Duncan Hunter interview on www.endtime.com; July 9, 2007

Partial transcript. Will finish tomorrow. I have to get some sleep.

Irving Baxter: It’s an honor to have U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter from California with us today, he is also candidate for Republican Nomination for President of the United States in 2008 Presidential race. Congressman Hunter, thank you for joining us.

Duncan Hunter: My pleasure. Good to be with you.

Irving Baxter: Well there are a lot of issues I know you are facing every day of your life and candidacy. One of the hot issues is the immigration problem that we have. Let me ask you just at the outset here. Why won’t our government enforce our border? We have 12 to 20 million illegals depending on who you ask. That can’t be an accident. That they have been allowed freely to come in. Someone wants them here. What is going on?

Duncan Hunter: Well, first, I think you can absolutely hold the federal government accountable for not enforcing the borders because you have 2,000 miles of open border that’s the area between my hometown, San Diego California all the way to Brownsville Texas. I built that border fence in San Diego in the 1990s that is a double fence with a border patrol road in between. And when we did that, that was the number one smugglers corridor in America. That is where most of the illegal aliens and most of the drugs that were smuggled illegally, traveled through coming into the United States. So we put the double fence up along that number one smugglers corridor and we stopped smuggling of people and narcotics just absolutely cold. We brought down the total numbers in our area by 90%. The crime rate in the city of San Diego fell by FBI statistics by 53% after we built the border fence. I wrote the law that extends that fence 854 miles across Arizona, New Mexico and Texas That was signed by the President into law October 26. That is 7 months ago. And so far they only built 13 miles of the 854 miles of border fence. I think regardless of who was to be held accountable in the past for not having an enforceable border with Mexico Certainly we have a government mandate now. You have a law that says, you shall build a border fence. When I wrote that bill, I didn’t say it would be nice to do Or think about this when you get around to it. I said you shall build a border fence. And to date, they only built a fraction of the fence. So certainly you can hold this administration accountable for not enforcing the border and for not building the fence. They should be putting it up very quickly. And when I’m elected President of the United States, I will complete the fence in 6 months. That’s my commitment.

Irving Baxter: Let me ask you this Congressman Hunter, I heard from a pretty high place source, that the reason that the border hasn’t been enforced, is because there are people that believe that the United States must have 500 million people in order to play ball in the era of the 21st century. When you have the European Union with 500 million and you have China with 1.3 billion, they are saying we have to have 500 million people and a tax base and a military base and therefore, since Americans aren’t having children anymore, we don’t have a growth rate anymore they are actually counting on this influx of illegal immigrants to build a population base. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Duncan Hunter: Well I think that people think about that. I think that they reflect on the fact that the baby boomers are basically topping out at this point. Those of use that were born in that baby boom generation are going to be retiring in the next 5 – 15 years and you are going to have fewer working people supporting more retired people. So the idea that you have more young people coming through I’m sure has occurred to a lot of people. But I would say this, I don’t think there is enough organization in government to be able to plot and to conspire to keep the border open. I think it is a combination of ineptness and also I think a heavy cross current of politics. I think there’s lots of politics at play. I think certainly big companies like the Swift Corporation in Iowa that was raided and had some 800 people taken off their lines that were here illegally. They obviously know that cheap labor is very exploitable.

I was in Iowa yesterday, and I talked to a guy that at one time had 100s of people working for him in a concrete company. And he pointed out that guys like him, he went bankrupt incidently, that play by the rules, when they hire people, fill out all the appropriate paper work, do all of the employer contributions, and get all the insurances that are required and do everything accordingly, therefore pay a lot more for their labor. They get put out of business by the companies that hire lots of illegal folks and just pay them a flat fee in cash and don’t pay any of the overhead costs that American employers have to pay employees under the law. So I think there are lots of folks in the economic system that appreciate having lots of cheap labor and that is certainly a factor.

But the American people have spoken very clearly. The American people want that border enforced and that is the vast majority of Americans.

Irving Baxter: Well let’s back up for a moment. Let’s say you are now President of the United States. Give me your laundry list, what are the steps to do this entire thing. Because all of us are concerned about it. And we are concerned from different angles. Just give us the bold points. What are you going to do?

Duncan Hunter: Well have you seen my border fence? Have you seen a picture of it?

Irving Baxter: No I have not.

Duncan Hunter: Pull that up on my website GoHunter08.com we have pictures of it. But it is really two fences with a border patrol road in between. And very simply that’s not the scraggly little fence you see on CNN with people hoping over it. If you get over my fence, we sign you up for the Olympics immediately. So it’s a real fence and people don’t get over it. And you got a high speed border patrol road in between with a border patrol can move basically a mile a minute and that means if they get on alert that there is people crossing a mile away, that they can be there in 60 seconds. So that is the fence that we by law mandated the construction of for 854 miles across the smugglers corridors of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. So what I would do is this, you put out multiple contracts for all these sections of fence, I would make sure my Department of Homeland Security does this, hundreds of contracts and you do them all at the same time and you finish that fence in 6 months.

More tomorrow.

The next thing I would do is make sure we have border patrol big enough to man the entire border. I would try to get the border patrol up to about 25,000, maybe a little more than that. You need to have not only an impediment with it, the double fence, but you also need to have enough people to man it and you also need enough people to work internal enforcement. What employers need today, employers are given a mass of papers by the folks that come to work illegally. A lot of the forged stuff looks better than the real stuff because there is so much counterfeiting now with these documents. We have a program right now, where you can dial in online and go to the Department of Homeland Security and you give the information that is given to you by your applicants and they can tell you in a short period of time as an employer, this is a pilot program, whether it’s a go or a no go whether the guy that is applying is a legal American or he is not. Now they make some mistakes but not too many. And if it appears that he is not then there, further checking is done. But my point is, that an employer needs that, it will give him either an up sign or a down sign and he needs to have some proof that he called in and checked. So this will allow employers to check very quickly, to find out if the person that just applied for a job is here legally in the United States and to have verification of the fact that the employer checked and did what he is supposed to do. That is another thing that I would do.

Another thing that I would do is to make sure that the ports where people come in legally, have the ability to totally scan and monitor the 100s of thousands of trucks and cargo containers that come into this country every month. Because having security at those locations is very important to Homeland Security. That is more of a National Security issue. We have to know 2 things in this country, who is coming into American and what are they bringing with them. And those points should be non negotiatable.

You asked me a question the question of why we kept the southern border open so long, I think to some degree, it’s been an indifference to Mexico. I think Mexico has always complained when we put up barriers. But you know something, Mexico has put up barriers on their southern border. And we have an absolute right to have an enforceable border that says if you want to come into this country, you have to knock on the front door and putting up my border fence, having plenty of border patrolmen and having a good verification system for employment is a way to do that.

Irving Baxter: Let me check on one thing here Congressman, because I do have some concerns on employment verification. That would apply to every American, native American and immigrant. Does this mean we establish a national database and make everyone carry a national ID card and register the whole populace?

Duncan Hunter: I don’t think we have to have everyone carry a national ID card. Because it is a thing when a person checks in and gives their requisite documents to check in and to apply for employment. There are certain documents, driver’s license, social security numbers, that people show when they apply for work. Everyone shows those. Now you may have a social security number that says 812-91-6842, now you show this to them and it looks very valid. It may not be valid. There may be nobody that has that number. The numbers may be pulled out of the air. The social security department knows that. Yet the employer doesn’t know that. So the employer types that in and the social security department comes back that no one has that number. You know that the documents that the illegal alien gave you are phony. So you are able at that point to reject them. But in terms of having a card around your neck, no. When you check in and give your documents that you give to establish you are legally in the country and eligible to work, and you have to have something to show, then they are able to check with social security and say is that a phony card or a real card.

Irving Baxter: I think I’m with you on what you are attempting to do, Congressman. I think you are absolutely right on the fence I think it is doable and I really appreciate what you are doing there. Just in case you become President in a year or so, I’ve got your ear and that’s a privilege by the way, but I do have a deep concern about establishing a national database. How are we going to get everybody in that database and what if you are left out and denied a privilege of working? Doesn’t this give the government, we haven’t had this in 230 years, doesn’t this give the government…

Duncan Hunter: Actually you already have the Social Security system.

Irving Baxter: Yeah, but once we have this national database….

Duncan Hunter: You got one. You got a Social Security system. Where everyone’s number is registered. The difference is the Social Security department may know that a number is a phony number because there is no number like that. When the guy that is standing in front of you says he wants to go to work and he turns out to be an illegal alien when he gives you the phony number and the document looks good you don’t know that the documents aren’t phony. But if the Department of Social Security can say that is a phony number, there is no such number; then that is the reason not to hire him. So that is not really using a number that we don’t already have because we already got that.

Irving Baxter: Originally that was not supposed to be used for identification that was stamped not to be used for identification in the beginning. I think our forefathers understood the possible misuse of that. We do have some concerns about that and you know you are on a religious program here so we have some religious things I’m not going to go down that road today. But anyway, I just wanted to ask you a few questions about that. And throw up a reflective piece.

Duncan Hunter: Sure

Irving Baxter: Let’s say that these fences really work and become air tight and I believe that is possible. What do we do about all the people that are already here?

Duncan Hunter: I think we ask them to go home. This country has lost 619 thousand Americans on the battlefields around the world in the last 100 years making the world safe. The reason we are not sending people back to Nazi Germany because we took care of Nazi Germany and we liberated the Germans and the reason we are not sending people back to a Communist Poland is because we brought down the Berlin Wall. The reason we are not sending people back to a Marxist Dictatorship in El Salvador is because we liberated El Salvador. We have made the world much freer. And we have pumped billions of dollars into lots of countries to improve their economies. So I think the United States, more than any nation in the world, has a right to tell folks, you folks stay in your own country, make it work and when you want to come into America knock on the front door.

::goes to break…more coming::

Irving Baxter: We are interviewing today, U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter, from California, Republican candidate for President of the United States. We are very happy to have him with us. Congressman, I don’t want to just pound away on a single issue I want to give you a chance to speak to some other things that are very important to you and our nation. But before we leave the immigration issue, I just want to follow up a little bit. So we got an estimate of 12 - 20 million illegals here. I’ll be honest with you, this gives me a mixed feeling because I know some of them. I’ve met them. They are working, some have been here a long, long time. They broke the law to get here. Our government has broke the law to allow them to get here. So I think our government has some responsibility. Do you really think we can require them all to go home?

Duncan Hunter: Well, sure. I think we can. And the point is, going back to Mexico is not the end of the world. Mexico is a wonderful country. It has enormous natural resources. We have put billions of dollars into Mexico to give them an economic shot in the arm.

And you know something else, a lot of folks that come to the United States, who are here illegally, have homes in other countries. Now one reason politicians in Mexico City like the open border, is because people come across and send back billions of dollars. The last figure I saw was between 6 – 10 billion dollars a year, of money that they make in the United States to their real homes, in this case in Mexico. But other people come from lots of other countries. In fact in the year 2005 we apprehended, and these are just the folks we caught, we caught a 155 thousand people coming across the border from Mexico that weren’t just citizens of Mexico. They came from virtually every country in the world, including 1100 folks from communist China and a few folks from North Korea and Iran. So the idea that the guy that got smuggled into this country in December because he had an affective smuggler, has the right to have citizenship in the United States, I can’t accept that.

Once again, a whole lot of folks that are here have second homes or have original homes. To make them an American citizen would basically be giving them 2 citizenships. They would be having the citizenship in their original home, where they send their money and they would now have a citizenship in the United States. The problem with giving Amnesty is this, we gave Amnesty in 1986 for 3 million people. And we said that’s it. No one else can come across. The U.S. Senate put up a little stop sign and put it on the border. That stop sign was promptly run over with Goodyear Tires and you had 12 million people stampede for that border after the 1st Amnesty. If we give a second Amnesty, we will have a third wave of people rushing the border of the United States because that is human nature. You will have people coming over expecting the 3rd Amnesty. Just like people came over the 1st Amnesty saying I’ll come in now, 5, 6, 7 years from now they will have another one and I’ll be legalized. Once you abandon the rule of law you are in real trouble. There is nothing wrong with folks going home and then applying for admission back into the United States. Now if they come from a country where people are in danger of being killed if they go back and that happens sometimes. During the days of the Cold War, and before we brought down the Berlin Wall, there were some very dangerous places. There are still a few of them, where people can’t go back and they probably will be killed if they go back. And we give humanitarian exception for those folks. We have done a lot to spread freedom and economic prosperity around this world if they would take it up.

The other thing is, I think the politicians in Mexico City like the open border because it is a pressure release valve for them. If they don’t take care of their people if they don’t provide economic opportunity, and they don’t, than instead of their voters throwing them out of office they want people to vote with their feet and just leave the country. And that is what they do. They vote with their feet and leave the country and come to the United States. I think there is nothing wrong with letting that pressure build up and result in a changed political system that hopefully results in freedom for the people rather than have them vote with their feet and come to the United States and do another Amnesty.

Irving Baxter: You make wonderful points Congressman. The recent immigration bill that was defeated, I got the impression, that was, although I am not saying we should be for Amnesty I think we would have a huge problem, ….But, I don’t think it Amnesty is what killed that bill. A lot of people say it was an anti Amnesty vote and yet when Kay Bailey Hutchinson presented her amendment that people had to go home and apply and come back that amendment was defeated. It was killed that is not the reason the Senate killed this bill it was when the Balicus (?) Tester amendment came up. And that striped out of the bill, the Real ID provisions. That appears to be what killed that bill. Do you have any comments on that?

Duncan Hunter: You know, it’s hard to tell. Because when you have an amendment that comes up you may have a Senator that votes for the amendment even if he doesn’t agree with it on the basis that it will make the bill so ugly that the bill can’t pass. So it is very difficult to read the motives in the political cross currents when have a bill with a lot of amendments coming up. I think the Amnesty provisions did jam the senate switch boards and I think that’s the issue that convinced lots of Senators to take a second look at this one.

Irving Baxter: Just from Politics and Religion Listeners, we are on the air here everyday, we have huge sentiment against the Real ID Act and against registration issues. People really don’t want to go down that road. I don’t know what all the answer is; but I do definitely believe the fence is a huge answer and we are behind you all the way.

Congressman, what about the other issues, outside of immigration? What do you see are real challenges facing our country?

::have to take a break...more coming::

Duncan Hunter: Well let me tell you what I think is a real challenge that very few people are talking about that is important to me. I’ve been the Chairman of the Arms Service Committee for 4 years and that is the committee that overseas our military spending and military policies. I have seen, a few years ago, when our guys starting getting hurt with road side bombs in Iraq, and I tried to find a steal company in this country that could make high grade armor steel plates to put on the sides of our HumVees to protect against road side bombs, we only found one company left in America that could still make that. And as we went through the list of various important military equipment, I saw more and more that we are shipping in from offshore. A lot of that is because we are losing our manufacturing base in this country.

I think anyone can try to verify that if you go to a store now you try to find something that is not made in China. Try to find something with Made in U.S.A. I want to do what it takes to bring back the manufacturing base in America. There is a reason for the fact that so much of our manufactured merchandise is made offshore. Right now, American manufacturers of products that ship their products offshore get double taxed and our competitors that ship their products into the United States pay no taxes. That is part of a deal we signed after World War 2 when most of the world was bombed out and we signed a deal that was very unfair to ourselves. We did that to help lift up these other countries by their boot straps. Now they are big strong manufacturing countries. And we have a very uneven playing field. As President of the United States, I would level that playing field. I will not allow these countries that give us obstacles, tariffs and taxes at their water’s edge when our products go into them and they expect their products come into the United States without any tariffs or taxes on them. I believe in reciprocity. I believe in a two way street. That means we will treat them the way they treat us. And if they tax our products, we will tax their products. This will result in more jobs coming back to the United States.

Irving Baxter: Which certainly needs to happen. How about Globalization? Does this mean we have to rethink our membership in the World Trade Organization?

Duncan Hunter: Absolutely. There is nothing sacrosanct about the World Trade Organization. All it is, it is trade group. And we are the patsies right now. We have a trading deficit with every practically every country in the world because of this deal we signed. That said those countries can rebate their taxes to their manufacturers. Every country can do that except the United States. So we need to renegotiate that deal the same way Ronald Reagan renegotiated an arms control deal that wasn’t good for our country. As President I’ll do that and I’ll bring back high paying jobs to America. We need to do that.

::whew, the end::

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