Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript -

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT - Transcript -

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DOBBS: There's new evidence tonight that U.S. Border Patrol agents are increasingly questioning their mission and purpose as they work each day trying to catch illegal aliens and illegal alien smugglers. An internal Border Patrol memorandum recently made public by Congressman Darrell Issa of California says Border Patrol agents working in El Cajon, California, are demoralized by the lack of prosecution of illegal alien smugglers.

The memo says of the almost 300 suspected illegal alien smugglers arrested at that Border Patrol station in the 12 months that ended September 2004, only six percent of them, six percent, were prosecuted by the federal government for smuggling illegal aliens. It directly blames the U.S. attorney's office for refusing to aggressively prosecute those human smugglers.

Congressman Darrell Issa joins me tonight from San Diego.

Congressman, good to have you here.

REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CALIFORNIA: Good to be back on, Lou.

DOBBS: Congressman, the idea that the border patrol should have to put up with this, what's the answer here? You've written to the White House, to -- tell us what officialdom in Washington is saying.

ISSA: Well, unfortunately, you know, nobody will say this is typical or it isn't typical. You know, there's only three answers to prosecuting 6 percent. One, is, it only happens at this checkpoint. I doubt it. Two is, it only happens in Carol Lam's area. That's possible. Three is that this is the reason that we can't get a handle on illegal immigration.

The border patrol cannot possibly catch all the people who want to come over the border. But they can, if they are allowed to, catch the coyotes and over time destroy the people who facilitate this activity. That dramatically drops the sophistication and the effectiveness of people coming over our border illegally.

And that's exactly what Carol Lam has refused to do for more than a year. It's the reason that I was given this information was so that I could begin to get facts that up until now I have not been able to get.

DOBBS: That's incredible that a congressman can't get information on an issue of this critical importance, particularly as it affects your constituents, indeed the whole country, but certainly your constituents. Let me tell you what the U.S. attorney for the southern district of California, Carol Lam, as you mentioned, sent us today.

This statement, quote, "Representative Issa has been misled. The document he calls a border patrol report is actually an old internal border patrol document, relating to a single substation that has been substantially altered and passed off as an official report. Many of the comments of the document to which Representative Issa refers are editorial comments inserted by an unidentified individual, and they were not approved by or ever seen by border patrol management."

What's your thought?

ISSA: Well, obviously this internal memo was seen by border patrol management. As a matter of fact, my staff has been told by people in the border patrol that they've been told to stop keeping these kind of internal records that, if you will, this 2004 figure may not be available today.

On Thursday, though, the immigration subcommittee of judiciary were holding a hearing, and one of the big questions that I'm going to have is, why wouldn't you know these percentages? Why wasn't this made available?

Lou, for the first three years I was in Congress, I argued that the secondary checkpoint, some 70 miles, several of them, north of the Mexican border were not cost effective. We paid for extensive studies, and the one thing that came up there was, oh, we don't have statistics on how effective these things are.

DOBBS: You know, it's just -- as you look at the madness, the absurdity, the inefficiency, the ineffectual nature of government, I mean, it is stunning what we are doing as a sovereign nation to control our borders in the way in which we are under staffing, under equipping the border patrol and our prosecutors aren't prosecuting.

Our federal immigration courts are overwhelmed, and we have a Senate trying to figure out whether English should be a national language or should it be a common and unifying language. This is unbelievable.

ISSA: Lou, you're absolutely right. And the one thing that I always bring up is, that the border patrol themselves, the men and women who stand at the border, if they were given the reasonable ability to do their job and if they were backed up with prosecutions, we could be doing an awful lot more with the existing resources we have.

I'm for adding new resources but don't be fooled. Six thousand national guardsmen with very conflicted capabilities of what they are going to do isn't the answer. Prosecution of these coyotes would absolutely have dramatically reduced the pressure on those men and women.

DOBBS: Well, congressman, I'm going to have to end by giving myself the last word on this one, if I may. I won't do that, I'll let you react.

ISSA: Of course.

DOBBS: I think the idea of putting 6,000 guardsmen on the border in an adjunct, rear support, possibly unarmed role on the border is nothing more than an absurd fig leaf and a political veil, which seems to be the specialty right now of Washington, rather than coming up with concrete, definitive answers and solutions. And this is one that needs it now, a solution.

ISSA: Absolutely. And 25 judges and 50 prosecutors would do -- and some more jail cells would do far more than 6,000 symbolic national guardsmen, you're absolutely right.

DOBBS: Congressman Issa, it's always good to have you with us.

ISSA: Thank you.

DOBBS: Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

ISSA: Thank you, Lou.

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