Allen West | Steadfast & Loyal | Border Trip

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, greetings everyone. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West here and welcome to the Steadfast and Loyal Podcast.

♪ Save us all ♪ ♪ They're gonna burn it down ♪ ♪ Save us all ♪ ♪ Before they burn it down ♪

Hey, greetings everyone and welcome back to the Steadfast and Loyal Podcast.

You know, I had an incredible law enforcement officer on with us earlier this year, Sheriff Brad Coe. If you want, please go back and watch that interview. Sheriff Brad Coe is the sheriff of Kinney County, Texas. The county seat is a city called Brackettville. Kinney County lies in between Uvalde County, Valverde County, and also Maverick County.

That is Del Rio, that is Uvalde, Texas, and that is down in Eagle Pass, Texas. His county sits in between two very major ports of entry, and it sits along the border with Mexico as well. That's between the Del Rio and Eagle Pass. And I promised Sheriff Coe that I would go down and spend some time with him down in Kinney County, and I did last week from Wednesday to Sunday. And I'm going to continue to go back. I'll be back down there in June. Because I believe that warriors move to the sound of the guns. I believe that leaders lead from the front by example. And it's one thing to read about an issue, and yes, I've been down to the border, you know, 10, 11, now 12 some-odd times.

But it's another thing to really go down there and stay down there and be on the ground day and night to get out in the brush to talk to people that are down there and see what they see. And to document and tell their story. And what I saw down on the border is just absolutely appalling. It's disgusting. It's unconstitutional. I can go on ad nauseam ad infinitum.

But when you're down in Kinney County, one of the things that you easily recognize is that it's a wide-open space. And there really are not enough resources. There are not enough boots on the ground to be an effective deterrent against people that are coming across the border illegally into the United States of America. And I'm not talking about the people that tie us down at the respective ports of entry, being at Del Rio and being at Eagle Pass. I'm talking about all of that space in between, which is wide open terrain, very thick brush. As a matter of fact, as I stood on a piece of high ground and I looked across that area, you could hide very easily an entire infantry brigade or even more in that brush. And if you do not have the aerial surveillance and reconnaissance that is up, if you don't have drones that are up, you're never going to be able to find these individuals. And that's exactly what I encountered. That is exactly what was articulated to me.

You know, the first thing that I had the opportunity to do, and it was pretty challenging, and I thought that it would not be a big deal, but to go out and conduct an inventory of their car impound lot. Now, I want you to understand something. The city of Bracketville has about 1,700 people. Kinney County, maybe, probably has less than 2,500 occupants, citizens in that entire county. They had over 1,200 vehicles in their impound lot. 1,200 vehicles of individuals who have been on social media answering the solicitations of the narco-criminal terrorist organizations known as the cartels to come down and pick up illegal immigrants and transport them to respective stash houses. Yes, 1,200 vehicles. So when I showed up at the impound lot, there were still a little over 400 vehicles that were there. And this has been going on for the past 18 to 24 months, which coincides with Joe Biden and his open borders policy. A city of 1,700 people, a county of maybe 2,500 people, have seen some 1,200 vehicles impounded because of the high speed chases and the bailouts. And so I'm going through and I'm inventorying these vehicles, some pretty nice vehicles that were there to verify what's there, what's not there, because they do have an auction coming up May the 13th. You should check it out. You might get a pretty good deal. But there was a sense of, you know, something just welling up inside me as I looked at all of these tags, Texas state license plates, New York state license plates, Ohio, California, and a few others.

And, yes, a couple from Mexico. All of these cars represented someone that was trying to smuggle humans into the United States of America, illegal immigrants. And yes, I'm going to say illegal immigrants. I'm not saying migrants. There are two ways you come into the United States of America. There's two ways you come into any country. You immigrate in legally or illegally. That's just it. And what we have happening is a bunch of people, millions of people coming in illegally. That's an invasion. If someone is sitting in your house when you come home from the grocery store or a movie or dinner or whatever, that's an illegal invasion. That's an illegal home invasion.

They didn't knock. They didn't ask for your permission. They're sitting there in your living room. They're eating your food. They're watching your TV. That's an illegal home invasion. The exact same thing is happening here to the tunes of millions of people. But what really got my craw was that later on that day, as I was coming in and turning in my inventory paperwork, there was a gentleman who showed up.

He had made his bail. He had paid his car impound fee. And he was there to pick up his vehicle, a beautiful black 535 BMW, a vehicle that he used to try to smuggle humans into the United States of America illegally.

And they asked me to take him back out there, escort him back out there and turn his vehicle back over to him. That individual was guilty of a felony offense. I don't care. You don't get to make bail. You sit. That individual should have never been able to come back and get his vehicle, but yet they did.

And there was something that welled up in me when I just stood there and watched him get into his vehicle with his buddy who drove him down there and drive away. Where are the consequences? Where are the ramifications? And then to go out with a couple of former Border Patrol agents who are now working as sheriff's deputies there.

And they were part of a brush team. They got out in the brush. They followed tracks. There's only one brush team, two guys. And what do you think they're going to accomplish? Two guys. They have been very successful. But the more success that they have had now is tougher for them because the other side is improvising and adapting as well. And there's so many infiltration routes that are out there.

And oh, by the way, Kinney County Sheriff's Office has a total of seven deputies. That's it. To cover this immense piece of terrain, they don't have drones. They don't have helicopters at their disposal. And so as I'm out there with Mr. Airwood and Mr. Hayto, like I said, both former Border Patrol agents, and we came up and we were following tracks of about four or five individuals. And we tracked them into a deep creek bed. The brush got really thick. It would have been nice if they had had some drones they could put up and they could scout some of this area. Because a couple of guys and me walking on the ground, that's not an effective means.

See, one of the basic skill levels of an infantry platoon or an infantry squad is patrolling. So why do we not have our Texas National Guard infantry units out there patrolling this brush? Oh, we put them down there “on the border.” But they're not turning anyone back. I've seen some occasions when they were helping people come across the Rio Grande River. We've even got that on video. So we're not doing anything to deter them. You know, the United States Army just retired one of its best aerial scout reconnaissance helicopters, the OH-58 Delta Kiowa Warrior, made by Bell Helicopters, which is right here in Fort Worth, Texas.

Texas has over $30 billion in surplus. Tells you something, we're kind of overtaxed here. But wouldn't it be great if Texas had purchased some of those OH-58 Delta Kiowa Warrior aircraft and used them so that they could have an air cap, a constant aerial surveillance and reconnaissance over that Border Control Zone which should be established?

Right there at Fort Clark, which, oh by the way, is an old cavalry post, there's a grass airfield. Fort Clark, 6th, right in Brackettville, Texas, right there in Kinney County. You can bed down those helicopters. There are many people out there, veterans, who are OH-58 Delta Kiowa Warrior pilots. And I bet you've got some that will volunteer here out of the state of Texas to go down there and fly those aircraft, to be the eyes up in the sky. Because without aerial surveillance, without any type of drone support, what Mr. Airwood and what Mr. Hayto are doing on the ground, and they're doing phenomenal things, I mean, I learn so much about tracking individuals. You know, how to look at boot prints, how to follow them, how to look at grass, and how to sit back and all of a sudden a trail just pops up to you.

But they don't have the right tools to be able to enable them. Wouldn't it be great if we had more people down there, if Sheriff Coe deputized more people? See, the situation is so dire that you have the ranchers, who, you know, have some very exotic animals out there on the ranches, they're tired of seeing their fences cut, and I showed an example, a picture of a fence that was cut. So they're actually putting up ladders for illegals to climb these ladders so they can go from ranch property to ranch property to stay in the bush. And I saw three illegal immigrants when I was out on Saturday doing a rideshare with one of the sheriff deputies.

Three illegals came out of the brush, went right across the road, we stopped the vehicle, tried to give chase, they were gone, hopped another fence, got into the brush. No drones, no nothing we could call, get up in the air. We had a camera that caught a picture of several men in camouflage, heavy backpacks, long strides, face masks on with long beards. One Border Patrol agent and one dog was, you know, sent and dispatched to that area.

A couple of us and our sheriff deputies, cars, and one Border Patrol agent out on the roads, but no one inside in the brush trying to follow and track these guys after the hit that we got on the camera. Got-aways. That's how we get got-aways. I saw three got-aways myself. And then we had those folks on the camera that got away from us.

I saw those trails. And it's incredible what we're allowed to happen. But the most disturbing thing about being down there in Kenny County, the thing that nobody wants to talk about, no one understands. The kids don't go out and play.

American kids, Texas kids, not going out to the playgrounds, not going out on their bicycles in this quiet little community because of the high-speed chases that go through the illegal immigrant bailouts that go running through their community. So the kids are losing out on their most important years.

And many of us have heard about what happened and read about what happened in Cleveland, Texas, San Jacinto County, which is kind of north and east of Highway 59 coming 69 coming out of Houston. Where an illegal immigrant, Mexican. Orapeso Francisco Orapeso, I believe that's his name. Been deported four or five times.

But yet he was able to get a semi-automatic rifle popping off rounds of his rifle late at night on a Friday, a family, a Honduran family who sadly they were here illegally, but they lost their lives because they were going to report this individual to the police. And Sheriff Capers down in San Jacinto County, I know him very well also.

He only had three deputies to cover a 700-square-mile area. That's why they didn't get there in time. And sadly for the people down and living along our border, nobody wants to deal with it. Nobody wants to stand there and say, there's a line in the sand. We have sovereignty in the United States of America. You don't get to come into this country illegally. It's not coming out of the Biden administration.

It's not coming from Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Alejandro Mayorkas is not coming from Governor Greg Abbott. No one has the cojones to protect Americans, to protect Texans. That's what I saw. Brave individuals down there doing everything that they possibly can. And now within a week, Title 42 will be lifted and they're already lining up to come into this country illegally. They'll flood the ports of entry, which means more resources will go there. Biden is talking about sending down army reservists, maybe some active-duty Army, not to defend our border, but to drive buses. And I'm sick and tired of this gimmick from Governorr Greg Abbott, of putting illegals on buses and sending them to sanctuary cities. They should be put on buses and sent back across the ports of entry and exit. Because you're just aiding and abetting human smuggling, Governor Abbott. You're aiding and abetting the human and sex trafficking. You're aiding and abetting this child slavery that the whistleblower from the HHS testified about just last week in Congress. Nobody is doing anything. These elected officials that you voted for, I didn't vote for.

That are sitting back and allowing our country to be overrun, allowing our state to be overrun. Clock's ticking. We had a record number of 2.3 million illegal immigrants come across the board to the United States of America last year. We're on pace to top a record year. Every month, 200,000 or more.

And then it's up to you, the taxpayer, to provide these free benefits. It's time that we understand that this is not just an issue of border security. This is about an insurgency that's going on here in Texas and all across our border. It's about the fentanyl that's coming across that's provided by China. It's about declaring that we are up against a terrorist organization and go after their funding, go after their financing.

They got money in banks here in Texas. They got people that are living here in Texas. Find them. Confiscate, freeze their assets. Turn that over so that we can use those resources to purchase the needed equipment to protect our sovereignty and security. I'll be back down in Kinney County in June.

I don't expect things to have been improved between now and June. But I do expect more of you all, true Americans, that will take a little bit of your time to volunteer to go down and help. Because if not you, then who will do it?

Steadfast and Loyal.