Congressman Pat Fallon (TX-04) and the ALIEN Act

Congressman Pat Fallon (TX-04) discusses his new bill, the ALIEN Act, and the impact it would have on the ongoing border crisis.

Show Notes

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The Federation for American Immigration Reform's podcast bringing you the most important updates about U.S. immigration. Featuring special guests including members of Congress, journalists, and experts in the field.

Preston:
all right hello and welcome back to another episode of fair's understanding immigration podcast my name is preston huennekens I'm fair's government relations manager and today we have a very special guest joining us on the podcast is congressman pat fallon he is the republican representative from texas's fourth district and he's coming on today to talk about a new bill that he introduced h.r 6706 the alien act this is a bill that fair supports and it's something that it makes a number of changes to our immigration system and we're really excited to have the congressman on today we've asked him to come on today to talk about the legislation and also to discuss the growing severity of the border crisis and how it affects texas his home state congressman welcome to the podcast and thank you for coming on and talking about this bill

Rep. Fallon:
no preston thank you for having me I appreciate it

Preston:
so first congressman just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to congress and what some of your priorities have been since you took office

Rep. Fallon:
well thank you know preston I was I joke around now because I represent a district in northeast texas I joke around and I grew up in a small town just northeast of dallas called pittsfield massachusetts but grew up in new england and my parents are retired school teachers there's a lot to be said for growing up in humble beginnings because you appreciate so much of what you receive you know the boundings and the blessings of this country moving forward my parents focused on the importance of education and the importance of doing everything anything you do just choose to excel in it because you're going to do it anyway you might as well be the best that you possibly can be and I took that attitude was fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to the university of notre dame I played football under legendary coach lou holtz and I believe in transparency so I’ll say practiced a lot more than I played we had to win in the national championship my junior year and what I learned at a very early age at the age you know 20 years old was that you need to always push yourself outside of your comfort zone and that's what coach holt's taught and so many of his players have gone on to lead very meaningful and accomplished lives because of the lessons that we all learned at a very young age and knowing that your best friend and your worst enemy is the same person it's the person you see in the mirror every morning and that's what the left will never teach young people and I try to do so in every opportunity that I get is to let them know that there's no boogeyman out there keeping you down it doesn't exist it's a myth the person that'll keep you down is you and we all have to accept that we will we fear things I fear failure and we shouldn't fear failure because you're going to try things if you try things you're going to fail occasionally it's the successes that you're really after so I learned that went into the air force served our country for four proud years as an air force officer and then started an entrepreneurial journey and was blessed and it put me in a position where I could run for a public office and it was ran in ’09 I ran on city council served for three years was a fierce advocate for the taxpayer did the same thing in the texas house two years in the texas senate and now in congress for 14 months

Preston:
so that's great and obviously that journey brought you to texas which is you know now the epicenter of the biden border crisis and is really hit by immigration in a way that other states maybe don't don't feel and so just you know representing a district in texas and having you know made your life there now you know could you kind of speak to the inordinate impact that immigration has had on your state that it's had on your district and that it's had on your constituents

Rep. Fallon:
sure you know illegal immigration has always been tough on border states but what joe biden has done through his weakness and wokeness has made all 50 states border states essentially so what we've seen in texas the burden that we face here is we see a lot on the entitlements to medicaid is hit in inordinately hard because there are so many folks here illegally and also our education system and it's into the billions of dollars the actual costs and what we're allowing mostly mexico but several other nations to do is export their poverty into our country and now the left will bash us and they'll call us all sorts of names and use pejoratives the fact of the matter is we are we're for a rule the rule of law and justice and fairness I haven't met a conservative yet that doesn't support legal migration to fit the needs of this country and what we need to do is we know we need to know our stuff when we do go into debates for instance there are 3.8 million people in the world waiting to come to this country legally waiting in their home countries waiting patiently some of those folks most of them are on average waiting nine to 11 years before they get to this country sometimes it's even over 20 years so it's patently unfair to allow mass unlawful migration and allow people to cross that line and to point out to the liberals when they play the race car of those 3.8 million people preston 95 of them are people of color they're not coming from europe they're not coming from australia or canada they're coming from all over the world so to inject race into this argument is absurd what we want to do is have people come to this country and be able to contribute and to be able to succeed now that's why the left loves the mass unlawful migration because they get people here that don't speak the language that don't have a marketable skill so what ends up happening many of them not all but many of them become dependent if they do find work they find work in where it's kind of more hand to mouth they can't have a lot of savings and so they're thrust into a situation where they're either below the poverty line or right about on it and the left likes that because that dependency they'll promise them things we'll give you things we'll play santa claus all year now the legal migrants I suspect that on net they're not democratic voters because they're independent and they're you know enjoying the fruits and the labors in this country and the bounties that it has to offer

Preston:
no I think that's a great point and absolutely correct that there is this mismatch in who the democratic party seems to be fighting for in congress you know you saw you know the passage of hr6 and the farm work first modernization act all of these bills that do everything to legalize the millions of people that are here illegally and they and they haven't really looked into ways to change the current you know legal immigration system and that's why we're here today to talk about the bill that you introduced the ALIEN act which does make changes to that system that it that restores integrity really to one side of the debate so that we can you know look at look at other ways to improve the system so I want to give you an opportunity to just talk about why you're introducing this legislation now and if you could just give our listeners you know a 35,000 foot view of what this bill does

Rep. Fallon:
yeah you know I would really honestly describe this and I would I’d love for your listeners to weigh in you know later on in their minds do they think that this is a common sense mainstream bill of reform because this is what this bill would do first and foremost there's going to be no more visa lottery which is insane to sit there and say well there's not enough people from these particular countries with which we have no historical ties so we're just going to randomly let people in and we don't know who they are we don't know if they're going to contribute they don't know if they're going to come here and be upsetting members of society it's nuts there's about 55,000 of these a year we need a merit-based immigration system where we will put america first and we will take the world's best so many people want to come here okay we want the elite to come here number one number two if you overstay your visa which many people do unfortunately it's about 585,000 I think in the last year they overstayed their visa they do so because there's no consequence for it for that action we need to disincentivize and not reward bad behavior so what this bill does is if you overstay your visa you're fined a thousand dollars a day for every day you overstay you could face up to a year in prison if you overstay your visa and you will not be allowed legal re-entry into the country for five years if you overstay your visa you cannot claim asylum for 10 years and you cannot get a green card for 15 years furthermore if you do it twice it's two strikes and you're out you'll never be allowed legal reentry to the country now that are those are consequences and the last thing it does is this credible fear situation where these liberal groups give these illegal migrants the they give them the down low on exactly what to do and say when they cross the border so they'll say well I have credible fear I’m going to be harmed if I return to my country oh I’m claiming asylum and one of the ways they can claim asylum is if they're just simply a member of a social group it is so ambiguous it's so open-ended justice alito said the same and so we want to remove that provision altogether this is common sense mainstream immigration reform and the left is going to try to paint it as some kind of fringe bill which it clearly is not

Preston:
no it isn't and I think the real strength of this bill is the fact that it's three changes that would make an immediate difference it's not one of these you know you know 2,000 page comprehensive immigration bills that nobody knows what's in it nobody understands what the downstream effects would be and I think that is really why we at fair enthusiastically support this is because it makes three major changes to three major problems that we're currently facing and the first I kind of want to dive into a little bit more with you is this diversity visa lottery you know this is something that fair has opposed for a really long time because like you said it's a legal immigration provision but it makes no real sense it doesn't target people based on their skills based on what they can contribute to the united states it doesn't it doesn't take into account any kind of family relationship which is how most of our immigration system is run on it's truly just you apply for it and if you're fortunate enough to live in a country that doesn't have a large population in the united states already you're given a free ticket to the US it we know that it has you know horrible effects on the on the countries that qualify for it because it allows the intelligent people that can navigate the system to leave that country it's a brain drain effect so I know you hit on it a little bit but I wanted to ask you more you know how did you first become aware of this issue and why are you introducing this now because to my knowledge this is really the first bill that at least introduced in this congress that has focused on the visa lottery and trying to end it

Rep. Fallon:
well I remember reading articles about it because you know immigration illegal immigration has always annoyed me and it's always bothered me because of its patent on fairness and the fact that a country to be a country to be a nation to be a nation state and sovereign you need three things you need borders language and culture to be a successful nation anyway and we're just ignoring the border and then you know the left also wants to focus on well we want to be multilingual and I mean you see it with the ballots to vote I couldn't believe that I remember the first time I voted in texas the ballot was in english and spanish and I thought to myself immediately why to be to be able to vote you need to be a citizen and there's two ways to be a citizen either you're born here which means you're going to be fluent in english or you naturally you're naturalized here which one of the requirements allegedly is that you're fluent in english so why in the world would you need a ballot in any other language and when I looked into this is when I was a state rep and I looked into the provisions and some of the exceptions there you're supposed to be fluent in english to become an american citizen there are provisions if you've been here if you're a certain age or if you've been here for 20 years and still can't speak and all this weird stuff it should simply be if you want to be a citizen I’m not saying legal status that's different but citizen you have to be fluent in english that's not racist english isn't a ethnicity it is a language okay they don't get that there are more non-white people speaking english in this world than there are europeans so take a breath and move on down the line it's a practical thing I mean look at canada case in point quebec they've had two referendums that barely failed to separate from canada because they don't share a language they're all mostly the folks that are living they're from europe but it's french-speaking versus english-speaking we need to all speak when we so anyhow then when president trump really brought to the forefront and saying that we need a merit-based lottery system or a immigration system and we have to get rid of the lottery system rather I said amen I’ve been talking about this for years and now the president united states talking about it finally this is great and I said you know if I ever got the congress is one of the bills that I want to file is to reform the system

Preston:
no and that's a great point and I think that this is really a great step in that direction of transitioning to a merit-based system and that's something that you know I know we at fair have been parking on for years for decades is that you know the united states a developed modern western country we have an immigration system that is so different from other countries that are like us in the world you know you look at australia the united kingdom canada even they all have points based merit-based immigration systems that take into account your skills what you can contribute whether you speak the language at a fluent level and I think one of the first ways to really start getting to where we can begin that process is by making these really needed tweaks to current law and I think eliminating the visa lottery is a is a great step in that direction

Rep. Fallon:
if I could quickly interject think about this let's just let's reverse things let's say you or I were going to move to mexico and we're gonna live the rest of our lives there for a good portion 20-30 years it would be insane not to learn spanish you will not function at the level you need to enjoy prosperity if you wanted to move to mexico and immigrate there and not be a spanish speaker it's just insane it's no different than anywhere else if you moved to japan and you can't speak japanese you're not going to function in that country that's all we're saying here it just so happens that english is our you know our common tongue so let's just recognize reality and not live in some world like the liberals where there are unicorns in your backyard and mermaids in your swimming pool this is ridiculous

Prston:
no that's absolutely right and to move to a second point a second question I wanted to ask you that really speaks to the liberal mind you know we've seen vice president kamala harris talk about the root causes of illegal immigration and you know she's been focused on crime and conditions in central and south america you know claiming that these are the root causes that are bringing people to the united states and that's been her bread and butter as you know the border czar that has done nothing to actually solve the problem so I wanted to get your take on this you know do you think that is truly the root cause of the border crisis or is it something else

Rep. Fallon:
well she said one of the claims she made our esteemed border czar that's been to the border once I went to el paso where there isn't the issues that we face you know the challenges people aren't really crossing there but me that isn't me she said one of the root causes is climate change now I’m going to agree with the vice president it is the climate that changed at 1600 pennsylvania avenue on the 20th of january 2021 that's the only climate change the statistics and the data show that president trump took what was a flood of illegal migrants and reduced it to a trickle and then as soon as he left office joe biden opened up the taps again and it became a flood a flood incidentally of historic proportions being that it's the first time in our history we have seen 11 months in a row with at least 150,000 illegal border crossings each month it's the first time in our history where we've seen 2 million illegal border crossings in a calendar year never seen it before we've seized nearly 11,000 pounds of fentanyl on the mexican border which is enough to kill every american eight times over and nearly two hundred thousand pounds of methamphetamine just on the border I’m not talking inland seizures or at the ports just on the mexican border the drug cartels are making wild profits estimates are 30 billion a year of gdp which is the size of a small nation state like latvia or estonia and they're controlling our southern border this is it's obscene and the thing is the mainstream media doesn't want you me and the american people to know the truth that mexico is a failed narco state and if journalists in mexico report on drug cartel activities it's very likely that they'll be murdered within 24 hours maybe along with their families so there's not a lot of talk about what the drug cartels are doing in mexico and it is a dereliction of duty that the american press doesn't speak out that hollywood hasn't made movies about what's really going on because they don't want you to know

Preston:
no that's exactly right and like you said there was a change and it was when president biden assumed office and we saw this we saw when new caravans began that year and they were wearing t-shirts that said biden let us in because they you know they were thinking rationally and they had been listening to the previous you know year of biden campaigning saying he was going to amnesty every illegal alien in the united states he was going to give citizenship to all these people and you know that has consequences and you know for him for him and for his vice president to now sit on their hands and look at what's going on and say well you know it's okay it's okay it'll get better you know this is you know for all these reasons that we can fix it's it's really shocking stuff and so this kind of leads to my next question for you which if republicans are able to retake the house after these midterms how would you and your colleagues be able to put pressure on the biden administration to take the border crisis seriously

Rep. Fallon:
well you know the first thing you do is because people I understand the pessimism and the skepticism of folks here in texas and around the country will things ever change dc's broken are there really differences between republicans democrats you don't seem to get anything done why didn't you build the border wall when you had the house and the senate and the presidency which is something that I passed which is one of the reasons I ran for congress because I wasn't here at the time so I get that but one of the things like for instance this bill it might be the alien act we should pass this out of the house put pressure on the senate which will hopefully and most likely be controlled by republicans to also pass it and then get it on biden's desk and make it make him veto it make it a campaign issue to take back the white house that i'm perfectly fine with that a lot of the time in the legislative process you have to accept failure because then you can succeed I can point out to you preston instance after instance the eight years I was in the texas legislature of bills that failed in one legislature but then passed in a subsequent legislature because you just need to build up that support and that groundswell momentum to get the folks that are in charge to say you know what our folks may abandon us if we don't get this done and then put it you know put a pressure on we did that I’ll give you a quick example we did in the ndaa the national defense authorization act I filed an amendment that said it was a one-page amendment that simply said that the border crisis and the border security is a national security issue and it outlined a few other things now we had 31 democrats on that committee and 28 republicans so I really did expect it to fail but it put pressure on some of those democrats that are in purple districts or districts that president trump carried and blown behold we won the day 33 votes to 26 because five democrats actually voted with us because they're afraid to face their electorate so we need to pass really good policy really good legislation that will also put the heat on some of those democrats many of them considering right now the generic polling shows that republicans have an historic lead right now I think it's plus 13 percent the latest rasmussen poll so democrats is the closer we get to november I think some of them are finally going to start abandoning closely they haven't done it quite yet because they need her money and they need because she rules with an iron fist and she directs those funds and she tells him oh you think this is going to be a tough vote imagine how tough it's going to be run a free election with no money so they buckled to her but as that as that reliance on funding decreases and november gets closer and closer it'll be fascinating to see the votes because it's only a nine vote majority so you know we flipped five democrats we win the day

Preston:
yeah that's that is a great point well you know congressman we know you're very busy we appreciate you coming on the podcast before we let you go I want to give you an opportunity to let our listeners know where they can find you on social media you know your websites anything that you want to say before we let you go

Rep. Fallon:
no thank you preston and thanks for having me on I really do appreciate you guys are doing wonderful work and we just gotta try to make all these great ideas become policy you know be to become laws and that's where working together with you and your folks has been just a joy you can find us on our official page which is rep pat fallon on facebook and twitter and then my campaign page is fallon for congress or sorry fallon for texas on facebook and then our website is fallonforcongress.com my personal facebook page is patrick fallon and I welcome any and all comments we've had 30 in-person town halls we call them no holds bar town halls you can ask any question and I’ll answer it and it's great when liberals come because they think they're going to get you they actually ask questions that I really like to talk about and address so it's a lot of fun and we want to continue to do that and quite frankly I think that to close conservative populism can save this country we all never we have to always remember and never forget who we work for which is our constituents

Preston:
fantastic well congressman again thank you for coming on it's been an absolute pleasure and keep fighting the good fight

Rep. Fallon:
thanks preston god bless take care

Preston:
well I hope that you enjoyed today's episode with congressman pat fallon we had a great conversation about his new bill the alien act and on the current border crisis to learn more about fair we encourage you to visit our website fairus.org as well as our social media channels on facebook and on twitter @FAIRImmigration this podcast is available on all streaming platforms including spotify and apple podcasts and we really encourage you to subscribe and leave us a review if you can that really helps us out and we greatly appreciate it and until next time this has been the understanding immigration podcast presented by fair