This is a rush transcript from “Your World,” May 13, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL …
This is a rush transcript from “Your World”, May 13, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: All right, will Title 42 stay or go? A court fight today. The answer could determine what happens at the border maybe for months. Welcome, everybody. I’m Neil Cavuto, and this is “Your World” focusing right now on a battle back and forth on Title 42 and its legality. Twenty state A.G.s say there is something very illegal going on here by just dumping it, as the administration wants to do on the 23rd of this month, about 10 days away. Let’s get the read from Bill Melugin right now in Eagle Pass, how things are looking at the border — Bill. BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Neil, good afternoon to you. That federal court hearing on Title 42 wrapped up a little bit earlier this afternoon. It ended with the judge deciding to take no action yet. What that means is that, for now, Title 42 is still set to drop on May 23. That can change, however, when the judge comes up with his decision. He could decide to do an injunction or something else. So we will keep tabs on that. In the meantime, it’s chaos down here. I want to show you some video we have shot just right here today. Take a look at this. This was earlier this morning right here, where we’re standing in Eagle Pass. This was a single massive group of about 150 illegal immigrants that cross in the middle of broad daylight, right in the middle — right in front of the Texas National Guard and Border Patrol here in Eagle Pass. This was mostly made up of Cubans, Venezuelans and Colombians. But this was the third day in a row that we have seen a massive group of more than 100 crossing in this exact same spot at pretty much the exact same time, 10:45 a.m. local morning — local time each morning like clockwork. And these huge groups are a massive drain on Border Patrol resources. But this certainly wasn’t the only group today. Take a look at this. Just a short time later, the second piece of video here, another group crossed in the exact same spot. This was a group of 52 we first saw crossing in the river, once again, another group of mostly Colombians, Venezuelans and Cubans. And, for this group, there was only one single Border Patrol agent on hand to receive them once they got here into Eagle Pass. Again, they have to call other agents in from other areas. And that depletes their manpower in other sectors of the border. And keep in mind, all this happening while Title 42 is still in effect right now. And DHS is projecting things could get three times worse come May 23, once Title 42 actually drops. Last thing we’d like to show you, take a look at this piece of video, exact same location again this morning here in Eagle Pass. What you’re looking at are a group of suspected smugglers in the river escorting a group of migrants illegally into Eagle Pass. You will see one of the smugglers actually takes a life jacket off one of the women, and then the smugglers go back into Mexico. Pretty rare for us to actually get a look at the smugglers as they’re actually physically doing their thing in the middle of the river. And U.S. law enforcement essentially just has to watch. They can’t do anything unless these guys cross over to the U.S. side of the border. And back out here live here in Del Rio Sector, where we are, Border Patrol reporting just in a seven-hour span, they arrested two convicted sex offenders, child sex offenders, both of them Mexican nationals who were both previously deported, both of them apparently trying to come back. Thankfully, though, border agents able to arrest both of them — send it back to you. CAVUTO: Thank you, Bill, very much. Bill Melugin in Eagle Pass. Jacqui Heinrich with us right now on the White House and how they’re responding to all these developments — Jacqui. JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey there, Neil. Well, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki got some questions in the briefing about how the Biden administration might respond to this upcoming federal court ruling that will determine whether they can follow through with their plans to lift Title 42 on May 23. She was asked how that would all work, if there was a delay, whether it would change any plans at the White House. She said that preparations have been ongoing for Title 42 to lift for months. It includes sending more resources to the border to increase processing capacity, but she would not weigh in on how she thinks this case is going to go.
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JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Obviously, I’m not going to prejudge a court ruling that hasn’t quite happened yet and what it will mean or prejudge what the Department of Justice may do in response. I’m sure there will be more discussion about that if and when they rule today.
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HEINRICH: Attorneys general bringing that suit are thinking the judge might lean in their favor because he was willing to issue that temporary restraining order, which they took is a sign that he wants the White House to pump the brakes. And they’re issuing warnings again that, if Title 42 is lifted, this migrant surge will overwhelm law enforcement and communities.
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MARK BRNOVICH (R), ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: You never — I learned a long time ago not to predict what a judge will do. But the fact that he was willing to issue a temporary restraining order and tell the Biden administration to stop and pump the brakes is a good sign that he’s inclined to — he is inclined to rule in our favor. It’s overwhelming our social services. it’s overwhelming our border communities. And so there’s a great fiscal cost, but there’s also this toll in human lives that’s being paid as a result of the failure of Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas.
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HEINRICH: So part of the DHS plan to address the migrant surge at the border involves sending 600 law enforcement personnel from other government agencies down to the border to help with the surge, to help out with Customs and Border Protection, which is a force already 23,000-people strong and struggling even without this coming surge of up to 18,000 migrants a day that is expected when Title 42 is lifted. Of course, that is much more than the average of 7,000 that we’re seeing right now. And this group of border state attorneys general say what’s really going to get worse is the cartels and fentanyl that is going to be coming across that border — Neil. CAVUTO: Jacqui, thank you very much for that. Jacqui Heinrich at the White House following all of that. You have heard a lot of these migrants who are no longer being processed in Texas, and they spread about in places like Washington, D.C., the latest in New York City, where a good many have just arrived. Brandon Judd is the Border Patrol Union president. Brandon, I have a feeling we could be seeing a lot more of these flights and/or buses of those trying to find their way here beyond Texas. How do you feel about that, that process has not been interrupted; in fact, it’s picking up considerable steam? BRANDON JUDD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL: Neil, every single one of my agents and myself, we’re extremely upset. We feel beaten down. We feel like this administration has not given us the enforcement tools. They have given us the processing tools, but they haven’t given us the enforcement tools to stop this crisis that currently goes on. In fact, when we process people through quicker, that just means more people are going to continue to come. That is inviting people to come here. We’re hoping for the best. But there’s been nothing from this administration that has given us any hope that there’s going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. This just continues to get worse and worse and worse. And the American public is paying for it. CAVUTO: Brandon, I always wonder, what will come of this decision, whether they will just remove this Title 42 suspension or just suspend the suspension, you know what I mean, like push it back another month or so. That won’t help you in any way. JUDD: No, it doesn’t. We have already seen what happens when you cut out segments. As Bill was reporting down there, on — in Del Rio, when we cut out segments, when we give carve-outs to Venezuelans, Cubans, Colombians, which, by the way, we do not exercise on Title 42 on any of those countries, that just invites more people to come. So when you look at that, right now, we’re only expelling about 55 percent of the people that cross the border illegally. Once that goes away completely, that just means everybody from around the world are going to continue to come. So it’s just a Band-Aid to push it back. What we have to have is, we have to have permanent solutions. And, Neil, you and I have both talked about what those solutions are. And the Biden administration knows what they need to do. They just fail to do it. They will not put this — the proper enforcement tools in place, because they pander to their far left, open border base. CAVUTO: Do you know, Brandon, whether the administration, if it were to get its way to stop Title 42 on the 23rd, that they’re going to beef up manpower, womanpower on the border with your people to deal with what even they acknowledge could be an increase, and likely a significant increase, to your point, in migrants trying to get through? JUDD: No, I have never been more disappointed in a plan than what I saw from DHS, that six-pillar plan. All it’s talking about is moving people through the system faster. It’s not talking about any enforcement tools, except for pillar number three, where they say it’s going to be expedited removal. But it’s already been proven under the Obama administration that expedited removal doesn’t work, because all somebody has to do is claim that they have a fear of going back to the country. Then that order, that expedited removal order, is canceled, and they’re put through the asylum process and released into the United States. So, nothing in those pillars does it give enforcement tools. All it’s doing is talking about moving people through the system faster. And that doesn’t work. That just encourages more illegal immigration. CAVUTO: Wild stuff. Brandon, I don’t know how you keep up with it, but you do. Young man thank you. Brandon Judd, the Border Patrol union president, dealing this — with his head on. JUDD: Thank you, Neil. CAVUTO: And, for him, this isn’t about politics. This is a life-and-death – – the fentanyl thing, the drug thing, it’s everything. It’s crime. It’s the whole shooting works there. And he just wants — wants everyone to slow down, stop, think about the importance of this. John Yoo on the legal implications of all of this right now, the former deputy assistant attorney general, following this very, very closely. John, from a legal perspective here, what’s the best someone like a Brandon Judd can hope for out of this judge, to push it back, say that the suspension was entirely unnecessary? What? JOHN YOO, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: Under the law here, the federal government does have the power to lift what’s called this Title 42 restriction, which is what prevents people from coming across the border, because of fear that they might be bringing COVID with them. Eventually, the government can lift it. What this lawsuit is about by the attorney generals is that the Biden administration did not do it in the right way. They can’t just lift it immediately. They have to go through what’s called notice and comment. They have to take in comment. They have to put the public on notice. They have to consider all the public input they get, and then they can make their decision. Instead, they just short-circuited that whole process and issued it right away. Then the second thing, I think this is the other problem that the Biden administration has, is that the position they’re taking seems inconsistent with the other positions they’re taking in other COVID litigation. CAVUTO: Right. YOO: We have talked on the show before about the mask mandate, about the vaccine mandate, where the government is saying, no, COVID still a danger. We have still got to require everyone on planes to wear masks. We want to vaccinate everyone in the country. That doesn’t seem consistent with the idea of, like, COVID being brought by aliens crossing the border, where we don’t know if they’re vaccinated, we don’t know if they have been wearing masks, is OK. CAVUTO: Yes, the other part I wondered about, they don’t — they want to keep this sort of on the CDC health grounds. I get that. But they have been reminding — I don’t know if it was part of their case today — to say that, if Title 42 were such a great thing, why are we having this surge we’re having with it in place now? How legally sure of their ground are they on that? YOO: So this is the thing that the by administration has to survive, is that the district judge, the one here in Louisiana, who then they can go to the Fifth Circuit, which is based in Texas and Louisiana, that judge can say, I think you’re — you, the agency, I think your views are arbitrary and capricious. You don’t have any facts. You don’t have any reasons. And the problem is that, as you just said, Neil, COVID could go up or down. We might have just left a wave. But what if a wave comes back? If you drop that ability to block COVID-carrying immigrants across the border, then you’re kind of defenseless if another wave comes back. CAVUTO: Right. YOO: And that — to a judge, that could make no sense. CAVUTO: That’s — I never looked at it that way. John, I learn something new from you every visit. So, thank you very much.
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CAVUTO: John Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney general. Very quickly, I want to bring your attention, before we take a break here, to the corner of Wall and Broad. We had a strong day, a comeback day, for the markets, but still down on the week. The Dow, the S&P, the Nasdaq, although up smartly today, maybe on the notion that they overdid the selling, it didn’t remove the fact that we sold for the seventh straight week in a row for these market averages here. And that’s something that has not changed. In that time, we have made the Nasdaq into a bear market, the S&P 500 not too far from a bear market, and the Dow well into, well, a correction that could be a bear market, but, for today, stable news, confident news out of companies and the belief that maybe they overdid it in the prior days. Anyone’s guess. In the meantime, Elon Musk is reassessing things, we’re told, that the Twitter deal is temporarily on hold. People immediately seized on that with one word: Why?
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CAVUTO: All right, it was a terse and to-the-point tweet, the Twitter deal temporarily on hold, then, from Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, a reassessment of the takeover that might not be what he thought it was going to be, or the company what he thought it was going to be, or at least the number of customers it claims to have. It gets kind of in the weeds, but I have noticed, with Kelly O’Grady following this story, she can explain those weeds. Kelly, is he’s saying, I’m not interested in this? What is going on here? KELLY O’GRADY, FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Well, that’s high praise, Neil.
