The border was the main focus of the last election.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. What’s going on in our country? Which way is our country going? Donald Trump? President Trump has looks actually has taken command of the situation. And to get some good comments, we have the former head of Homeland Security, Jay Johnson, and he was the head of Security from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen. Well, Jay, give us your evaluation.

0:32 Are we finally going in the right direction or you give us your evaluation?

0:38 Speaker 2 Well, first, John, thank you so much for having me on your show. This is an incredible honor for me, given that I grew up on WABC radio in the nineteen sixties and early seventies. It was all I listened to.

0:53 It’s how my year for music was developed. And so if you told me then that I have one day be interviewed on w ABC, I wouldn’t have believed it.

1:03 Speaker 1 So well, you’ve come a long way from being born in Queens.

1:10 Speaker 2 Yep and listening to cousin Brucey and Harry Harrison, and you know, just to digress a minute. The great thing about w ABC, it was top ten. No matter who was in the top ten, whether it was Elton John or Smokey Robinson or the Beatles, and so it was truly integrated, diverse music, and that was how my ear

1:34 for music was developed.

1:36 Speaker 1 The first thing I the first thing I did when I bought w ABC is a hired cousin Brucey to bring back the music from the old days.

1:45 Speaker 2 Well, I’ve got to listen more. So let me let me tackle your question. I you know, I’m a patriot. So with every new administration, no matter who it is, whether it’s Barack Obama, who I worked for, or Donald Trump, I wish that that president will take our country in the right direction. We have a number of long term,

2:19 underlying systemic problems that must be addressed. This president is very, very focused on the southern border and immigration enforcement. I believe on that subject, having owned the responsibility for our immigration law border enforcement for thirty seven months, that border security is a valid government objective. Americans are entitled to believe that the most powerful country on Earth can secure

2:55 its own perimeter. There are ways to do that, there are smart ways to do that. I believe that we can and we should secure our border, but we should do so in a fair and humane way. When I was in office as Secretary of DHS, I probably visited the seven border at least twelve fourteen times. I’ve looked

3:20 into the eyes of these children coming from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, who are starving with their mothers, desperate for a better life in America. And I’ve known undocumented immigrants in this country who’ve lived here for years, who’ve basically become date back to Americans. So we can secure our border.

3:45 We should secure our border, give people who have been here for years, for decades, an opportunity to get on the books, pay taxes, get a job, committed no crimes. So there’s several things they can true at once about our immigration enforcement. And I hope that this president sees that.

4:08 Speaker 1 Well. I was. I was one of the heads of Ellis Island with Bill Fages and Le Coca, and I believe in immigration, but I don’t believe in invasion. And the problem in the last few years it seems like maybe, you know, because I don’t know who pressed the button to allow criminals, drug addicts and murderism.

4:35 Speaker 2 Well, and that’s a real problem. And because I.

4:40 Speaker 1 Love them, I’m an immigrant, I love America.

4:45 Speaker 2 Well, look, I have immigrant ancestors. Uh, the the it will be critical in my judgment for Ice Enforcement and Removal Up, which Tom Holman used to head when he works for me. It will be critical that they work effectively with local law enforcement because a lot of these guys that you just referred to are already sitting in

5:12 our jails in cities and states and counties, and therefore that requires an effective working relationship between the two systems, which you can’t have is each other accusing to work with each other.

5:30 Speaker 1 Jay, you still live in New York.

5:33 Speaker 2 I live in New Jersey now right offside of New York.

5:36 Speaker 1 I live in New York. And those criminals have been on the streets and they’re not in jails, because some of them have been arrested twenty times, thirty times, forty times, and it’s still in the streets in New York, hurting the American hurting New York as whose are people.

5:50 Speaker 2 Well, that’s true, whether they’re undocumented immigrants or whether they’re American.

5:54 Speaker 1 Citizens, That’s absolutely true.

5:58 Speaker 2 That’s a big problem.

6:00 Speaker 1 When I met with President Trump.

6:01 Speaker 2 The criminal justice system in New York.

6:04 Speaker 1 When I met with President Trump a few months ago, just before you got elected, I suggested to him, and I think everybody has agreed, and the President Trump acknowledged what I said, let’s get rid of the let’s to port the criminals, the murderers, and the people that came out of jails in Venezuela and ended up on our streets.

6:28 And I think that’s what they’re doing now, is deporting the criminals, not necessarily deporting regular immigrants.

6:36 Speaker 2 Well, in any immigration enforcement regimes, you have to have priorities. That was certainly the case when I was in office. The top priorities were criminals and recent vorder crossers. You have to have priorities. You can’t just go about a mass deportationed effort irrespective of the character of the person you’re trying to deport. The other point I’ll make here

7:03 is if you’re dealing with if you’re dealing with a murderer, I’d want to see that person go through our criminal justice system, uh be convicted of the offense, serve his time in prison for for years, if not decades, and then the moment the sentence is complete, you send it back to wherever he came from. I don’t believe that

7:28 if someone is simply arrested for murder, they then get handed over to ice and then pushed back over the border into Mexico. We could return again. I want to see that person in jail for years for the offense from which he’s that he’s committed.

7:43 Speaker 1 But under some of our blue states, like New York, they end up on streets and they again, and then nobody’s going to jail.

7:53 Speaker 2 Well again, that’s the problem with our own system. We don’t have enough. We don’t have enough detention capability. People have been released after their fifteenth defense here. And that’s true whether you’re from Honduras or whether you’re from Brooklyn.

8:08 So that’s an underlying problem that needs to be addressed at the state and local level. In my judgment, I see it all the time, John, I write the subways, I’m going to train stations every day.

8:20 Speaker 1 Well, we’re running over time. But I want to have additional discussions with you. Well, if you were standing in the Oval Office right now and whispering into President Trump’s yeah, what would you say to him?

8:37 Speaker 2 I’d say, mister President, congratulations on your victory. You’re historic on parallel victory. My advice would be to now that you have your base locked up, try to move to the center a bit, bring in some Democrats, and lead this country through historic pockable systemic change. The great presidents in our time have done that. I think you know

9:05 who I’m talking about, yes, And you know I’m thinking about people like Reagan, for example, And so.

9:13 Speaker 1 I think presidents are holding me better than.

9:16 Speaker 2 Reagan in the center on certain issues.

9:17 Speaker 1 Yes. Well. Jay Johnson, a former head of Homeland Security twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, thank you for coming on this Sunday morning, and I look forward to having many more discussions.

9:34 Speaker 2 With you my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you