Can we somehow maybe in Washington, D.C., get beyond the typical finger- pointing and get something resolved?

BIGGS: Well, you would think that we would, Charles.

And, you know, a lot of the folks that are claiming there's a -- basically atrocities going down on the border, they are the same folks that said there was no crisis.

But when I have been down there, and I have been to these holding facilities -- by the way, CBP doesn't have really detention facilities. They have holding facilities. And ICE has detention facilities. They are both overmatched. They're overpowered, 25,000-bed shortfall.

Think of that, Charles. And that's why you're getting so many people caught and released. And we should be able to get something done on this, but it's a constant fight. You need to get control of your border.

But you also have to make sure that the supplies are there, and we have seen that the supplies are there. It is overcrowded. It's tough circumstances. It's not -- it's not horrific.

PAYNE: Right.

BIGGS: It is not an atrocity.

But it's a tough circumstance, there's no doubt.

PAYNE: Well, what -- there have been reports of deaths, reports of the conditions? And what rises to the level of an atrocity for you?

BIGGS: Well, an atrocity would be if you're -- if we're deliberately trying to put people in harm's way.

And that's not what's happening here. This is happening because you have incentivized -- not you, but we as a nation have incentivized hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens to come to this country.

And they come up, and they know that the facilities are going to be there for -- and they are only going to be there for a short time. And then they're going to be released. They have food. They have got water. They have got shelter.

They have got air conditioning. They have got the sanitary supplies that they need. It's just not pristine as we would like it to be, as we would expect it to be if we were staying at a Holiday Inn.

They are in a detention facility, Charles.

PAYNE: Right.

BIGGS: And it is not perfect. But it is better in some respects than being out in the desert sun when it's 120 degrees coming across.

And maybe you have got a parent who has put the child in the hands of cartel, for Pete's sakes. These are the atrocities, the human trafficking, the sex traffickers that are going on.

So I think it is a mischaracterization of the context, the entire context, of what's going on.

PAYNE: Right.

I do want to ask you, along these lines, that President Trump now saying that the ICE deportations will be on. They will begin after the holiday, so presumably next week.

Let's take a listen to the president himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: I say they came in illegally, and we're bringing them out legally. These are people where we have the papers. We have gone through the court system. They'll be starting fairly soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAYNE: President Obama was known as deporter in chief. And he didn't get a lot of pushback.

Obviously, though, President Trump will get a lot of pushback. The GOP will be called the heartless party, breaking up families here at home.

How do you -- how do you -- how would you or are you going to reply to those?

BIGGS: Well, the first point to realize is that President Trump has deported less than -- or fewer than half of the numbers that President Obama deported, number one.

Number two, we have given due process to people that President Trump is talking about. We're talking literally a couple million people. These are people that have actually been in this country. We have given them due process, more due process than you get in any other country in the world.

I have lived overseas. And I will tell you that we -- these people have been able to go to court. They have had a judge rule that you are not legally in this country and you must be removed.

And that's all that -- those are the people that will be removed. And if you have a court order, this is a nation of laws, and guess what? If we're not going to enforce our court orders, then you basically have no borders, you have no boundaries, and you have no rule of law anymore.

PAYNE: Right.

BIGGS: And you just provide additional incentive for people to come in.

PAYNE: Congressman, speaking of courts, the Supreme Court sent back the administration's request to have the citizenship question answered -- placed on the census report.

The administration is still trying to figure out whether or not they want to pursue this, and the clock obviously ticking. The report has to complied -- compiled and then, of course, printed out.

Where do you come down on this? And what essentially in your mind perhaps did the Supreme Court miss?

BIGGS: Well, I think the Supreme Court missed at least two things.

Number one is the purpose of the census is an enumeration for creating congressional districts. I mean, that's article 1, Section 2. That's just as basic as it gets.

And then the second thing I think they missed is the historical context of this as well. Every administration has included some kind of nationality or country of origin question, except for the Obama administration in 2010.

But even President Obama's administration for the annual census estimates surveys that they were doing, they asked that question.

PAYNE: Right.

BIGGS: And so to say that this is somehow discriminatory or a problem is wrong, because the reason you need to know is because you cannot dilute some congressional districts in favor of others.

In other words, if you have 612,000 legal residents in one, and you only have 400,000 in another, then the 612,000 are going to get effectively less representation than you would...

PAYNE: Right, less representation and also, of course, less money. We're talking $600 billion at stake.

BIGGS: Exactly.

PAYNE: We have got a minute to go, but I have to ask you.

The Mueller testimony coming up very shortly. What do you anticipate?

BIGGS: Well, I think the Democrats have already said they are going to have him read a lot, because he's not going to answer anything new.

And I think the Republicans and what I want them to get to is the origins, which the inspector general is looking at, but we should get some of that out of Robert Mueller as well, the origins of the Russia investigation.

And the second thing -- and I think is really critical -- is when did they know that President Trump was no longer the focus of some kind of Russian conspiracy investigation? And why did they wait so very long, in fact, waited until after the midterm elections, to get to it?

And then I would say the third thing that I think is really interesting and critical is, how much money? They looked into President Trump and all of his campaign, but I would like to know how much money that Hillary Clinton and the DNC received from foreign nationals and foreign governments in that campaign.

PAYNE: I got a feeling you are not the only one who would like to know those things. Maybe we will get some answers.

BIGGS: Hope to.

PAYNE: Congressman Biggs, thank you very much.

BIGGS: Thanks, Charles.

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