Somali Culture Brought to US by Groups That Don’t Seek to Assimilate: Analyst

Joining us to discuss now is Ammon Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Ammon has over two decades of experience as a U.S. Border Patrol agent and U.S. Army officer. So, Ammon, thank you for joining us today. So you were listening to this hearing. What were your initial thoughts? The person who just spoke, the witness who just spoke, saying that the guardrails, the system has certain gaps that allow fraud to happen. Yeah. Once again, thank you for having me. Yeah, look, unfortunately, whenever you have a mass influx of illegal aliens or foreign nationals into the United States, you create a situation where they have allegiance tied to not just the United States or the Constitution, but that's going to be tied to organizations that brought them here, whether that's going to be Al-Shabaab that was mentioned just now in the hearing, to their country itself through remittances where Somalia is receiving about 25 percent of their GDP. And so a lot of times when they're sent here to the United States, they don't assimilate, they remain in their communities and are beholden to these organizations. And so that's what you're seeing here. You're seeing the fraud that we see or witness inside of third world countries, specifically in Somalia, brought here into our own area, that the culture that is rampant in Somalia itself is now brought here as, once I said, once I said again, that they do not assimilate and that they remain in their own communities. And this is all by design. Everything that was said in the hearing just now was to try to diminish or try to subvert the complete rule of law. In fact, I forget which senator it was that stated that ICE conducting immigration enforcement on the streets was breaking the law. And so what we're seeing now is rhetoric, whether that's from Congress, whether that's from Tim Walz or others, that when ICE conducts immigration enforcement, that it's breaking the law, that they are seeking to completely nullify immigration enforcement altogether. They're seeking to completely eradicate the whole idea and concept of a citizen versus an illegal alien. It was just at the Grammy Awards where they talked about how no one is illegal, that we're all on stolen land. And really now, that used to be rhetoric that you'd only hear from either the Communist Party or anarchists, but now you're hearing it into the halls of Congress. So you know, Border Czar Tom Homan said today that the Trump administration will immediately draw down 700 immigration agents from Minnesota. And he said this has been made possible through unprecedented cooperation. So your thoughts on that? How important is this cooperation for immigration enforcement? Yeah, first and foremost, the only way that the Trump administration, ICE and Border Patrol are going to be able to conduct mass deportations, it's going to be through local law enforcement. It's going to have to be through your sheriffs, through their county jails. It's going to be through your local municipalities. They know where the hotspots are. They know where the diasporas of illegal aliens typically are in their communities. So that sharing of information and intelligence is crucial. However, I do want to state that this is a step in the right direction, but the jail enforcement model is actually a very reactive model. They were already apprehended. They were already arrested due to other crimes. And this is simply another step in the way to get a criminal out of the streets of your community. And it's by going through ICE as opposed to allowing them to remain in their community or releasing them. And so I do see this as a step. However, I also see the 700 people or 700 Border Patrol agents that are being taken from Minnesota as also a step backward. We are ceding ground in terms of the state itself, and we are meeting, unfortunately, the demands of anarchists and communists in the streets. When Border Patrol and ICE go into these streets, one, for your audience, this is not an organic movement. This is completely organized and well-funded to completely disrupt and completely dismantle any immigration enforcement whatsoever. And so when that happens, they have a playbook to force ICE and Border Patrol into a dilemma situation, a lose-lose situation. When you're confronted with this, you either have one or two options. You can either cede ground and allow the mob to control or the insurgency to control the area, or you can conduct riot control, you can conduct, you have to try to secure your own personnel resources, you have to conduct use of force that you wouldn't normally have to. And so either way, it's a lose-lose. One, you show to the nation, you show to these groups that you're ceding control, or the other one, they're going to use it for propagandizing that it's an excessive use of force, that it's masked men going after this fascist tyranny from the Trump administration all the way down. And so right now, that's what's happening. And unfortunately, by ceding the 700 agents from Minnesota and putting them somewhere else is ceding control and stating, hey, you guys win in this battle. So you're saying this is ceding control, but Tom Holman called this smarter enforcement, not less. What do you think about that? And do you think other Democratic states could follow in the footsteps of Minnesota? What do you see going forward? So really, the smartest way forward is actually the Florida model. If you look at Florida's model, they have a state immigration division or a Bureau of Immigration. It's completely organized, tasked down. Every state agency, every county sheriff, every municipality, everyone is involved in terms of immigration enforcement. And that is because they realize that immigration enforcement cannot be separated from the level of criminality within their area. And so that's why every single agency, to include their state guard, to include their Department of Agriculture, all are in one, sharing information and sharing also tactics and operations. Really, each state should be that way. And so you shouldn't cede control. Now, I do agree that if he allocates the rest of his agents to the United States and does not conduct operations by going from sanctuary city to sanctuary city to sanctuary city, because all that is doing right now is confronting the insurgents in front of them. And we know, unfortunately, we lost this narrative battle in Minneapolis. And so if he does take the agents, either takes them and puts them back at the border or distributes them and continues and creates a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency plan nationwide where you work with local law enforcement first and then holding red counties and red states accountable so that they are also not sanctuary by omissions, then I think that would be great. OK, what do you make of the fact that federal agents in the field in Minneapolis will now be required to wear body cameras? What's your view on that? Yeah, great question. So we were given body cameras almost three years ago at our southern border. Look, it's also for the protection of our federal law enforcement. When you're in the thick of it, when you have a mob surrounding you, when you have whistles, when you have smoke, when you have all these things that they are seeking to completely disrupt you and your operations with, it's very difficult to get the camera footage from the inside to show all of it. You're going to get all these citizen journalists. You're going to get these citizens that are making videos from their own cell phones that are surrounding it. But you're not going to get it from the eyes of those that are currently involved. So I think this is great. I think it's a great step. I think it's great to show our perspective on when we're trying to conduct immigration enforcement operations on your streets, what we are really seeing, and that is a complete insurgency to completely disrupt the operations. OK, and then final question here, I'm thinking if you have any concerns over privacy, you know, there's a significant support for body cams, but we've been seeing growing concerns about surveillance technology and how it could open the door to an invasion of privacy, for example, or a surveillance state. So let me just ask you for your comments on this issue. How has law enforcement addressed these concerns over the years? Really, this is just for protection on them and for the border patrol cameras, there's a button on there that you push. If you're about to go into a situation, you just press the button and it records what's actually happening. And what's funny, what's funny that you ask that question is because right now you have ice watch websites propping up. You have congressmen and women elected officials that are actually currently on ice watch programs are completely trying to dox our citizens. I mean, our docs are ice agents and also agents. And then you have citizens that are worried that if they put a camera on that, they're going to get they're going to have a civil rights issue. Really, what they're worried about is that they're going to finally see the courts are going to finally see in America is going to finally see what these citizens truly are. And that's an insurgency. This is a complete revolutionary effort to completely thwart citizenship. And and the people that are at the front line of this that are standing guard in protecting the boundaries of American citizenship are ice in border patrol. So I 100 percent agree with having the body cameras on. I do not think it's a civil rights violation for all the citizens around as all they're conducting is immigration enforcement. OK, and thank you for your time today. Thanks for having me.