This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” October 20, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Welcome back to a special tenth anniversary edition of “Hannity & Colmes”, live tonight from the Arizona State Fair in Phoenix.
Border security and illegal immigration are crucial issues in this border state, as well as the debate over if and how new arrivals should assimilate into American society.
This is what Teddy Roosevelt had to say on the subject almost 100 years ago: “In the first place, we should insist that, if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birth place, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming, in every facet, an American and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all… And we have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room but for run language here, and that is the English language. And we have room but for one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
And joining us now the chief of the United States Border Patrol, David Aguilar. David Aguilar.
HANNITY: Thank you for coming.
COLMES: How are you?
DAVID AGUILAR, U.S. BORDER PATROL: How are you doing?
COLMES: Chief, how are you doing? Thanks for being here.
AGUILAR: Thanks for having me.
COLMES: Tell me what’s changed on the border. Things are a little different now. What’s going on?
AGUILAR: A lot of differences. One of the things that’s changed dramatically is the increase in enforcement assets we’ve deployed over to the border. For example, Operation Jump Start began in June of this past year. Almost overnight we added over 330 miles expansion to our border enforcement assets. We have added over 1,000 agents. We’ve added over 1,000 agents. We’ve ended “catch and release.” We have implemented expedited removal to remove people at a much quicker pace from this country.
COLMES: One of the things that I’ve read about as security is increasing, the crackdowns have gotten tougher. There’s been a spike in violence against those who are policing the borders. Is that one of the problems you’re facing, as well?
AGUILAR: That is one of the problems, Alan. Unfortunately, one of the dynamics of our job is that when we continue to gain control of the border, one of the things that we see is that there’s a reluctance on the part of the criminal elements to give up that part of the border that they think they own. So the violence against our officers 778 assaults against our officers.
COLMES: Can you ever fully protect a 2,000-mile border? I mean, we’re a free and open country. At least that’s who we are. That’s how we portray ourself. Can there — no matter how many people you put there they go under, they go over, they go through. They find areas, pockets that are not being guarded. Is there any way to really button up the country?
AGUILAR: Absolutely. That’s a good way to do it, and that’s by getting the proper mix of technology, personnel and infrastructure. And that is being done. At no point in the history of the United States Border Patrol, in my case 29 years, that we have seen the level of resourcing that we’re getting today. Now we need more, a lot more.
COLMES: Why is taking this long and you still don’t have everything you need? Why are we in the shape we’re in now?
AGUILAR: Well, that’s a good question. And I think we have to admit as a country that for a long time the borders of this country were ignored, and they are no longer being ignored. They shouldn’t be ignored. We are under threat from an enemy that is relentless. Therefore, we have to be relentless.
COLMES: But if they put borders — let’s say they beef up things in San Diego, beef up things in El Paso and Phoenix, don’t they find spots, places in between where they can go? And no matter where you go they’re going to find a hole and that’s what’s traditionally happened.
AGUILAR: That’s what’s traditionally happened. One of the things that we’re working on, very fast on right now, is that the lay-down of resources has to be strategic, has to be implemental. And we have to be relentless. That is what we’re involved in right now.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Chief, welcome back to the program. Good to see you. Thank you for being with us. You know, I had the great honor of being out with your agents on five separate occasions.
AGUILAR: And we appreciate you being there.
HANNITY: And I’ve got to tell you something. One message — one thing I learned and one thing I tried to tell people, when given the technology, the money, the manpower, the resources and you select an area of the border that you want to stop all illegal immigration, you are capable of doing it.
This is really just a matter of will right now. Because you guys can do the job if we give you the manpower, the technology assistance, right?
AGUILAR: Absolutely. The men and women of the Border Patrol have done it. We’re continuing to do it, and we will continue to do it as the resources keep coming.
HANNITY: As we look at the new border bill that’s passed, and the president is going to use predator drones and new technologies, [the government will] ease the manpower fairly significantly, is that enough or is it just a first step?
AGUILAR: I think it’s a very rapid increase in the resourcing that we need. It is a good, solid, first step.
What we need to be, again, is relentless. We need to be continual in our effort and we cannot give up on securing our nation’s borders.
HANNITY: One of the biggest problems we have in this whole issue of immigration has to do with Mexico itself on this very program I have interviewed and debated with Vicente Fox, and he would not even acknowledge there is an illegal immigrant problem.
That really bothers me, because Mexico has been giving maps, water, assistance to people as they enter this country illegally, instead of assisting us in preventing that from happening. They have not been good partners, have they?
AGUILAR: Well, they’re much better today than what they used to be. But they still have to do much more in order to assist both countries on bringing security to that border.
HANNITY: I think what the American people most fear, and I think the biggest susceptibility, vulnerability we have to terrorism is the fact that if somebody crosses our border because they want a job, that’s one thing. I understand they want what we have every day. We just want them to do it legally.
I think the biggest concern is terrorists, those that want another 9/11 attack. And we’re getting some information that, in fact, they know our vulnerabilities and weaknesses at the border.
Are you seeing people that you believe are associated with terror groups sneaking across the border?
AGUILAR: Sean, one of the things that we do on a daily basis out there –24/7– is the men and women are very vigilant for any threat from any individual that has any kind of potential nexus to terrorism. We have intelligence.
HANNITY: Do you see some?
AGUILAR: We have seen people come in from special interest countries, yes. We have arrested several over the last couple of years, yes.
HANNITY: That’s scary.
COLMES: Chief, thank you for being here. We have a little something for you here. We’re going to bring out once again, we have a little special presentation.
AGUILAR: You’re going to feed me?
COLMES: And we don’t want to you go away hungry. And there you go. A lot of those people coming over the border are very hungry. You might want to share this. There is a turkey leg.
AGUILAR: Thank you very much.
COLMES: Thank you, chief, very much. I hope you enjoy that. Thanks for being with us.
HANNITY: Thank you. Appreciate it.
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