Texas Think Tank Focuses on Chaos at the Border

Mark Krikorian; Rep. John Hostettler

By Mark Krikorian and Rep. John Hostettler on January 20, 2022

Podcast

Summary

An April 2021 Harvard-Harris poll showed that 80 percent of voters believe that the border is “a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately” and that 85 percent want stronger borders. The largest state think tank in the country, Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), agrees. The Honorable John Hostettler, vice president of the TPPF federal affairs initiative, States Trust, joins Parsing Immigration Policy to talk about policies and actions that states can take to secure the border.

Hostettler, a former six-term Indiana congressman and Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, served at the time that President George W. Bush tried to ram through an immigration proposal, which traded an amnesty for those already here in exchange for promises to enforce the law in the future. His experience in policy and immigration provide a perfect background for a discussion on border security, asylum, human and drug smuggling, and border barriers. What can state and local jurisdictions do to resolve the security and humanitarian crisis at the border – a necessity prior to any conversation about amnesty?

In this week’s closing commentary, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of Parsing Immigration Policy, describes how the Mexican government is pretending to secure their southern border and cooperate with the Biden administration, while actually busing migrants to the U.S. border using a model Mexican reporters call “operación hormiga” - an “ant operation.”