'How Would You Rate Border Security During Your Time?': Lindsey Graham Rips Biden-Era ICE Head To Her Face

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked former ICE Chief Deborah Fleischaker about border security under former President Joe Biden.

Transcript

00:00in the Senate, I think. Is it Ms. Fleishacker? Yes. Okay. Let me just ask you just a general

00:09question. How long were you the chief of staff for ICE in the Biden administration? A year.

00:15Excuse me? One year. Looking at those four years, would you say

00:19they were successful in terms of border security? Well, at ICE, I was responsible for interior

00:27enforcement. I wasn't responsible for border security. I would say that the people I know

00:32worked as hard as they could every day. I mean, the caseload, how would you rate border security

00:39during your time? I would say border security is very important. And I mean, how do you think

00:46the Biden administration did in securing our border?

00:52I think that there were a lot of people who came during the Biden administration.

00:56Like 11 million. I would say that's not very secure. Mr. B-E-L-I-Z? Yeah. Thank you, sir.

01:07Police, sir. Yeah. Yeah. How would you rate the border security initiatives of President

01:14Biden successful or not? Senator, I'm here to testify based on my 30 years of experience

01:21as a police officer and building trust and creating separate communities. I'm not an expert

01:27in providing you with an assessment of the Biden administration. Well, I mean, just generally

01:32speaking, 11 million encounters is a lot, right? It seems like a large number, Senator. Yes.

01:38Yeah. Okay. So the goal is to fix that. Mr. Arthur? Yes, Senator.

01:44How did we go from the worst border to the most secure border in like 30 seconds?

01:51It's all a matter of will. The laws were already in place at the time that President Biden took office.

01:59He could have continued the same policies that President Trump had in place when we had a very

02:04high level of border security. In fact, even before Title 42 went into effect, the border was secure

02:10based upon my three decades of experience. But the reason that the border became insecure is because

02:16those policies were reversed and the detention mandates that this Congress has put into place

02:21were ignored. So we went from 160,000 encounters a month for four years down to a very, a small amount,

02:34right? Deterrence is the touchstone of enforcement at the border. And if you take away the deterrence,

02:39people are going to come in. President Trump put the deterrence back.

02:42The only point I'm trying to make is that the people are criticizing President Trump

02:46are the ones that allow the problem to exist. You'd be the last group of people I would ask

02:53advice from about how to keep this thing going in the right direction. So I want the American people

02:59to know that President Trump in six months has gotten the border under control after four years

03:09of absolute chaos. So my, my belief is that as we move forward, we need to make sure that we do so

03:18not to go backward in securing the border. In terms of enforcement, Mr. Arthur, is it important

03:25that people get the message that if you come here illegally, you will be kicked out?

03:31Absolutely. Uh, unless, uh, there is enforcement, uh, people will be more likely to cross the border

03:38illegally. People will be more likely to remain in the United States illegally. Barbara Jordan said

03:43credibility and immigration enforcement is simple. Those who get to come in, get, uh, come in,

03:48those who should, uh, leave, leave, uh, and those who were here unlawfully should be forced to stay

03:53or forced to leave. So clearly some mistakes have been made. I definitely want to fix some people

03:58that shouldn't have been, you know, um, caught up into the system. You know, we, we need to get that

04:04right. But the consequence of backing off on interior enforcement and deportation, do you think it would

04:13send the wrong signal and undercut our efforts? Absolutely. Uh, the immigration laws are important

04:19are impossible to enforce in any stage, consular, border, interior, if they're not enforced.

04:25Let's just assume for a moment, which I do, that most of the people come here illegally are not

04:30coming to make crimes, but a lot of them do. Senator Cornyn spread a light on this. A lot of

04:35people dead because of bad immigration policy. Um, Lake and Riley, the man who killed Lake and Riley

04:43was released because of no detention space, went to Georgia and eventually killed these,

04:48this young lady. So my point is whatever we do, we don't want to go backward. We want to go forward.

04:54And if we change our enforcement policies and the way being proposed, I think we'll, um,

05:01lose our gains. And I don't want to do that. Thank you, Senator Cornyn for having this hearing.

05:07Thank you, Senator Graham, Senator Klobuchar.

05:08Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.

05:25Thank you, Senator.

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