Russ Fulcher Presses Border Patrol Union Official On Balancing The Environment With Border Security

3 hours ago

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID) spoke about balancing environmental care with border security.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and you know I just can't help but comment and to my

00:06friends on the other side of the aisle, the Trump administration has been in place about

00:10six weeks. We've had an open border for four years and so to try to hang this on

00:16the Trump administration or Elon Musk is that's beyond a stretch, Mr. Chairman, and

00:22I just I would think that would be obvious to most people but apparently

00:25not so I just need to add that to the record. I have a question for Mr. Perez

00:33but I want to just point out there's a personal connection all over the country

00:38for this and with the FLASH Act we're attempting to ensure Border Patrol has

00:42full access to federal lands and even in my home state of Idaho, which is not a

00:47southern border state, we're actually a northern border state, but we have had

00:50the impacts of this substantially. We've got in 2023 alone 264 deaths related to

00:58fentanyl and we've had 568 emergency department visits due to opioid

01:05overdose and there were some deaths that occurred as a result of that too so this

01:08is impacting all of us in very significant way and in your written

01:12testimony, Mr. Perez, you mentioned that you have greater access to privately

01:17held border lands through partnerships, which is understandably frustrating.

01:23Could you just expand on that and then what do you mean by that because and

01:28forgive some of us by the way because we got dueling committees so if this is an

01:31over repeat forgive me for that but please talk about that through these

01:34partnerships and then also have there been cases where there's these

01:39restrictions to federal land have led to known escapes or the inability to

01:47apprehend. Yes sir, thank you for the question. So the partnerships that we've

01:52developed with ranchers that have privately owned land, they'll allow

01:57us to patrol their ranches, you know, they benefit from it as well. They allow us to

02:03patrol the ranches, place infrastructure such as sensors, cameras, they allow us to

02:09go in and actually interdict groups of aliens that are coming

02:15across with smugglers and also interrupt cartel activity. What we

02:21encounter on federal lands is we have to get permission to actually patrol. They

02:28will allow us in an emergency situation to get on to the land and go

02:34cross-country if we have to either with ATVs or vehicles but that's only in an

02:39emergency situation so what happens is the cartels take advantage of that fact

02:43and they are able to operate in those areas without us being able to

02:48interdict them because we don't have the ability to go on there without an

02:52emergency being present. If I understand correctly there is at least a time delay

02:56there might be an emergency access provision but there's a time delay that

02:59could be harmful. Absolutely, it does not allow us to effectively patrol those

03:04areas. Mr. Perez, my friends on the other side of the aisle are arguing as

03:09well that the increasing Border Patrol access to federal lands could harm the

03:14environment. Now I picked up on some of the conversations about the environment

03:20and environmental concerns but what's your perspective on how we should

03:23prioritize this argument of environmental concerns over security?

03:26Well the priority should always be security. The amount of people that have

03:32been let into this country unvetted is a very scary notion for anybody in the

03:38country to understand that we had no way to vet the millions of people that

03:44we let in and so there are, as you well know, there are criminals out there, there

03:50are gang members. The administration right now is doing everything they can

03:56to apprehend and remove them but because we weren't allowed to do the job for the

04:03last four years it's become a critical situation. Thank you for that. Quick

04:07question for the sheriff. Sheriff, you mentioned in your testimony that

04:12the smugglers frequently change their tactics. Now what we're trying to

04:18do with this flash is to increase access so that we can get access to

04:22federal lands. Do you anticipate as a function of this cartels shifting their

04:27routes deeper into private lands or possibly into more urban areas? No sir, I

04:32foresee them going to more the remote areas. As a matter of fact, down in Big

04:37Bend National Park where we spoke of just a few days ago there was another group

04:41apprehended out in that way. We don't see a lot of activity in that specific area

04:46but we do anticipate more activity in more of those rural areas versus those

04:51more urban to urban environments on both sides of the border. Thank you for that.

04:54Thank you for your service collectively. I just wanted to point out

05:00regarding the staffing levels that in 2023, 34 percent of the National Park

05:06Service employees were still working from home. I guess that substantiates my

05:12point, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and I yield.

Russ Fulcher Presses Border Patrol Union Official On Balancing The Environment With Border Security

Category

Transcript

Recommended