'Listen To What They're Saying': Clay Higgins Calls Out 'Sanctuary City' Mayors Over ICE Comments

14 hours ago

At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) spoke about the treatment of undocumented immigrants in 'sanctuary cities'.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, ma'am. Members will be recognized by seniority and appearance in the subcommittee.

00:09I now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning.

00:13Sheriff, can you clarify for the committee members and Americans that are observing this

00:19hearing regarding detainers? That can be confusing to Americans that don't know how it works.

00:28You just lay it out. You have local, state, and federal law enforcement operating

00:36across the country. When you have someone incarcerated in your county jail,

00:44if there's a local jurisdictional authority, say the county over, has a warrant for an arrest

00:54on an inmate in your jail, what happens when that inmate is finished with his time to be

01:02released from your jail, if that county next to you has contacted your jail and said,

01:08hey, we have a warrant. Let us know when you're ready to let this guy go. That's called a detainer.

01:14What happens when a local law enforcement contacts you about that?

01:18We turn them over to them.

01:20At what point? In the parking lot an hour after you released them or in the jail?

01:24No, in the jail.

01:25Thank you. So that's a detainer, America. This is the way it works. What about your state police

01:31in Florida? State police have a detainer, a warrant on an inmate? Do they come and pick

01:36them up from in the jail? Well, no, because the state police don't operate jails,

01:40so the detainers would only be generally...

01:43Be a detective's hold.

01:44Sure.

01:45But state police, if they want that inmate before he's released to the parking lot,

01:51they come to the jail. Is that correct?

01:53Yes.

01:53Okay. So federal law enforcement works the same way. If the FBI has a detainer on someone,

01:59do you hold them in your jail, turn them over directly to the FBI, not to the parking lot?

02:04All the time.

02:05Thank you. And if ICE does that now in Florida, if ICE has a detainer, what happens to that inmate?

02:12We're turning them over to ICE.

02:13Directly to ICE, in the jail, America. Not after they've been released to the parking lot,

02:19good lady, which was happening in sanctuary cities. So the sanctuary city mayors will say,

02:25yeah, we're turning them over. We're releasing them to ICE. We're quote unquote following the

02:30law. But listen to what they're saying, America. They're releasing these guys into the parking lot

02:36and when ICE contacts them, they say, yeah, we'll let them go two hours ago.

02:40He was last seen wearing this, walking in that direction.

02:44That's not the way detainers have worked historically across the country.

02:49So that ties in, Mr. Humata, what you brought up regarding weaponized migration. It occurs to me,

02:57I'd like you to address this. We have millions of illegals coming into our country, came into

03:04our country over the last four years and wave after wave. Policy was always known amongst law

03:10enforcement that policy caused that and policy could quickly fix it. We've proven that that's

03:15true since January the 20th. But these guys are already here. What have they done to plug into

03:22the criminal networks and the cartel networks across the country that our sovereign states and

03:28our communities across the country are now having to deal with? Please go into that.

03:32Yeah. So, Mr. Chairman, there is a concept that was used in the executive order that

03:36President Trump signed designating cartels as terrorist organizations. It's a concept called

03:41convergence. And what convergence is, is when you get terrorist organizations, criminal organizations,

03:45an array of illicit actors converging together under logistics. What we're seeing today is

03:50logistical networks be erected all throughout the United States as service providers. I'll give you

03:55an example. If you're an accountant for a major Mexican cartel, you're a good candidate to be an

03:59accountant for ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, that's also operating inside the United States. What this

04:05does is it empowers illicit economies and allows those illicit economies to grow and overtake

04:09counties, overtake states, and eventually overtake the country. So we're seeing a convergence of

04:14criminals, terrorists, and all kinds of illicit actors coming together who may not agree, who may

04:18fight on turf battles, but fundamentally want the country to become illicit.

04:22So the criminal networks that had already existed in our cities and sovereign states across the

04:31country, how are they battling for their territory? Are we seeing an expansion of violent

04:41crimes and serious property crimes pushed into parts of our communities that had not

04:47historically seen that crime because of the expansion of turf, just the numbers of criminal

04:54operators battling for turf? How is that happening across the country?

04:59No, that's absolutely the case. I think you're seeing territorial control and territorial

05:03capture. That's fundamental to transnational organized crime. Territory is what they're going

05:07after. They want to capture territory, take it away from the street, and impose their own kind

05:11of criminal governance. But what we're seeing is that put on steroids because when you add the

05:15state element, nation states now using these transnational criminalizations, you're seeing an

05:20element of ability to put these criminal organizations into overdrive. I'll give you one

05:25example, that Venezuela's Tren de Agua. Just in the last year, we've seen it expand from four

05:29states to over 23 states inside the United States. That doesn't happen on its own. That happens

05:34because there's a government back in Venezuela that's providing guidance, direction, and resources

05:39to be able to expand throughout the country. And that Tren de Agua is doing exactly what you're

05:42saying, Mr. Chairman, taking over a place that never saw this kind of violent crime before.

05:47Thank you for that clarification. My time has expired.

'Listen To What They're Saying': Clay Higgins Calls Out 'Sanctuary City' Mayors Over ICE Comments

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