This part of the fence was built by the Obama
administration,
and President Trump purchased all this material.
The day that he took
office, President Biden issued an order
to shut down construction.
Cochise County, Arizona. Sheriff Mark Daniels joins me now.
Sheriff, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon.
Lot of attention at the border is not happening in
your state,
but your state is actually where you're seeing the largest
number of crossings right now.
What do you attribute that to,
Sheriff?
Well yeah, I, I. Thanks for having me on Martha.
Let me just say this.
It's I, I think tech.
Well, Governor Abbott's doing in Texas.
The message he's sending, the action he's put behind his
message is taking the cartel and routing the criminal activity,
the smuggling, the traffic in into New Mexico,
Arizona and California. That's what happens when you do your
job as elected official.
So again kudos to Governor Abbott for doing,
but we're seeing the impact.
We're seeing record numbers. Last year this time we had
over
100,000 and and federal fiscal year this year we're pushing
almost
300,000. So you can see the impact that we're we're
addressing right now.
So what's your message to your governor and
California's going through the same thing.
Governor Newsom is faced with this as well.
Do you see this putting any pressure on your governor
or the governor in California at this point?
Well, I've worked Governor ditch and I worked very close
on a lot of our important programs.
I met with Governor Hobbs numerous times and and I'll
say this,
she told me last week that they were,
she was going to DC to meet with
the President Secretary Mayorkas at the White House to see
what they can do here.
Because the bottom line is right now the last two
years we've had
$9.4 million expenses for border related state related crimes in
my county alone
9.4 million and the Governor's office in the states helped
me pay those bills.
The amount of people we're seeing here on state related
crimes with the murder is off the charts.
The only one left I've got helping us Martha is
our state.
The federal government and majority of Congress has abandoned us
down here on the border.
So when you put almost 3000 people in jail in
two years for border related crimes in my jail you
can imagine the impact I need.
Our governor. I've told her this I she hasn't turned
her back on.
She has and we're going to keep pushing her because
I I need her.
I I really do. Because
this president and this majority of Congress have turned their
back on this border and we're paying the impact,
we're paying the dividends right now.
So you know, what are you?
What did she, how does she view what Governor Abbott
has done?
He moved to put people on buses to spread the
the
burden around the country, especially the places that have said
that they would welcome migrants.
Is that something that she would consider?
I don't think so. Now I got 9 National Guard
that she sent down here over the last couple weeks
to help me just in our jail aspect of it
and help on some of our Borders initiative programs.
I don't think that. And I say that because
when this governor took office,
she removed the containers from Governor Ducey.
That was something she was not in favor of.
Politics is driving this, Martha.
You got Democrat governors. You got Republican governors are so
divided on this.
You look at the 2 presidents,
you got President Trump down there that had a strong
prioritization on the border,
strong message on the border and strong action on it.
You got President Biden. That's just the opposite.
Senator Biden was all about border security.
President Biden has been absent for three years.
He's down here now for re election purposes.
He's down here right now for for show and tell,
for for political and photo OPS.
That's exactly what he's doing.
Come to Arizona. We've invited though President Biden to come
work with sheriffs and we have not seen that yet.
Well, protecting the country, as I said before,
is the number one job of the president of the
United States.
And as voters look at this,
they're going to see whether or not they think he's
taking it seriously.
We watch these buses. I know you all have had
enormous numbers of buses
coming through your your state as well.
Where are the people who are crossing in Arizona largely
coming from that are seeking
asylum apparently. Where are they coming from?
Well, Martha, what we see in Cochise County,
we're on the southeast corner of the state of Arizona
is God aways.
We see the God aways that
Director Holman was talking about.
We see the majority of God aways in the Tucson
sectors.
We don't deal with give UPS.
But thanks to the fractured wisdom of Washington DC and
I don't want some critic,
but I'm very frustrated with this.
I can tell people that come across the southwest border
right now outside the proper of Cochise County are being
bused to my county.
My process here since May 8th of
2023 up till I think it's February 20th.
717 or 715 buses through the state of Arizona and
my local resources have bus St.
releases from Border Patrol out of my county.
I'm not blaming the agents,
I'm blaming Washington DC for sending them here,
taking my agents off the enforcement and put them in
administrative processing.
This is a fractured mess on this border right now,
and it amazes me, and you're exactly right.
I say it. The oath of office for a sheriff,
the oath of office for a governor or president of
the United States or congressional member is all the same.
You got to protect the citizens in our country.
First, let me ask you,
you know, a quick question about the legislation that failed
in Congress.
Was that something that you supported?
Would you have liked to have seen it passed?
Your national sheriffs came out against it.
They came out against it mainly because of this.
And I was notified of this bill from from our
US senators Friday.
I was in DC on Saturday with national sheriffs.
I said come on over let's talk about this bill.
I do nothing about the border bill being be put
together.
America's sheriff didn't know about it.
Mayors didn't know about it.
I invited him to a meeting on Sunday.
Nobody showed up Monday. National sheriff voted to
to oppose it. So again I said this to our
two US senators in Arizona.
You got to bring your national sheriffs to the table
and work together with the communities.
Get your mayors there, get your governors and let's do
this as a collective government.
That's how we're going to solve this right now.
That's not happening. And that's why there's so much opposition
to.
In fact, I'll just say this too.
You got part of that bill was to take the
judicial side out of this and put it under the
administrator side,
which puts the trust back in this administration.
That trust is not there.
And I shared that back too.
You got to put. Yeah.
It's just it's just not working right now.
Martha. I hear you, Sheriff.
You know what, Sir? Thank you very much.
Good to hear from you today.
We wish you well. We hope you'll come back and
talk to us more in the future.
Sheriff Daniels from Arizona. Good to speak with you today.