US/Mexico Border With Arizona Sheriff - What’s It Like Now? 🇺🇸🇲🇽

0:54 [country music] [Sheriff] Trivette! -Welcome back! -[Peter laughs] [Peter] Round two. Round number two. I was looking at the video we posted. It was just over two years. Like two years and two months ago. -A lot of changes that have happened here lately. Let me put on my seat belt. We wouldn't want to break the law. [chuckling] The main thing is I don't have people dying in the desert right now. -Nobody's dying out there? We haven't had any calls for people that were abandoned and left in the desert or people that we've had to go out and recover because they died on that trek across the desert. So to me that's a win-win. [Peter] And as a refresher from last video 140 countries crossing.

1:39 You're getting the world here. Yuma sector is known for that. Getting Russians, Middle Easterners, getting Indians. We saw the Indians last time. -Yeah. -Right? Out of the desert. Hospitals, the family advocacy centers, the mission, they were all impacted with all of that. So now their focus is turned back to the community. The folks that need it here locally. And the food. 90% of the leafy greens for the whole United States comes from Yuma during the winter. Lettuce, celery, you name it. Those individuals were going into those fields and defecating and the trash was being left there. As a farmer, because of food safety it's now contaminated. They just have to plow it under.

2:26 That was the only thing that got the former administration to come down and actually do something to protect the farmers and the food. Because it's all about food safety. -Okay so that's what it came down to. So this white looking wall, that's a Biden wall. -That's Biden. -Interesting. -That's what a lot of people don't understand is like yeah, he put up fencing too. Unfortunately what I couldn't figure out is we already had the fencing laying there. But instead of utilizing what was already purchased and laying on the ground they come up with this different design. -'Cause I've seen them saw through these. We saw that last time. -Yeah but each one is filled with concrete. They can cut the metal but they still have to chip out the concrete which slows them down.

3:12 This would be a little bit different. You just cut through it with the saw. The other side is the Colorado River and then across the road where all the houses are, that's Mexico. -So a couple of years ago these parts of the fence were open. The brown parts were up and you had these big open sections. And for those that want to see the sheriff and I did one of my favorite videos all time. -Sheriff, it was with you. It was awesome. -It was good. I'll make sure I put that link below this video. But it was chaotic. -It was wild. -It was. We actually had the sheriff, I think it was up here where you chased someone back into the river. Yeah and Border Patrol apprehended another one over here in the field. -Right, right. So first impression, bit of a different vibe this time. -Different vibe. Fact is you'll see a lot more Border Patrol agents

3:59 compared to last time when we were out here too. -[man] What's up bud? -[Sheriff] What are you doing? -Living the dream huh? -That's right. -I was lost for words there. -[laughter] How are you guys doing? -Good. -Good. This is Peter. How are you doing sir? -He's a good guy. -Okay. Sir, how are things these days out here? -Better. -Able to be in the field. -Yeah. Well you know how it is. Oh yeah. -All it takes is changing the administration to make things happen. Yeah you really didn't need Congress to act after all did they? -Yeah, well. I can say that. -Yeah I can't say too much more. -[laughter] I get it. That's why I'm with the sheriff not you. No disrespect. These guys say everything.

4:45 -You guys have a good day. -You too. Bye buddy. Stay safe. I know I've mentioned this in past videos but the beauty of American law enforcement with the sheriff's departments is you guys can speak openly. And you were the spokespeople for this whole situation during the last four years. Yeah. -You can't get in with those guys. -No. You can't get with any DHS guys. No. There's no police department you can talk to. No. So there was a… for some they said a gag order on some departments right? Basically it was a gag order. I mean they're told basically that if you get any inquiries from the media that you need to get it approved first. Ascertain what the questions are and then they will give you

5:30 what your response should be. So see this? All this fencing was still sitting here when the other administration built that new section. I don't know how much that cost but to have all this sitting there at that time it would have made more sense to me to use what you already spent taxpayer money on. [Peter] Yeah. And what gets misrepresented at times with border content is… -…it's an anti-immigrant look at things. -No. The average American, I'm all over this country, most Americans are all for legal immigration. Absolutely. I'm saying 90 plus percent are all down with legal immigration. It was the chaotic illegal immigration that flooded cities, that made it a huge problem here. That made it so women couldn't go give birth at the local hospital.

6:18 All the trickle down and then the money involved obviously in topics like agriculture where it's like this does not make sense. -It doesn't. -This is chaos. This was not even humanitarian what was happening. I mean we were out here trying to make sure people didn't die, you know? And weren't victimized along the way and that was the messaging we was trying to get out. No, don't make that trek here because your kids are going to be violated. You possibly could get violated. You're gonna be robbed. The criminal element is waiting to prey on them folks. -We're going to go where the cartel was putting people under the bridge. But before we get there what's that situation? Obviously you're not on the Mexican side but they're moving less product, as in people.

7:05 So are they getting hit financially pretty hard? They're getting hit financially and they're trying to do… So like Cochise County where they had… They were recruiting juveniles on social media to come down, pick up groups of individuals, pay them a certain amount of money. I think it was minimum of $500 per person to pick them up to take them into the large cities. We're starting to see a little bit of that here. But fortunately with Border Patrol now being out in the field they're able to catch them before we end up with all the pursuits and stuff like Cochise County was having. So Border Patrol Human Sector just had that experience here recently with a juvenile that went down by the border

7:50 was picking up a group and they ended up arresting that juvenile. Most of the time the attorney wouldn't charge a juvenile for doing that type of activity but now that the policies have changed it doesn't matter whether you're an adult or a juvenile. If you get caught smuggling people or narcotics you're gonna get charged. We're still getting the smuggling of individuals through the remote desert and that's kind of what we equated to the gotaways last time that you and I were out there was Border Patrol was so tied up with dealing with the give-ups that they couldn't go out and try to track down the individuals being smuggled through the remote part of our desert. And that's where unfortunately the people are dying. So now with Border Patrol out there they're actually intercepting

8:40 those smugglers and apprehending them and prosecuting them as well. Okay. Yeah. And so it is a bit complicated for people that aren't down here dealing with this every day. But you had the give-ups. They would come across the border and be processed by Customs and Border Protection and absorbed into the interior of the country. Correct. And so buses, planes, a lot went to New York, Chicago, California. -Wisconsin. -Those places. So what was happening guys, is the migrants were coming over and actually giving themselves up, wanting to be caught. -Right. -Because they were in. -They all claimed asylum. -Right. Nobody knows for sure but all the research I've done, all the people I know that know this topic very well said

9:27 1 in 10 were legitimate asylum claims. And we've heard that from not only the previous administration but this one. -Okay. -So that number is confirmed. -1 in 10 was legitimate. -Right. So most were economic migrants saying, "I live in Honduras. I'm making $6,000 a year. I can live in America and make $38,000 a year. Why am I not going to do this? If I just walk over the border they take me in." So it was an incentive to come here. And then the gotaways are the ones that know they will be sent back because they have a criminal record, right? There was an other than Mexico policy. -Mexicans couldn't just come over. -Correct. And absorb into the country. They were sent back. They were sent back. They were repatriated. -Repatriated, yeah. -Yeah.

10:12 There's sort of two groups, the gotaways and the give-ups. And now the give-ups, that door's been closed. The cartel can't set them up at a gap in the wall up here and we're going to take them in. They're getting repatriated immediately. -Right? Okay. -Yeah. It's complicated and so it gets pulled apart. Whatever side someone's on the information gets cherry picked. -And then you make your case. -Right. And the story we're not getting today is the migrant story. We're not meeting up with a migrant. And there's a perspective on that story too. Well all the ones that I talked to whenever we would run into them down here the majority of the folks that were coming here, when you talk to them they weren't fleeing violence.

10:59 They wanted a better way of life and to be able to make money to help their families out back home. And that is not a legitimate asylum claim. -Yeah. And that's what they wanted was to come here. They knew it was an open door because once one person comes across if they're able to do that and they see there's no consequence and then you're given a plane ticket to go to wherever you want to go in the US that word travels fast. Now if you were from Mexico and you were caught you'd be sent back right away. That's why we were picking up a lot of the passports and the identification cards last time is because those individuals had already left the country of violence

11:46 and Mexico was allowing them to live and work in Mexico. So if that individual, no matter what country they were from actually possessed that identification when they were a give-up here they would have been sent back into Mexico as well. Because they've already fled that country of violence and they were allowed to live and work in Mexico. So that's why they were given a different name different date of birth when they were a give up so that they couldn't be tracked down and be sent back. So a lot of it was financial. There are some down here that we did see you know, that had legitimate concerns. And those are the ones that needed to go to the port of entry

12:34 to do that paperwork right then and there. -So we're actually meeting up up here a guy that was in Customs Border Protection but retired. -Hector's going to meet us right here. Remember we had the cover here, the dumpsters. -That's right. -That's all gone now. Because there is no more… really that much activity. So yeah all this has changed. The foot traffic for give ups was right here. -Right. So they're just coming over from Mexico? -Yep. -Through Native lands? The Natives, they won't allow a wall to be built? Is that what's going on? So when you look at tribes you have to understand that with Tribal land it's sacred land to our Tribal nations in Arizona

13:19 and I'm sure throughout the whole of the United States and everywhere. Cocopah is a river tribe. So having access to that easily is part of that Tribal nation's history. So the federal government, the Border Patrol, obviously works with the tribe to try to stop some of this activity because it impacts their lands too. The amount of litter and garbage that was being dumped along the river is not good for the tribe nor the wildlife in this area. -Yeah. It's cleaned up a lot here. -It has and a lot of it had to do with I would say pressure because we had exposed what was going on here to media outlets. A lot of the nonprofits actually came down here and cleaned up all the trash. But you also had all the litter down here and all the pharmaceuticals

14:08 that were being dumped down here along the riverway. Well this is where a lot of wildlife is. So you don't need pharmaceuticals from all over the world being dumped on the ground. And look at this compared to last time. Last time there were all those IDs in the dirt, the money, the Euros. Oh yeah. Money was blowing towards us. And I mentioned the fact that I had not seen any money from Russia. We had two people, one from back East, and one from California. Sent me Russian rubles. So thank you for sending me some Russian rubles to add to that. -You have a money collection? -[laughing] Yeah. No kidding. So how does this make you feel as someone that lives here? You've been a sheriff for a long time here. What are your feelings right now? Well it's nice to see that law enforcement

14:54 can get back to doing what they need to do to improve the quality of life for the people we serve and not have to try to battle this problem as well along the border. Which that's not part of our responsibility, immigration. That's the federal government's responsibility. They said it. The judges have said it. The judges don't even allow us to even enforce any of that. All the way up to United States Supreme Court says anything to do with immigration, federal government's responsibility, not local law enforcement, you're not allowed to do it. -But you-- -We have to curb the criminal side of it. So the rapes, the robberies, the homicides, the assaults, not only on the individuals that were coming here but on border patrol agents. We would end up taking those cases. The deaths in the desert, those investigations.

15:40 Working with other countries to get the victim back to that family that's back there in whatever country that was where they were from. My county's 5,500 square miles. I've got 95 deputies to patrol that. -Right. So when you add on this added amount of work onto whatever. You're already full caseload. That's strains your law enforcement. When the new administration came in did it just change in one day or how was that? Because of… So you've got to look at the messaging. And that's something that we talked about before is the messaging. Finally important. So everybody, cartels, everybody throughout the world

16:26 was hearing what Trump was saying was going to happen if he got elected. Once he got elected and he said he was going to secure the border and there were gonna be consequences, it stopped. Right. It's as simple as someone gets across and they talk to their cousin down in Honduras and be like here are the steps, you go to A-B-C, you get over, it's super easy, it's great here. I got a job day one, getting some free stuff too. Healthcare is awesome. And then why wouldn't you? [snaps] The incentive is there. Keep coming. Is it super frustrating for you that it was really that easy? Like you guys had to endure some chaos for four years. Oh very frustrating because it's hard for us in law enforcement that we know what works and what doesn't work.

17:14 When I get asked all the time about what's the harm. Well how many do you let across? And what's the threshold that this country can afford? I mean you looked at it. The numbers were they had spent in one year roughly $246 billion on welfare and assistance to all the immigrants that they let across in one year. Now when you put it on a local perspective for Yuma, so border patrol had to put up tents to be able to house them. Those tents had to contain not only a place for them to sleep but it also had to have a laundry facility. It also had to have a cafeteria so they could cook the food for everybody.

18:00 And they also had to have storage to be able to outfit them with clothing. So border patrol was spending tax dollars buying anything from baby food and diapers on up to clothing for adults for them to wear. Now when they looked at the contract price just here in Yuma we were one of seven locations along the border that border patrol had to have these tent facilities right? Those tents, each tent was half a million dollars a day. Taxpayer funded for that tent. -Wait how is a tent half a million dollars a day? Because it's through a contractor. And that contractor has to provide the employees to be able to maintain that tent and the facilities within it

18:48 as well as all the other intricacies. -How many people under a tent? -You'd have to ask Hector on that. -Okay. That's wild. When you think about it, when they were apprehending almost 1,500 individuals a day that tent had to hold all those people and the kids. Now unaccompanied kids, that's even worse because you have to have them out of sight and sound and housed separately from the adults right? So half a million dollars a day per tent. They had I believe five tents here in Yuma sector. And because the electrical grid at border patrol could not handle the power that was needed to run those they had to run that facility on generators.

19:34 Which was over $100,000 a week in diesel fuel. [Peter laughing] It doesn't end. So when you look at all these numbers we don't spend that kind of money for our veterans. And why not? Three years. Well you didn't get the memo? We're flush with money. We're doing so well with our budget that we have excess funds to spend on anything. I don't know. We do line item budgets every year. I'm not seeing any of that. [laughter] [Sheriff] And for your listeners, I know they're probably wondering why a sheriff is driving a Raptor. -Yeah, I saw a lot in the comments about that. Yeah. So to give you the history behind this, when all this was started

20:21 that truck was donated to the sheriff's office for a program. And he also donated to Cochise County Sheriff's Office. -Okay. Because DHS back then, this was under the prior administration before Biden. So that was donated back in 2017. And DHS was actually bringing folks down to the border to tour it to see what the actuality was. And these were people from back East. Either sheriffs, elected officials. So that truck was donated to be able to do what we call borders in your backyard. -Okay. And it was to educate other sheriffs and other electeds on what the reality of the border was so they could actually see it in person. And then take that back to their communities

21:08 throughout the United States. So the sheriff's office didn't buy that. It was donated. Okay. That's good to clarify. Because people are like a $90,000 truck so you guys are flush with money. Yeah. Well actually the first generation Raptors when they came out we actually purchased some on a grant because my guys are out in the desert all the time. And a regular four-wheel drive gets tore up where these don't. Under state contract that Raptor, the first generations were only $34,000 under state contract. -Oh okay. -We can't touch that now. So you don't see any brand new Raptors at my agency because they're just out of boundary for us. But as you can tell that one's got 112,000 miles on it and it's been out doing the borders in your backyard.

21:54 -Sheriff, scale 1 to 10, how much do you love your Raptor? That's a 10, so… [laughs] -And that thing is-- -We don't frivolously spend money and you can tell. It's got desert pinstriping all over it. That thing's the boss though on these washboards. We just flew over them like they were nothing. It's like when I have to send my troops out there and it's 120 degrees ambient temperature and the ground is like 140 degrees, I want my guys to be able to get out there and also get back. And I want something that's gonna be reliable for my personnel to go out there and do that job that they need to do. So there is no amount of money that you can put on the safety of people that are going out there and serving that area you know? [Peter] This video is sponsored by Ground News.

22:41 If you're watching my content then you realize the world is a very complicated place. You're here to learn with an open mind. Unfortunately in 2025 all media has a bias. Every journal has an angle. One way to parse through this problem is with an app and website I've been using called Ground News. The feature I love the most about Ground News is its Blind Spot feature. It allows you to flip from news source to news source and see how the same story is covered in a completely different way exposing the political bias of a news publication. For example the headline, "Federal Regulations Cost Average American Household $16,000 a Year" is mostly being covered by the Right and Center. Left-leaning journals are hardly covering this story. "Media and US CEO pay hits record $16.8 million on soaring stock awards."

23:30 This received no coverage from the Right making it a blind spot for those readers. Use Ground News to get all sides of every story. Be better informed with access to a vast amount of worldwide sources in one place. And see who owns what media. And follow the trail of where the money is coming from. If you like my content I think you'll like Ground News too. Go to groundnews.com/peter to check it out. Subscribe through my link down below in the description to get 40% off unlimited access. Now back to the story. [Hector] …get in the shot. [Sheriff] You gotta be in the shot. [laughs] [Hector] I need the director to tell me when. -Oh. [makes whip cracking sound] [Peter] Sheriff's a pro at this. He is the new director. [laughter]

24:16 Let's see if he does a Border Patrol jump or walk around like I did. -Oh he's gonna-- -He knows what he's doing. That's how I got hurt actually once. -Doing this. -Oh, is that right? -[Peter] How you doing Hector? -How's it going guys? Thanks for meeting up. No problem. It's great meeting you. What's up man? It's a very rare… Well at least for me I haven't had any luck getting through with Customs and Border Protection people. Definitely not on the job but you're recently retired so you can speak openly. -Is that what that is? -Absolutely. Okay, cool. Sheriff, I hate to do this to you but I got to take the kitty from you. Un-mic me, I'll go in the background. -Get a break from me? -Yeah. We can walk this way Hector. Does that work?

25:02 'Cause that's in the shade. -Absolutely. Yeah. -All right. Sheriff, we come back in a couple of minutes? -You take your time. -All right. It's been a while since the last time I was here. I worked for 23 years. -Oh wow. I started out in Texas, Eagle Pass Station. Shout out to my Eagle Pass people. And in 2005 I transferred here when it started getting really really busy down here. I retired in 2021 with 23 years. My plan was to go 25. -Okay. -But I just couldn't do it. I mean it took less than a year for me to realize that I wasn't being… I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. I wasn't fulfilling my obligations as, you know, when I swore my oath.

25:52 And yeah we started… I couldn't take it. I mean truly I believe that we went from being an enforcement agency to being part of a smuggling organization. -Really? -Yeah. And I wasn't going to be part of it. And I feel bad for the people that didn't have the opportunity just to leave like I did 'cause they still have years to go before they can retire. I would have been a lifer. They would have had to drag me from the station at 57 years old which I'm now you know? I ran a shift. I was a watch commander. When I first started I would put 40, 50 guys on the field. And then it started getting smaller, the amount of people that I could put in. At the height of the mass migration that we saw,

26:41 we called it a skeleton crew. Which was the bare minimum. I'm talking two people here, two people there, just to say that we have some type of coverage. Because everybody was inside processing. -Okay. -Yeah. So all your resources went to processing not to securing? Mm-hmm. Okay. So watch commander, say you have 50 guys. How many of those 50 do you think were for the policies of that time? Was anyone for them? -None of them. Nobody. -Nobody? -Oh no. Oh no. Nobody. -Okay. And I mean and that brings another issue another subject. You have four years of guys not being properly trained in field. So that takes a toll on Border Patrol operations and Border Patrol culture.

27:30 You're a trainee. You have your journeyman. He takes you out, he shows you around, he shows you how to work traffic. But when all you know as a Border Patrol agent, all you know is to sit around at the station, wait for the next call of hey we have 100 people waiting down in San Luis. I mean these people are not there to run. They're not… They're just waiting to get picked up. Yeah, I saw. So I shot that video a little over two years ago here. We were way out in the desert, the sheriff and I and there was this Indian family out there looking like they just got out of the shopping mall because they probably did. From my understanding they flew Delhi, Mexico City, Mexico City, Mexicali.

28:19 Cartel arranged their ride to the gap in the fence. Where there was a gap. Sent them on their way to the American side. Gave them a phone. Said call 911 when you get there. Our Customs Border Protection came in with a helicopter and all the resources, processed them. Then a quarter mile down or a half mile down is when the dirty stuff goes through, the sex trafficking, the fentanyl, the highly illegal stuff that's going to be sent back right? Is that how that game was played? Yeah that is how it's played. If they're going to give up why in the middle of nowhere? Because they want to draw resources over to that side. -Right, right, right. -You know? So we were way out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah I saw the video. I remember it. Oh yeah, yeah.

29:04 I mean you guys were by Monument 198. -That's way out there. -Yeah. So draw resources from the urban closer where it's a quick jump and they're into houses. They don't want you close to that. They want you out there. So you can't respond to what's going on in the urban areas. Okay. So did you guys when you were working, right before you retired, did you feel like you just had no control of the border? I mean definitely not. Definitely not. You know, 'cause you're supposed to dictate the operations. Operations were being dictated by the illegal aliens. I'm the watch commander. I tell my guys you're gonna be here, here, and here. But I couldn't do that as a watch commander

29:52 because they would do their thing and operations had to move wherever they went. So they were dictating our operations. Which is crazy and one of the big reasons why I said I can't do this anymore. [Peter] During that time I got a call in from the United Cajun Navy to go down to the border in Texas. -And that was four years ago right? -Okay. And I, as your average American, -I had no clue what was going on. -Right. -Or understanding of the border at all. -Right. [Peter] So what's the why? I'll preface this real quickly here. I saw in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, Mon Valley, a lot of Haitians there. I think it was chicken. It might be chicken or something else.

30:40 They need workers really bad. South Florida, sugar, big sugar needs cheap labor. So it's not just the types that are like, "We need no borders in this world. Everyone is human. Nations don't mean anything." It's actually big business interests too. So it's coming from both sides from what I've seen. Right. Why do you think that the policy was the way it was for those four years? [scoffs] I mean first of all I think that the whole thing was done purposely. I don't think this was a fluke or incompetence of Mr. Mayorkas. -They're not that stupid right? -No they're not. I'm sorry. You know like you don't get to those positions by being stupid.

31:25 This was a concerted effort, my opinion, not Border Patrol. I don't even work for Border Patrol anymore but it was a concerted effort to… I mean when he was candidate, President Biden said it. "This is what I want." you know? And it happened, you know? And it's as far as the… You mentioned the American people. I have to apologize to the American people on behalf of Border Patrol when I was in there because when I saw your video with the sheriff two years ago I remember him talking about the possible things that could happen. I remember him saying something specifically like, "This is going to your town." Yeah. And then you have the Laken Rileys.

32:11 And then you have all this all this crime. And I hate when I hear people, "Well not all illegal aliens are…" you know, "Most crime is committed by US citizens." Okay I understand that. But we have US citizens committing crime. Do we need to import more? I mean is that even… does that make sense? -Right, right. So any type of crime committed by a person that shouldn't be here in the first place is outrageous. Yeah. -That's a crime that's allowed. -Especially when he was let go. Yeah. It's criminal in so many ways. You know I would like to say though the vast majority of people coming here they're getting into restaurants, landscaping.

32:57 -Yes. Absolutely. -House cleaning. And they're good people that want a better life. Absolutely. But when you hit such scale… When I have millions of people watching a video you're getting all types. I can be called everything even though the vast majority love the video. 99% say, "Great video, that was awesome, I learned something." 1% of a million is a lot of people. 1% of 10 million, wow, now we're talking numbers. -Right? -Exactly. And so I think that gets misrepresented too. Like yeah, the average person wants a better life. Okay. Got it. But at scale you're getting a lot of riffraff in. -That's just the way it is unfortunately. -That's just the way it is. It's the nature of the beast. One of the most beautiful things that I remember seeing

33:42 when I was in the field was whenever I worked midnights in San Luis Arizona we have that port of entry there and every morning at 4:00 AM during crop season it was droves and droves of people coming in legally to come work. -It can be done. You know? -Yeah. They come in legally, they work, and kudos to them. I mean I love that they can come in and do that. It is just that when it's uncontrolled, unfettered like that, you can't control who comes in and you can't weed out the bad element. That's it. Yeah. I think 95 plus percentage of Americans are pro-immigration.

34:31 -Right. -And I always want to see people thrive. Most immigrants love America more than a lot of Americans. Some abuse it but some really love it and you want those A players that really love it. No matter if they're in kitchens or mowing lawns or the top brains of whatever field. You want to take the best right? From around the world. -That's the luxury we have as America. -Absolutely. I just don't understand if most Americans are on board with that why the federal government wouldn't set up a system for more work visas, more paths to citizenship. But that's with solid vetting. And that's a carrots and sticks approach. You commit a crime in the country then well we don't want you here. You know if it's a violent crime on an old lady you're bashing her head or something.

35:16 We don't want those people here if they're not citizens yet. But most Americans would be so on board with yeah, more immigrants. We have to figure out a number. That's the sticky part. How much do we want to immigrate a year? -But vet everyone properly. -Right. And it also gives the immigrants security knowing that they're here legally. And also they're not paying off a cartel. The cartel, right? A lot of these people… What people didn't get and for some of you that didn't see my earlier videos on the border no one just gets over the border right? How much were they paying to get here from say Honduras back in the day? Oh thousands. -It was like $6,000 I remember when I was here. Yeah about $6,000 and they enforce that.

36:03 You know you try to come in without going through them, you're in trouble. I mean you're going to get robbed. I mean you're going to get killed. -Yeah. -You know, by the cartels. So they control the border. they have what they call the plazas and each plaza has a plaza boss and they set the-- -What's the Plaza? Territory? Plaza's a territory. Yeah. -So Yuma sector, how many plazas? I don't know. Plazas are subdivisions of whatever cartel is the one dominant on the Mexican side. And the plazas are little subdivisions of that main cartel.

36:49 [Peter] All right so illegal crossings are down 93%. What do you think the cartel is now doing for money? I don't know. I think they have to go back to old drugs. We'll start seeing attempts again to do the… -Remember the tunnels and… -Smuggling. -Into the chicken place? -Into that KFC and… -Yeah. -Straight out of Breaking Bad. There's always games they play. You still got the drones that are bringing in the narcotics. They're GPS controlled. They can drop all that stuff at a certain location so… We're still gonna fight those fights but you're not having to deal with the humanitarian aspect of it here and all the stuff that Border Patrol agents had to deal with that was not part of their training at all.

37:37 -They didn't sign up for it? -No. Well they're law enforcement. I would equate it to a sheriff saying to the city police "I'm not going to hold your people in my jail no more." You're gonna have to hold them in your police station and put them through the process right? That's what they did with law enforcement for Border Patrol. They took them from being cops out on the street to being jailers and housing. Someone comes in from Liberia, Africa right? They have no identification when they come over. -They get processed in. -Mm-hmm. There's no background check happening. They can only take what they tell them verbally. Their name and their date of birth. And they can only try to do fingerprints

38:22 but if that country doesn't share their criminal history database or fingerprints they're going to come up clean because that country won't share that information with our law enforcement. -Right, Venezuela and the US don't have tight relationships politically. So you wouldn't think that that information would be going back quickly. So when we were told that everyone was being vetted when they were coming in that was BS right? -Yeah. Total BS. -[chuckling] 'Cause we saw the IDs in the dirt over there. Yeah. IDs were here. I've heard different takes on this but I thought say you're coming from Haiti right? And you go through Mexico first. Isn't it the first country you step foot in that you're supposed to claim asylum? -For a valid asylum claim. -For a valid asylum claim? Yeah. Yeah.

39:07 So obviously they want to come to the US not Mexico. No, it was never in their mind. The whole asylum thing is just gaming the system to make it all the way here. -And to stay here. -They're coached by the cartels. They're coached by people that have been let in on what the process is. What's faster, what's not faster during that whole period of time. So they were gaming the system to get in and the administration was allowing that to happen. Even though all those boots on the ground were saying stop this we were still concerned like we were under Obama about the kids. How do you really know that kid belongs to that person who's portraying themselves as a family unit? And under Obama they actually started doing DNA rapid right there

39:53 at Border Patrol but that stopped. Thanks for bringing that up. Hundreds of thousands of kids with no family were lost. Unaccompanied kids. And they were getting them here too and they would have to deal with that. -Absorbed in the interior, all parts of the country? They can't find them. They don't know where they went. There was no tracking. So whether it's 300, whether it's 10, it really doesn't matter. You lost that kid and that kid is being victimized somewhere. -And this turned totally political so depending on what media someone watches or reads they're not going to get any of that information. And I made these videos 'cause every American should know this. It's a problem and it shouldn't even have a political stripe to it.

40:39 It should be like people are dying… You know when we talked with Holman, the sheriff's team because we were concerned, "What's your plan? What's gonna happen?" And Holman met with us down there in Cochise County. And he mapped it out. He goes, "Look, we have already 1.5 million people that have gone through the system through the courts." The courts have told them they are to be removed from the country. They didn't have a legitimate asylum claim. Mayorkas during that period of time didn't deport 'em. So Holman's first thing was he had 1.5 million people that have already been ordered to leave that are still here. 300 kids, 1,000 kids that he's got to try to find. That's a beast in and of itself with the limited manpower that they have

41:25 to try to catch up. So they're tied up already trying to deal with that. And plus now you're dealing with the TDA which is a beast. I mean we've dealt with the MS-13 Mexican mafia here over the years forever. TDA was a whole different ballgame. -Why? Because they were actually born in a prison and they took over that prison in Venezuela. So TDA, they're all about violence, extortion, rape, robbery. They don't care. They don't value human life at all. -How many TDA guys do we have in the country? No way of knowing? -I have no clue. -I haven't seen a number on it. And they all go towards your major metropolitan areas because why? It's easier to hide.

42:16 [Peter] Oh good guy. He's down to earth, solid, and he doesn't have an agenda. It's all about doing what's right. You have to be fortunate to be in your branch of law enforcement where you could do your job the whole time even though you were stretched thin and put out on this stuff. Yeah we don't have somebody pushing political ideologies into public safety as far as the sheriff goes. Sheriffs are a constitutionally elected position and the whole idea behind it was that that is the chief law enforcement officer for that county that speaks for the people as one voice. And that's why like the Arizona Sheriff's Association, we are the one united voice representing the people of the state.

43:05 When people are mad at the elected officials that are in Washington DC or even at the state level we're the one that's usually in the community all the time that the people run into. And they tend to grab us by the throat to pass along their message that they're not real happy with the electeds either in the state or the federal level on what they're doing. I could never be an elected back in Washington DC. There's no way. You know because there's just too much political ideologies that are put into there and too much deal making going on back there. Well if you don't support my bill then I'm not going to support yours and all this gamesmanship. It's like look you are there to represent the people of your community

43:51 and do what's right. -Not what you personally feel. -Right. I mean I personally don't think they should have made marijuana legal right? -Yeah. Just as an example. -Okay. But it is legal and it's recreational now. So… okay even though I don't like it, it's the law. And that's what we're supposed to enforce. And they lose focus of that because they get into office and they want to push a bill or push something that gets their name on a bill. It makes it look like they're doing something. But in reality that law that they're trying to push, they never consulted with anybody that's going to be impacted by that certain law. -There's a disconnect. -Huge, huge disconnect. And then we end up wasting our time fighting them

44:39 that this is wrong. You're going to create a whole different issue for everybody by doing that. [Peter] So even though we're on the Mexican side of the wall now we're still in the US? -Right. -But Mexico-- [Sheriff] Is way over yonder. -Okay but it's easy to walk over to here? -Oh yeah you can walk right across. -Right. The only reason why this was put here is because anything on the right side of this levee is in the floodplain. Okay. And we have had those 100 year floods where excess water they've had to release from Morelos Dam down this way and the river could come up to this level.

45:25 -Gotcha. -That's why you'll see fencing put in different areas even though this is the US When you look at the heritage of the Hispanic, it's all about hard work, dedication to the family, right? That's what their main focus is. When you hear about democracy, right? A lot of that I'm told anyway from some folks they assume that democracy-- -Watch your mirror here. Okay. I'm here because I believe in democracy, and hard work, and taking care of family then it should be a Democrat. A: the old Democratic regime is now being pushed out by liberal thought.

46:11 Right? You got this new everything for free-type thing and you don't have to earn it. They should give it to you. The government should take care of you. -That was in response to, it was off-camera but you said Yuma County traditionally was very blue and now it's gone red. Gone red. -And it's very Latino-driven here right? -Oh yeah absolutely. So the Latinos here are sort of like Star County Texas? I think that was 95. Don't quote me on this but 94%, 96% Hispanic. -Hispanic yeah. -Went heavily red. And I think it's because of what you're saying, right? Most of them want to work hard, take care of their family, be left alone. Well exactly. Especially the Cubans came from a system where the state controlled everything

46:57 -They want the opposite. -Right. I think they're looking at the new policies and the direction of the party. It's not the direction that they truly believe in. They think it should be the other way. And unfortunately those electeds aren't listening. -Yeah it's interesting how the parties have changed in so many ways. And don't get me wrong, I mean I don't vote party. -Me neither. I've always been an independent. -I vote for policies. -I vote for policies. It's like the former sheriffs that hired me, they were both Democrat, you know? I've always been a Republican. Okay. But you know in my line of work it's not about party. It's about character of the person.

47:42 I can care less about race, religion, any of that. What we care about is the character of the person that's out there doing what we do each and every day. And I think Martin Luther King is the one that actually put that in his speech. -Right. When I went to the FBI National Academy, I don't know if you've had a chance to read his speech. Wow. That guy was a visionary. And you listen to… I mean the media used to talk to his niece. And then slowly because it didn't meet their narrative, the media started walking away. You notice that? It's a shame. -Well there's this battle between color blindness which is the MLK vision, content of character not color of skin.

48:29 Right, exactly. And then there's identity politics on the other side which is all about the color of your skin and your identity. And you have to identify with your group. And we have to pit groups against one another and it's used as division. And I'm sure there's a lot of people that are in the major metropolitan areas but rural communities, we all work together. Right. Yeah, yeah. We're with each other all the time. We don't care about the color of your skin. We care about doing what's right and making things happen. Yeah like this sweet little lady working for you in your office. Yeah. That you said she was unbelievable, couldn't imagine working without her. -Oh yeah Ana? Oh my gosh yeah. -Yeah. I mean she runs that jail. And I put 100% faith in her.

49:14 Yeah. -Because of her work ethic. -Yep. And she believes in honor, integrity, and honesty. You know what I mean? Okay so where were we last time Sheriff? That road was closed but we were out there? Yeah on the corner. I'm gonna take you down that way. Okay, okay, cool. I remember this two years ago on the other side of the fence but you were saying the cartel was letting migrants out under that bridge right? -Mm-hmm. Yeah and right up to the last day. -Right up to the last day? -Right up to when the election happened and they named who the new President of the United States would be. And then it stopped. And then over here there was a tent. There was a cover where that blue barrel is there used to be a shade structure there.

50:00 And that's where they would all pile up to be processed. And then transported from here to Border Patrol's headquarters. Right, and then I remember the buses. There were all these school buses coming up and down this road to transport everyone in. Yeah that's why this gate was actually used most of the time to bring in the bus, load it up, take it back out, and close the gate. -I remember just having this weird visceral feeling of something's really wrong about this. Cartel is there, dropping, coming over, just waiting for the school bus to pick them up. And then they're off to wherever in America. Well and the ones that would come around the corner if you remember the cartel guys were actually videotaping the people getting across and then going to Border Patrol.

50:46 -Right. Because that was their proof because it was like a travel agent sending that video to the family members going, "Hey I got your family member into the United States so now you need to pay." I mean that's how bad it was down here. So yeah it was all contrary to the rule of law. And I remember you saying you feel sympathy for these people and I said don't litter here because there's litter on the ground. I said we're in America now. Don't just throw your trash on the ground. -Right, yeah. -Well interesting to see that development. It was a week after the election. I just happened to ask the deputy chief. I said so how many? You know what's the impact now? And he said I think we got nine in custody. Versus they'd have two, three, four, up to 1,500 a day.

51:34 They were down to nine apprehensions. Yeah. -That's quite the drop. Yeah. -That's huge. And that water set up there is for workers out here right? Not for migrants? They still do get a few that come across. They still do get a few. -Okay. -So you don't want to stop that, you know? -Right. -You don't want people getting hurt or-- -[Peter] How's it been? Pretty quiet? -[woman] Oh, I'm sorry. -[laughter] That's all right. I'mma blow right by you when I leave. [laughter] -How are you? -Good sir, how are you? He's good. Peter Santenello. One you don't have to worry. Yeah. She couldn't talk on camera but saying better, nobody's coming over. You know like he was telling you

52:20 it's gonna take a while for Border Patrol to get back to Border Patrol. Most of them started under the last administration so… She was young. Scared of saying anything that might… -…mess with their career. -Right. One thing you say bad could impact your future. How sad is that? Your mortgage, your family, your pension. Yeah you gotta take care of the family first. That's why you do what you do. Okay. To be devil's advocate, I do understand policies that say hey don't just talk to anyone that shows up with a camera. There are people with bad intention. I can cut this a million different ways. Make her look terrible. When she's just a sweet woman doing her job. -That's what they worry about too. -Yeah I get that. It's like they see me down here and I take anybody.

53:06 It didn't matter what media outlet. I don't mind taking them and show it to them and then explain the impacts to us. It's not a narrative, it's just the facts. Yeah. I'm not trying to spin anything anywhere for anybody you know? So these are new, these shade structures for the trucks. No they were there. There were just no trucks. -There were no trucks. Right. -That's why it doesn't stick out compared to now. All this was all here. They just didn't have anybody that they could put out here to man it. -You said the cartel had a tunnel going under into the chicken restaurant. -Right. -That's on the first video.

53:51 That's a major undertaking to build a tunnel underneath all this. -Right. -That would come out into the kitchen. Now they're building a brand new port of entry. -They're widening it and making it larger. -Oh right here? There's all kinds of activity down here. And what do cartels like? They like to basically clone the construction company's trucks and everything else to try to make it look like they're part of that. -Are you serious? -Oh yeah. They've cloned Border Patrol trucks over in California and all that stuff. This is a busy port of entry. Fair to say? Oh yes. This place is always busy. This is San Luis, Arizona right here and that's San Luis Mexico right there. -People coming over for the day working,

54:37 families on both sides, that sort of thing? -Yeah. -I've heard that a lot of Americans lower on resources and finances go over the border for dental work and things like that. -That's commonplace huh? -That's common. Retirees? Yuma, 200,000 roughly, full time. Okay. During the winter we end up with another 100,000 in Yuma between agriculture and winter visitors. So we get folks that come from Washington, Oregon, Canada. All coming to Yuma to stay for the winter down here and then they go into Algodones for the most part to get medical issues addressed, get their prescriptions, have dental work done. And you've got to remember too.

55:22 There are 800 kids that cross that border every day to go to school here. And then they go back every night. -Because one parent lives here? Because the kid was actually a US citizen and they were born here. Okay. So they're entitled to that education. A pregnant woman can come into the country and have their kid, and the kid is going to be an American citizen. And like many people across the world will do that. I met a girl from Taiwan and her mom flew in before pregnancy to make sure that she got American citizenship. Well that's what inundated our hospital. That was all part of the game. -Right. -Especially with all the Haitians.

56:08 Every one of those women were obviously almost at the end of their term. And that's what impacted the hospital. It was $24 million in a six-month period, impact on a nonprofit hospital and we only have one. We're going there today too. Yeah you're going to be able to talk to them and ask them about what was the impacts to the neonatal ward? What was the impacts to the budget of the hospital? You know? Because anybody that was hurt coming across too was impacted by that. And a lot of folks from different countries, you would run into individuals that had health issues that would go to the hospital. If they were brought there by Border Patrol then obviously the federal government paid that bill. But some of them just walked to the hospital from the border

56:55 because there were no agents then the community ends up footsing the bill because they don't have any money. Right. Right. So that's where when you find out that you pay that exorbitant amount when you go to the hospital, that's because they have to stay in business. -And somebody's gotta pay the bill. -Yeah. [Sheriff] So that is Mexican Highway 2 on the other side of the fence. That is the main highway that goes from one end of Mexico to the other. -What is that technology up there on that pole? So that pole has cameras on it that Border Patrol monitors. And all along this area right here there are sensors in the ground that will detect any kind of activity.

57:43 So a lot of this is new to you. -A lot of building over there huh? -Yeah. [Peter] So close but yet so far. [Sheriff] Yeah. We would get called by the Mexican authorities to go down and dive to recover a victim of a drowning over there in Mexico. So we would go down there off and on and we'd be hosted by the fire department down there because that's who we were helping. To be quite honest with you the families over there treated us better than we get treated here doing that same service. So to give you an instance, we spent two days diving over there in Algodones for a victim that had drowned. That whole time the family was there and they were cooking lunch for us and everything.

58:32 You don't get that here. You know? So that's why I say it's the character of the people. They're hardworking family-oriented people. And they were so appreciative, you know? So… And you gotta look at border communities okay? Most of my employees have family and friends that live right over here in Mexico. -They go back and forth all the time. -Yeah. So they don't want this in their backyard any more than we do. They were having to deal with the same conflicts from all these other countries in their backyard just like we had to deal with it. You know? That's because the cartels were running the show. So do you think their neighborhoods have gotten safer across the border now that the cartels aren't pushing through as many people?

59:18 As far as that goes, there's less of an impact on their community I assume. But the cartel impacts have not stopped over there. -Yeah. -For them it's all about control. Right. -[Peter] So here we start two walls. -Right. This is where it was changed when Biden came in. Okay. When Biden came in what happened? -It all stopped. -Are they going to get back to building it or no? -They were supposed to be addressing some of the gate openings 'cause there's a checkpoint right here. That's where the National Guard are at or the Mexican military. Yep. Looks like they're finishing putting up the… filling the gap. -Oh cool. -That was a whole gap that we had right here remember?

1:00:04 -Right. -Yeah. So that's good to see that they're actually coming down here to finish all that up. The other gap where you had the monument. -You could actually walk to it. -Yeah we had that in the video. Right. That's all changed. [Peter] Oh yeah. Yeah you could just walk up here before. [Peter] Yeah this is an interesting part of the border guys 'cause you can see so much. What are we looking at, 30 miles that way? It's 20 miles to San Luis from right here. -And then how far are those mountains? It's another 20 miles to the mountains up there. -Okay. So this is that stretch that I took you on before where about 10 miles, we ran into that group from India.

1:00:52 -That's right. -That was abandoned by the cartels. This was one of our smuggling routes that we were having problems with. -You had a pathway… -Yep. …that came up because the cartel… And you're right there at Highway 2 in Mexico. So the cartels would all sit down there in those buildings during the day and then at night they would bring 'em up and then walk up. 'Cause this was all open. But now they've changed it. [Peter] So that's right. The border marker. I have it in the last video and I went right up to it. -Yeah. -But you said this is Biden wall? Yeah. Biden put this part up. I understood what you said earlier. Biden put it up near the agriculture because it was posing a problem with the farmers. But he actually was putting up wall in the middle of nowhere too?

1:01:40 Right here. Okay. So why did we not hear anything about that? I don't know. Hmm. So they were caring a bit about the border. Fair to say? -A bit. Yeah. -A bit. Because we exposed this is part of it. And when you're talking about cartels exploiting a weakness and then people dying that's not a good message. [Peter] Okay. So that's a story that's new to me today is that Biden was putting up wall. -Yeah. And so it turned so political that for his party it would have been looked at as a weakness maybe. And then the Republicans wouldn't want to show it because it would show well he's actually putting up wall and that's what we wanna do. -So that's not good for us. -Part of your politics.

1:02:27 -You know? -Yeah. Okay. But when you got… In 2022 there were 70 in one year that died out here. -70 died out here? -70 in 2022. -[Peter] Whew. -[Sheriff] And then over 35 in 2023. Yeah and that Indian family that just got off the plane that just looked like they got out of the mall. They weren't going to make the night. -No, they wouldn't. -'Cause it was cold at that time. And you're talking 35, 40 miles, to go from here up to anything where civilization would be. And you're going right through a bombing range. So you got military. This is all Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range.

1:03:13 So the military is out here training all the time. So you got troops on the ground. They're doing live fire. You've got aircraft doing live fire. The cartel doesn't care. They got their money. "Here you go. You're in the US. Go that way." Yeah. And you don't but a gallon of water. You'll be okay. Is it good to have Trivette back? It's good to see you again, Trivette. -You couldn't have done it without me. -Couldn't have. Well you know here's the deal. It was like I told you about that truck. It was donated for the borders in your backyard for not only sheriffs but other media outlets to come out here. I've taken them all out here. I've done the same thing with you that I did with them. But apparently they didn't put the messaging out there because obviously they changed it to meet their narrative.

1:03:59 And that's the problem with media nowadays is they have to push a narrative so they have to spin whatever you say and I've seen it many times myself. Where I've said something and they take that little snippet of it. But when you take the whole context of the conversation out of that little snippet it makes it sound bad. -You said off camera you brought a New York Times journalist out here. Yeah. And spent a full day and she didn't write anything about what you guys did. We spent till late at night. We were out here in the middle of the desert at night with her and she got to see a lot of the stuff kind of like what you saw. Yeah. And it's like okay you know that ought to be an interesting article. We spent a lot of time. I did it, Sheriff Daniels did it with Cochise County.

1:04:46 Same thing. And we were kinda, "Okay let's see what comes out of this." And it was just a small little paragraph in a whole huge article about down here on the border. But it really didn't cover all the impacts that we discussed on the hospital, the family advocacy center, the mission, on law enforcement. It didn't cover any of that. And then she calls back later after they wrote that article and wanted more info. I was like I'm not going to invest any more time that I'm never gonna get back. You know? For what you're doing because you're just spinning an article for a political narrative. And I think we talked about that when we were out there in the middle of the desert when you found that radio system. It was like get your personal and political ideologies

1:05:33 out of public safety. Period. [Peter] The first time that we met Mayorkas, the sheriffs… When Mayorkas was sworn in and we gave him a 16 point plan of success. A year later we asked him, "Why haven't you implemented any of this?" And then his response was, "Did you give me something?" He didn't even remember our conversation. And he had actually removed Sheriff Daniels who was supported by National Sheriffs, Western State Sheriffs, Arizona Sheriffs, Southwest Border Sheriffs, to sit on the Homeland Security Council back then. And when he came on he wrote Mark Daniels a letter saying

1:06:21 "We no longer need your services, Sheriff." He was the only sheriff or law enforcement person on that Homeland Security Council. Period. That was it. He removed that. When Mayorkas came down here, in fact our board of supervisors called him out because we were trying to get him to understand the complexities of what we were dealing with here. And he lied to Jonathan Lyons, our board of supervisor. Who Jonathan Lyons even testified when they had a hearing here how Mayorkas said he was gonna take care of this and he was going to fix all the problems that we had down here. And Jonathan Lyons said he didn't do sh*t. And I was testifying too at that field hearing.

1:07:06 And basically explained to him that he wasn't doing anything. And the second time I met Mayorkas I told him he's full of sh*t. Because he didn't do anything that he said he was gonna do. -You said those exact words? -Yeah. What did he say? He just said, "Well Sheriff… well do your job." Why are you creating these issues? You haven't fixed any of these problems that we've showed you. And it was at a roundtable. He was with NGOs, with the hospital, with the farmers. I mean he sat there and listened to every one of them and didn't do nothing. So yeah I told him he was full of sh*t. He didn't follow through on anything that he said he was gonna do. He just did the narrative that his bosses told him to do.

1:07:53 So there's that. [Peter] There are the Federales? Do you know any of those guys over there? So the Mexican government I've heard has stepped up with protecting the border also. So the Mexican president actually sent law enforcement and the military to the border. -Okay. For us here, you didn't see any military did you? -No. US military no. -No. -Or Mexican. -Or Mexican yeah. You see them? [Peter chuckles] No. They're working the ports. -Okay. So the Mexican military is actually doing the inbound stuff from the US into Mexico.

1:08:40 -What's the inbound from US to Mexico? Guns? Guns, ammo, money. So all these years they've been complaining about guns being smuggled into Mexico from the US right?

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