CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript
CNN Lou Dobbs Tonight - Transcript
My next guest co-chairs the joint subcommittee hearing which wrapped up just a short time ago. Senator John Cornyn of Texas is chairman of Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, joining us tonight from Capitol Hill.
Senator, thanks for being here.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN ®, TEXAS: Thanks, Lou.
DOBBS: How shocked are you at what you heard today about the amazing gaps in our border security and the lack of enforcement on immigration-of immigration laws?
CORNYN: Well, unfortunately, Lou, like you, I-this is something I've been exposed to quite a while, and something you've been exposing your listeners to. But frankly, I don't think most of America has fully appreciated how vulnerable we really are at our borders. And how easy it is for people to come up through Mexico's Southern border say, lets say from Central America or elsewhere up across our U.S./Mexico border. And if they want to come here to do us harm, they pretty much have a free run.
DOBBS: Senator, let me ask you this, do you have a sense as to why the United States government, the Department of Homeland Security, can put out all sorts of press releases about aerial surveillance, and talk about what it's doing. And talk about what is now being referred to by Bonner, the head of enforcement as operational control of the border? How can people sleep at night with those kinds of fictions being created by their actions and their words?
CORNYN: Well, Lou, I don't know what "operational control" of the border means, but I do understand the English language. And as I understand that phrase, that's not true. We do not have operational control. I flew in a Border Patrol helicopter along the Rio Grande River between Mexico and Texas just a few weeks ago, and saw with my own eyes people coming across pretty much at will. And while many of them come across to work and don't at least represent a physical threat to the United States, obviously that pathway, that avenue toward coming to the United States is available to anyone who does want to come do us harm. And it concerns me greatly, and I know, you and your listeners as well.
DOBBS: Absolutely. And the House has passed Congressman Sensenbrenner's real I.D. bill. What's taking the Senate so long to act?
CORNYN: Well, that's going to come across on the war supplemental, which will be in April. That's the vehicle it's coming over on it's-but the fact is, I do think we need to deal with document integrity. That was one of the issues we heard testimony on today, how terrorists can get false documents and use those to give the appearance that they're here legally in the United States, and travel basically anywhere they want. So, we simply have to crack down on that. But Lou, the thing is, we can't just stop there. We've got a lot more to do before we're safe.
DOBBS: What is the most, in your view, what, senator, are the most important things that must be done and soon, if not now?
CORNYN: Well, we need to beef up on our border security. We need to use the technology that's available to us, including UAVs that have now been deployed through the Air National Guard in Texas and Arizona. But you know, Lou, we have to do the interior enforcement as well. We have to give a means for employers to document and confirm the status of people who want to come to work for them. They don't even have that capability now, because the laws don't provide for it. But I think it's absolutely critical.
DOBBS: And is it your judgment, at least, at the margin-at the beginning, that Congressman Sensenbrenner's bill will be passed by the Senate and actually become law this year?
CORNYN: I do think-yes, I think we do need to pass document integrity bill, like the Real I.D. Act. The question is, and this-I won't bog you down in this, is that whether it belongs in the war supplemental, whether that will attract a bunch of other immigration bills really before we're ready to talk about those in an intelligence fashion and thus be counterproductive. But certainly, we do need to do something about that document integrity. But here again, Lou, I hope that if that passes, that we don't pat ourself on the back and say we've fixed the problem, because clearly we have not.
DOBBS: We have not, and I think most of us are hoping, senator, that the Senate leadership does not play games again with this bill, and actually, does get, at least, this passed, which is, at least, at the margin beginning on the many issues that you've highlighted here tonight.
Senator Cornyn, we thank you for being here.
CORNYN: Thanks, Lou.
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