breathing claritin clear is like... (♪) is he? confidently walking 8 long haired dogs and living as if he doesn't have allergies? yeah. fast relief of your worst allergy symptoms, like nasal congestion. >> thanks for having me with you. >> john: always good to have you. back to the white house. >> and we won't have a briefing tomorrow as of now. >> john: take the day off. >> i don't think that that would work out. set your dvr, never miss "america reports." >> john: i'm john roberts. "the story" with martha starts right now. >> sandra: >> martha: all right. thanks very much, you guys.

good afternoon. i'm martha maccallum. this is a busy afternoon on "the story." we are about to hear from president trump at the border. we're also waiting for an update on president biden's travel to brownsville, texas. so we've got a lot of activity, a lot of things popping. these two individuals obviously very serious about this issue with regard to the campaign. they both want to win the 2024 presidential election. former president donald trump would like to be president again. president joe biden wants to keep his job. they'll have to find their way through this issue in order to do it. it's a big issue on voter's minds in this country. it's a crisis as we heard from the former homeland security secretary this morning on "fox and friends." obviously all of this has a huge impact on cities across the country and small towns as well as migrants have flooded in to all of these areas.

for example, athens. athens, georgia. the tragic death of laken riley at the alleged hands of this man who was here from venezuela illegally. he had already broken the law once in new york. managed to get out of their grasp and go to georgia where he took the life of this young woman allegedly who was a nursing student there. so president biden is goes to brownsville. here's the map. texas is a big state. about 5 1/2 hours apart in these locations. the border in brownsville has quieted down. we have seen some areas a little bit better due in no small part of layers of wire that have been laid by the texas national guard at the direction of governor abbott against the wishes of the white house, who has tried to fight that and get that wire taken down. so a lot of irony at play here today as the president visits some of these places and tries to get a handle on what is going

on. bill melugin is reporting live from eagle pass. that's where we expect to see the former president, donald trump. hi, bill. >> yeah, martha, good afternoon to you. as you mentioned, any minute now, we're expecting the former president to arrive at shelby park. secret service just came through. we have people on the mexican side waiting for the president to arrive. about an hour ago, he landed in del rio international airport. del rio obviously famous for the almost 20,000 haitians that arrived at the international bridge there in 2021. also when the fake narrative about the whipping scandal took place. the president greeted some supporters and offered a brief comment. take a listen. >> nice wonderful, beautiful day. a very dangerous border. we're going to take care of it. thank you. >> we talk about the juxtaposition of trump coming here and biden to eagle pass. these are numbers showing

apprehensions the last five days in both areas. just take a look at the eagle pass numbers versus brownsville. hundreds here. over 2,000 in the last five days compared to 46 in brownsville the last five days. monday jumps out, over 500 here and zero in brownsville. earlier today, had a chance to catch up with the border patrol union president who told us that he's going to be on stage with trump today and he explained why. take a listen. >> this is not about policy. this is not about republicans or democrats. everything that we look at, it's all about how can we protect the american people. agents are nonpolitical. they want people that are going to give them the policies that are going to allow us to do our job. that's what president trump does. >> and i just received a text from the trump campaign saying he's expected to arrive here where i'm standing in about 15 minutes from now. meantime, the border patrol union also shared with us that as president biden is down in

brownsville, the white house never reached out to the border patrol union, never contacted them, never invited them. back to you. >> martha: thanks, bill, very much. let's bring in rodney scott. he served as border patrol chief under president trump and later president biden in 2021. he says he was essentially forced out of his position by the biden administration. chief, good to have you with us on this interesting day. when we watch two of your bosses, the former president trump and the current president, joe biden, visit the border. what do you make of the locations that they'll be in today? brownsville and el paso. >> thank you for having me on, martha. it is very telling. once again, joe biden, it's a photo op. they don't want big groups of illegals in the background. they wanted to go to someplace slower. there's an unseen aspect as well. brownsville is where most of the

ngrs are located. that's their home base. he will talk to them. notice there's nobody from texas there. president trump has a meeting with the governor of texas. he will hear what does and doesn't work with operation lone star, what the states had to put into this and it's telling that the biden administration is trying to tear down border infrastructure that is being put up in texas, which mirrors a lot of what us is border patrol is doing under multiple prior administrations, not just the trump administration. it's really very -- it's funny. these are polar opposites of border security concepts and ideas. >> martha: i wonder when president biden is speaking to these nongovernmental organizations there if they will talk to him about the problem of human trafficking at the border and the fact that children come across with a phone number and american taxpayer dollars are essentially used through border patrol to hand them off to people and they have no idea

whether or not they're traffickers or family members. can you elaborate on that? will they take that opportunity to talk to him about it? >> absolutely not. here's the reason. doesn't benefit either one of the political talking points. one of the problems with the senate bill that nobody is talking about, it had 1.4 billion more dollars for those ngos and didn't do anything to attack child trafficking and didn't do anything to fix the flores agreement that mandates the government-released juveniles in to the u.s. as quick as possible. those are things that needed to be address. my time in the biden administration, we weren't allowed to talk about that. the entire focus was about avoiding negative optics and get as many people in as you can. every prior administration to include the trump administration was focused on deterring illegal activity, preventing the crime in advance and therefore protecting the children.

they won't talk about that in brownsville today. >> martha: you know, i heard jacqui say earlier, this is a photo op for president biden. it is sad that any president shouldn't want to hear the brutal truth of everything that's going on to really take advantage of this moment. obviously it's a very important electoral issue for him. the more he understands and actually sees the better. i want to go back. this is a throwback to bill clinton, president bill clinton in 1995 in his state of the union address. i want to play this and get your reaction from where we were then and where this democrat president is now. watch. >> we are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. it is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrantses to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it. [applause]

>> i would in fact make sure that there is -- we immediately surge to the border all of those people seeking asylum. they deserve to be heard. that's who we are. we're a nation that says if you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you should come. >> martha: rodney, what a fascinating stark contrast between these two democratic presidents. >> it's unbelievable. i just remind all of your viewers the chief of the border patrol sits two blocks away from the white house. any time that president biden wanted to know what was going on, he could call that chief over and get a briefing, this administration doesn't do that. under the trump administration, visits to the white house were routine. in the clinton administration, i briefed janet reno and explained what was going on on the border. they asked for our advice and took our advice and took actions. this administration has walled

off the experts and doing their own thing and it's more about letting meme in, not securing the border. >> martha: chief owens, the current chief, who took over after -- all right. okay. i just want to show everybody president biden is on camera right now. he's being shown some things by chief owens. you make a great point, chief, that any time any president wants to speak to the chief of the border patrol, he can go a few blocks away and say look, how many drug traffickers are we letting in, how do we get our arms and this fentanyl issue. tell me what your folks tell you. unfortunately chief owens has to resort to tweeting pictures of gang members and showing the different gang tattoos that they're wearing on an almost daily basis to get his message out. what do you say as you look at this image here? >> yeah, it's actually quite telling.

again, you're seeing chief owens and the sector chief, chief chavez there. it's for the cameras. the reason -- i hate to get political. i believe the reason the biden administration is down there is if he got that briefing in the white house, there would be no cameras, no show. they know what it takes to secure the border. we handed them the most secure boredner the history of the united states and a road map to keep it that way and make it better through 94 executive actions that president biden destroyed border security. contrary to popular dialogue, he could re-establish a significant part of that with a stroke of a pen. i hope he listens to the men and women and i hope they're open to speak freely. i can tell you from my experience in the biden administration, that was not the norm. if they speak freely, they'll probably be out of a job. >> is that what happened to you? >> that's exactly what happened

to me. i was followed orders to a certain extent. but i gave feedback and i told him where i thought things were going to go wrong. they did not listen to any of the advice that we gave them whatsoever. i was reassigned. i chose to retire and speak out instead. >> martha: alejandro mayorkas, the homeland security chief, is on this trip as well today. he said, i believe, earlier today, that the gains that have been made or the slight drops that we've seen, numbers of people crossing in certain areas is thanks to the mexican government. is that who you would think in this situation? he did not mention governor abbott and the controversy between the governor and the white house over the governor's efforts to do whatever he can to block people from getting in to his state. >> so typical of secretary mayorkas. there's partial truths. leaves out the bigger picture.

look at the entire severe weather border. most of it has shifted to california, a sanctuary state and arizona. texas, the numbers have dropped dramatically. overall the numbers have dropped somewhat. yes, when mexico enforces their own laws, then we see less criminalality at the border and little illegal entries. if you go back a month or so, pompeo, i believe blinken went down to mexico and actually asked them to help out a little bit. mexico has been very open. they would rather have biden be the president than trump. so they'll step up some enforcement currently. we should not be exporting our national security. border patrol should be empowered to arrest people crossing the border and we should hold them in custody or outside the country until their case is adjudicated. it's common sense. right now we're relying on another country to slow count the flow.

guess what else that means? they get to pick and choose who enters this country and instead of the president that you see on that screen right now. >> martha: we have hundreds of thousands of people that have come in to the country who are known got-aways, who were counted by border patrol officials who saw them get away and -- i don't know -- what is your best guess at how many got in to this country that got away that we don't know about. >> yeah, the unknown is a huge -- i want to focus on what you just said. i believe chief owens just tweeted out, they documented over 120,000 got-aways this fiscal year. that means there's been over 1.8 almost 1.9 million under the biden administration. but it takes border patrol agents being out in the field, manning cameras, manning censors, looking at footprints to document those known got-aways. the numbers crossing, the vast

majority of agents are stuck inside processing. south texas specifically and much of new mexico don't have a lot of technology to documents those crossings. so the unknowns are off the chart. like there's no way i could estimate that for you. it's clearly in the millions. >> it's incredible. we're just watching the president as he speaks to some of these border officials. we saw a few moments ago, president -- former president trump was addressing some border officials as well. got some big smiles from them as he landed in el paso. we'll be hearing from him shortly as well. let me ask you this, chief. you know, the legislation that they tried to pass on capitol hill, the border patrolcounsel came out and basically supported it. you know, the union border patrol side. they supported that legislation. it was shot down. did you support it and would it

have made americans safer if it had passed? >> no, i did not support that bill. let's be clear about the ledge lakes. there were two pieces. the first is not being talked about very much. the house passed hr-2, which was a good border security bill. it went to the senate. they refused to act on it. the bill we're talking about now out of the senate, it had good provisions in it. changing some of the asylum processes. unfortunately, it normalized a level of criminality that is unfathomable. for their provision or the the emergency authority, if you will. the numbers were way too high. it gave you the feeling that you could close down the border but without the capability. it also mandated that u.s. customs and border protection accept 1,400 illegal alien as day through ports of entry. that baselines at 500,000 a year. that bill was full of all kinds of issues and problems.

i didn't support it. i can't speak to why the border patrol did. the border patrol union, not the border patrol. other than the fact that they are looking for any relief they can possibly find right now. they might not have been looking at the other provisions. >> martha: yeah, that makes sense. i think the increase in money for more border patrol would be attractive to the border patrol union because their folks are under so much stress at this border. as you point out, they can't really do the job that they were hired to do. they're busy processing. one of the conflicts there, it appears this administration wants to hire more border patrol so they can get people in the country and processed more quickly. is that accurate? >> that is 100% accurate. that's consistent with every conversation i had with the biden administration while i was still working for them. that's the problem with throwing more money at this. the problem is catch and release. as long as we're releasing people in to the united states immediately after they have been arrested by the border patrol, this flow is going to exceed

border patrol's capabilities to do interviews, to vet people and figure out who they are and why they're coming here. we'll have more cases like laken riley. we don't want that. the border security is supposed to be vetting people. just throwing more agents and mean at it won't work. this was created by executive action, this crisis. it could be fixed by executive action. >> martha: i watched another piece of video. we showed the video of former president clinton awhile ago. wore about to see former president trump in just a moment here. i can tell that there's a lot of cameras moving around on the shot where he is. we'll get to that in just a moment. i listen to what president obama said in an address from the white house. he talked about the need to return people immediately who are crossing in to the country. how did this narrative get so far away from that and answer that, if you would, sir, while we watch this shot of former president trump arriving in

eagle pass? >> sure. honestly, i think the people's compassion just got high jacked, this administration got influenced by the extreme, extreme left. i spent a lot of my time in california having conversations with both democrats and republicans. border security was not controversial. immigration policy, which is separate, that gets a lot of debates. border security is about knows who and enters our national home. this administration went completely off script. surprised even myself about how dedicated they were to an open border. >> martha: rodney scott, thanks very much. if you stay with us while we watch this. we would appreciate it. i want to bring in lawrence jones, co host of "fox and friends" who has traveled all across the country talking about this issue and also talking about crime. he's in brownsville, texas.

we get a glimpse of president trump. you can see him through the barbed wire there. lawrence, your thoughts from where you stand right now. >> martha, just to put it in perspective, the president is to the left of me where the border wall is there. the area that he's at, just to put it in perspective, is a place where there's low crossings. the swimming that you see of people swimming across in eagle pass, they can't do that here, this is not shallow water, this is one of the low traffic areas. it makes no sense while if he wants the see the crisis that the country is experiencing and what we're experiencing in my home state of texas, you don't come here. yesterday there were six crossings in this entire sector. the question is, why now and why this area? i was here almost a year ago when the surge was happening. you can go to downtown and you saw the mass releases there. why not come to that part of the

border, during that period of time? we know why it's happening, martha. it's politics as usual. they know it's a number 1 issue on voter's minds. for his homeland security secretary to take credit for what texas is doing to push people back, to say hey, we got it under control. we've been negotiating with the mexican authorities. i think it's false and i don't think voters will buy it. >> martha: i want to point out, we're -- the shot is freezing occasionally. on the left-hand side, former president trump is with governor abbott of texas who is next to him as they take a look at what is going on on the border here. it should be pointed out that governor abbott truly has changed the dynamic in such a powerful way in sending people to some of these cities, chicago, in new york. other places in the country saying look, we can't handle the entire burden ourselves on the border in texas.

if you're going to be a sanctuary city, that means you need to welcome people in to your cities if that's really what you say you are. he really has changed that dynamic by putting pressure on some of these cities. you see these town council meetings which you have been covering where, you know, inner city residents in chicago are outraged that the services that they expect for their tax dallas are going to someone else. >> martha, what greg abbott did, which a lot of people in mainstream media and pundits say, it would be a political stunt and it wasn't going to work. he made all of the sanctuary cities feel what we have been feeling in texas for years. when you see moms that are up set in boston because their kids are being kicked out of the rec centers to pull illegals there, the moms in chicago that are saying how are you shutting down our schools and say you don't have any funding? but magically you found funding for illegals there? it's happening in every major

city. you see harlem where the housing was there for the elderly. they kicked them out and said they didn't have the funding for them. but they put illegals there. you see the cops getting attacked, shot at. they're making videos about it, giving the press the middle finger. that shows you the crisis that many of us in the country are dealing with. it's only because greg abbott decided to say hey, we know you're not going to come to the great state of texas. we know you're got going to see the crisis first hand. so i'm going to bring the crisis to you. that's why people are flipping on this issue, martha no texas can't handle over seven million people. >> no. >> martha: it's impossible. so anyone that thinks that oh, this is a disingenuous move, as karine jean-pierre said, you should look at the reality. it's not possible for a state to manage this on its own. let's listen here and see if we can hear governor abbott. >> the court vacated what the

court of appeals did and sent it back. but we have redoubled the amount of wire that we're putting up, adding more wire, securing all of that as well as securing the entire park. can i show you one thing that is amazing? >> yes, please. >> look at the people coming here illegally to cut wire. look at right here. right here. this is a port of entry. there's no reason for these people to be crossing between a port of entry. remember one thing, no one drowns on a bridge. they drowned trying to come across here because joe biden entices them if not forces them to come here. >> horrible. >> these illegal immigrants are making an unlawful entry. these folks are being brought up

to the park in the area that we call the pit, which you have seen on tv, which is over here. in is a light day. in december, 302,000 people entered our nation illegally. that doesn't talk about the got-aways. >> unbelievable. >> 3,000 to 4,000 people coming in the park in december, being processed and mass released in to the country. as we talked about -- >> you may be talking about 15 million people. nobody has any idea. could be 15 million. >> in mass parole in to the country to go to georgia and kill a nursing student in mass release, to go to new york and beat up cops on the street, in mass release to go to louisiana and rape a 14-year-old girl. governor abbott called me and said, we're going to put a stop to this. so on january 10, the governor

ordered the use of his texas national guard military force to take control of this situation. so on the night of january 10, in the morning of 11 january, my order to my troops was to secure the park by 6:30 a.m. they got after it. we had hundreds of troops. we had about 1,800 troops to descend on this area, work through the night, putting up barrier all around this park to one, ensure migrants don't get through and two, to ensure this can no longer happen. >> terrible. >> this is what it looks like after. this is that. hasn't been that way since january 11. so there's a capability to stop this from happening.

>> [inaudible]. >> any form of barrier. whether it's a wall -- what the governor has done, we're building this wall -- we put up as much quick barriers behind it to put soldiers behind it and dps. [inaudible] >> i think came here around the golf course. this is where you are nowyou

sealed off -- [inaudible]. shipping containers, barbed wire, all around here. [inaudible]. >> in december, they tried to dig under. a lot of money pushing people to go across. what you can't see here, the

concertino wire -- [inaudible]. >> every once in a while, somebody pushes a minor through. [inaudible]. >> martha: okay. the audio is breaking up a little bit in this shot. you know, what we have picked up here, this is major general thomas suelzer. he taking former president trump and governor abbott through the work that they have done, showing them images of different parts of the border, talking about national guard involvement. the other way that governor abbott changed the game for texas was, as i said earlier, first by sending people that they couldn't manage or handle to other states who had said that they were sanctuaries for people coming across to spread out the difficulty of managing the situation. the other situation he did, he

lined up trucks at one point and then they went back in with wire, did layers and layers of wire. this went to the supreme court. this issue is sort of -- they ruled against, but on if grounds of whether or not texas was allowed to make this move. the white house said they wanted all the wire removed, which is ironic. now you have president biden down there talking about some of the successes that have happened. certainly a lot of that is attributable to these moves by governor abbott. let's bring in tom holman, former acting director of ice. they have been in the news lately as we dealt with these situations in cities. welcome. good to have you with us. tom, you hearing me okay? tom homan? >> i hear you. yes. >> martha: great. your thoughts, first of all, what we're watching here as former president trump talks with greg abbott and the major

general in the texas military department about the actions that they have taken and we're told that we will not see president biden again until about 4:05 when he will be speaking in brownsville. >> look, i think what the governor is doing, showing president trump. border barriers work. because the action in governor action had taken, the wire, the fluting buoys in the river. he's got immigration down over 70% because of border barriers. because he's enforcing the law. remember, trump built 465 miles of wall. border barriers work. every place that they built a border barrier under president trump, every place, 100% of the time, a decrease in illegal immigration and a decrease in drug flow and a decrease in deaths. so governor abbott has taken that game plan and putting border barriers up. now he's pushing that population to arizona and california.

he's doing what he should be doing. i said it many times. governor abbott has done more to secure this border than anybody in the biden administration. you can see the numbers prove it. >> martha: he's taken very bold action. as you point out, the bottom line is lowering the number of deaths. we know how dangerous it is for people crossing the border, the cartels are in complete control of what is happening here. we've seen the horrific car crashes that take place as they try to shuttle people across the border. one of the other little known stories, there's americans, american students in arizona are getting jobs from the cartels to dangerously run these people across the border, tom. i wonder if president biden is hearing anything about that today? >> well, you know, i doubt it. you know, what you just said is very important. we got 1.9 million got-aways. these are people that are not turning themselves in to the border patrol. so you got to ask your self, why -- 1.9 people pay more to

get transported by the cartel, transported by a student who has been contracted by the cartel, why did they pay more to get away? why didn't they pay less just to turn themselves in, get a free airline ticket to the city of their choice, get work authorization, get a free hotel room, three squares a day, medical attention? why did they not take advantage of that free give-away for less money? why did they pay more to get away? it doesn't take a genius to understand, 1.9 million people didn't want to get vetted or fingerprinted. they wanted to get someplace unscathed. they don't need any law enforcement. these are the people carrying the fentanyl and trafficking women and children and people from a country sponsoring terror. this is the biggest national security failure in this nation since 9-11. you said early, the deaths of illegal aliens. people want to say president trump's policies are inhumane.

i've had death threats. you're racist, white nationalist. whatever they want to call us. people need to understand, president trump had illegal immigration down 83 to 90%. so when 83 to 90% less people were coming across the border, how many women didn't get sexually assaulted by the cartels? how many aliens didn't drown in the river or die in the descent? how many americans didn't die of fentanyl because the border was secure? under president biden, we have over 1,700 migrants that died in u.s. soil. historic record. over 100,000 americans dead from fentanyl, a historic record. over 300 people on the terrorist watch list arrested just on the southwest border, twice as many on the northern border that we don't talk about. historic record. so president trump's policies save lives. a security border saves lives. border barriers saves lives. i worked for six presidents. i've seen policies come and go. i know what policies work, i know what policies don't. president trump was a game

changer and we saved thousands of lives by securing that southern border. >> martha: one of the most significant parts of the presidential oath is to protect and defend the country. that is something that people need to ask themselves. they look at this coming election. the importance of that part of the oath. you know, will this person protect and defend the country as something that all voters need to think about. one of the interesting issues that is percolating once again is the issue of ice. we all watched the separation of ice from the leadership and cities across the country who said we're not going to turn anyone in to ice. we're not going to coordinate with ice or cooperate with them when we have people that are illegally in the country illegally committing crimes so they can be deported by ice. now you have eric adams saying look, we need to re-ignite that cooperation between new york city police officials, law

enforcement firms and ice. one great example is this guy who is the alleged killer of laken riley in georgia. he was arrested and charged in new york city, could have been deported and now this young woman is dead, tom. what do you think about mayor adams is saying? >> i think mayor adams stopped being a law enforcement officer and became a politician. he knows the men and women of nypd want to work with ice. >> martha: he is saying they should be doing that again. he wants them to talk to each other again. >> they absolutely should be talking to each other. he wanted them to work together, he would end the sanctuary city policies. if he wanted them to really work together, he would give access to rikers island jail. we arrested illegal alin's that committed crimes. when they're done with them, we took them to custody and did ported them. now ice is not allowed access to rikers island. so the may your wants to back up

his words, end the your sanctuary city policies, let your officers work with ice and end the policies and let us in the jail. that's where the bad guys are. when i was ice director, we took over 5,000 criminal aliens off the streets and out of rikers island. now the numbers are dwarfed because they refuse to work with ice, we don't have access to rikers island and the sanctuary city policies, nypd is anot allowing them to make a phone call to ice. >> martha: a lot of people are happy he said it. the city council, the head of his city council that needs to vote to pass the things that you just talked about spoke out and said absolutely not. we're not going backwards in new york city. we're not going to reinitiate that relationship with ice. so he's up against that as well. it's obviously a difficult situation. let me ask you this. the individual who is allegedly the killer of laken riley in georgia, he was arrested and charged with endangering the life of a child in new york when

he was here. apparently it was his own child according to reports. didn't have a helmet on on the back of like a moped or something like that. they charged him. could he have been deported under the current laws? >> under the current laws? no. he's going to wait out for if he shows up to the next hearing. since he has an asylum claim, he can't be deported until that is adjudicated. here's the difference, right? under the trump administration, he wouldn't have been in new york. he wouldn't have been in georgia. he would have been sitting in mexico in the remain in mexico program, number 1. he wouldn't have been in the united states. number 2, if he didn't have the remain in mexico program under trump, when he crossed the border, we ended catch and release. the law says when you enter the country illegally without proper documentation, you shall when detained. that is a word, shall. so we ended catch and release. he would have been in ice detention under president trump. third, under president trump, the ice was free to drop

detainers on anybody they want. now secretary mayorkas has a policy to say ice can'tish you a detainer to a jail unless the person has been convicted of an aggravated felony. not arrested. so this administration has failed that family three times. the young lady should not be dead. now another set of u.s. citizen parents who are living a nightmare and bauerrying their child. i met hundreds of moms and dads with the same situation. this administration has caused the ice not to do their job. they cause the cbp not to do their job. this administration could put the remain in mexico program back in tomorrow. it was a game changer for us. the highest courts in the land said it's legal. so they're serious about securing the border. he can make the decision today to put the remain in mexico program back in. >> martha: he may. >> that will solve the problem. >> martha: he may do that.

this is unconscionable and defies common sense that anyone that we allow in this country and allow them to wait for process and fly them around the country, if they break a law, they should be deported at a bear minimum. that's a basic common sense. thanks, tom holman. stay with us as we continue our breaking news coverage as former president is set to speak any moment from now in eagle pass, texas, as president biden also is about to speak moments away as he gets a look at what happened at the southern border after this. >> we have rescinded so many trump immigration policies, it would take so much time to list them. when migraine strikes, you're faced with a choice. accept the trade offs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose quickly stops migraine in its tracks. treat it anytime, anywhere

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police officers have been shot not too far outside of kansas city. police say there were reports of shots fired around a home. two officers have been taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds. that's all we have right now. we'll continue to cover that when we get more information, we'll bring it to you. we're waiting now to hear from former president trump. that should happen any moment at the border in texas. arizona is actually where we're seeing the largest number of migrants crossing these days. take a look at this. the tucson sector has close to 300,000 encounters so far this year. that started in october topping san diego in del rio, texas by more than 100,000 according to cpb. an arizona sheriff gave robert kennedy jr. a tour of the area in arizona to explain what's going on there. also look at the leftover construction material that could be actively building more of the

wall. >> this is part of the fence that was built by obama administration. president trump purchased all of this material the day that he took office, president biden issued an order to shut down construction. >> cochise county arizona sheriff, mark danels joins me now. thanks very much for joining us this afternoon. a lot of attention at the border. it's not happening in your state. your state is where you're seeing the largest number of crossings right now. what do you a tribute that to, sheriff? >> well, thanks for having me on, martha. let me say this. i think texas -- governor abbott, the message he's sending, the action behind his message is taking the cartel and routing the criminal activity, the smuggling the traffic in in to new mexico, arizona and california. that's what happens if you do your job as an elected official. kudos to governor abbott. we're seeing the impact, seeing

record numbers. last year at this time, we had over 100,000 in federal fiscal year, this year we're pushing almost 300,000. you can see the impact we're addressing right now. >> martha: so what is your message to your governor and california is going through the same thing. governor newsome is faced with this as well. do you see this putting any pressure on your governor or the governor in california at this point? >> well, i've worked -- the governor and i work together on a a lot of programs. governor hobbs said that she was going to d.c. to meet with the president, secretary mayorkas at the white house to see what they could do here. the bottom line is, right now the last two years, we've had 9.4 million expenses for border related crimes in my county alone. the governor's office and the state is helping me pay though bills. the amount of people we're seeing here on state related crimes is off the charts.

the only one left helping us is our state. the federal government has abandoned us. when you put 3,000 people in jails, you can imagine the impact. i need our governor. she hasn't turned her back on us yet and we're going to keep pushing her. i need her. i do. this president and this majority of congress have turned their backs on this border. we're paying the dividends right now. >> martha: how does she view what governor abbott has done? he moved to put people on buses, to spread the burden around the country, especially to places that have said that they would welcome migrants. is that something that she would consider? >> i don't think so. now, i have nine national guard that she sent down here the last couple weeks to help me just in our jail aspect of it, help on some of our border initiative programs. i don't think that -- i say that because when this governor took office, she removed the

containers from governor doocy. that was something that she was not in favor of. politics is driving this. you have democrat governors, republican governors. so divided on this. you look at the two presidents. president trump down there with a strong message on the border and strong action on it. president biden that is just the opposite. senator biden was all about border security. president biden has been absent for three years. he's down here now for re-election purposes and down here right now for show and tell, for political and photo ops. come to arizona. we've invited president biden to come work with sheriffs. we have not seen that. >> martha: protecting the people of the country is the number 1 job of the president. we'll watch these buses. you've had enormous numbers of buses coming through your state as well. where are the people who are crossing in arizona largely coming from that are seeking

asylum apparently? where are they coming from? >> well, martha, what we see in cochise county, the southeast corner of the state of arizona is got-aways. we see them that director hohmann was talking about. we see the majority of them. we don't deal with give-ups. i don't want to be it from cal but i'm frustrated with this. the people that come across the southwest border right now, outside the proper of cochise county are being bussed to my county and processed here. since may 8 of 2023, up till i think february 20th, 717 or 715 buses through the state of arizona and my local resources have bussed street releases from border patrol out of my county. i'm not blaming the agents. i'm blaming washington d.c. for sending them here, taking my agents off of enforcements and pitting them in processing, this is a fractured mess here.

it amazes me. the oath of office for a sheriff, the oath of office for a governor or president is all the same. you have to protect the citizens in our country first. >> martha: let me ask you a quick question about the legislation that failed in congress. was that something that you supported? would you have liked to have seen it passed? >> your national sheriffs came out against it. came out against it. mainly because of this. was notified of this bill from our u.s. senators friday, i was in d.c. saturday with national sheriffs. i said come on over. let's talk about this bill. i knew nothing about the bill. america's sheriffs didn't know about it. mayors didn't know about it. i invited them to a meeting. nobody showed up. monday, the national sheriffs voted to oppose it. so again, i said this to our two u.s. senators in arizona. you have to bring your national sheriffs to the table and work together with the communities, get you mayors there and governors and let's do this as a

collective government. that's how we're going to solve this. that's why there's so much opposition. part of the bill was to take the judicial side out of this and put it under an administrative side. which puts the trust back in this administration. that trust is not there. i've shared that back, too. you have to put -- yeah, it's not working right now, martha. have to do a better job. >> martha: sir, thank you very much. good to hear from you tied. we wish you well and hope you come back and talk to us in the future. sheriff dannels from arizona. we're moments away from former president trump in eagle pass, texas. griff jenkins is there. hi, griff. >> we expect president biden to step up to the podium. you can see clearly his backdrop will be the men and women in green, border patrol agents. as you showed video earlier, he's touring the area with chief jason owens, the sector chief, gloria chavez. he's accompanied by secretary

mayorkas and congressman gonzalez. what he's message is, we shall soon find out. we expect he will talk about what he's been briefed on and to put some blame on republicans for not supporting things like the border bill with much-needed resources. there's a stark difference in the places that he's visited as opposed to where he could have gone. just moments ago getting the latest cbp numbers yesterday in tucson, arizona. 1,560 apprehensions. in the san diego sector, 1,110 apprehensions. in the rio grande sector, 325. brownsville is a part of that. that doesn't mean they're not getting groups. let's show you video we shot this morning, martha. this is a group of 100 migrants. some from venezuela. they crossed here in brownsville where the president is getting a tour of. perhaps he will be briefed on that. one of the things that your past

guests said, rodney scott,itis director tom homan have talked about is the national security concerns. because of the mass numbers, whether it be in california, arizona or previously in texas, taking men and women like those behind me off of the line to transport and process migrants rather than be in the hard hit areas where they're not aware of. that's what chief owens says is the most concerning to him. we'll see what the president has to say. back to you. >> martha: griff, thank you very much. we're watching former president trumpand texas governor abbott as they leave the location where the former president was briefed. we expect to hear from him momentarily. they're about ten minutes behind schedule at this point. we'll keep a close eye on this. i think we're going to go now to this situation that we've covered, which is intertwined with the story at the border as well. the tense scene yesterday in athens, georgia after the brutal murder of laken riley. protesters shouting down the

mayor who had backed my grant friendly policies in their city. the 22-year-old nursing student killed when she went for a run last week. the feds say that he was arrested in new york city and released. watch this. >> policies have been adopted -- >> please stop lying -- you need to resign. >> resign now! >> resign! >> resign now! >> go away. resign. >> one protocol -- >> you allowed this to happen, sir. >> one protester that was there spoke to jesse waters last night. >> i was mad and upset over this senseless murder. i can't imagine what this father is going through, losing his young daughter who had her whole life ahead of her. >> danamarie mcnichol reporting

live. >> tensions were high when the mayor spoke about immigration. he was repeatedly interrupted by protesters. take a listen to what sparked the outrage from the crowd. >> i cautioned against conflating immigration and crime. the data shows the two are not connected. >> mayor girtz made it clear that athens is not a sanctuary city and the term means different things top different people depending on the context. protesters say they are frustrated with where the city stands on immigration. >> you're not defending us. you're not upholding your oath of office, sir. you are lawless. you are a criminal. >> protesters held sign that read blood on your hand and make athens safe again. they demanded athens-clark

co county revoke the policies. there's a sheriff policy in place that allows undocumented immigrants to be released even if ice has issued a detainer. now mayor girtz listed safety improvements including raises for police officers, additional cameras for surveillance and making the point that murders have been down every year since 1992. people here in athens want answers not only able the murder of laken riley but how the city will move forward with the immigration policies, martha. >> thanks very much, danamarie. joining us now, sean duffy, co host of "the bottom line" and tomi lahren host of "tomi lahren is fearless." great to have you with us today. quick take on what we're seeing here as the current president, joe biden and the former president, donald trump, are at the border today. both of them sort of looking at

things through their own lens. sean duffy, you first. >> we have have had a lot of conversation about cochise county, eagle pass. that's where the immigration crisis is happening. where it's not happening is brownsville, texas. why is joe biden going there? you heard it a lot. it's a photo op. americans don't care about the politics of this. they want the border fixed. going to brownsville shows me that joe biden doesn't really care about seeing the problem and wanting to fix the problem. if you come up a little bit and look at this -- this is cage fight between donald trump and joe biden. joe biden is trying to fight on donald trump's ground here. donald trump is a tough on immigration, former president. joe biden won't take any skin off of him. this will be a big win day for donald trump talking about the border and policies that will secure it. >> martha: tomi, joe biden has been asked many times why he doesn't spend more time addressing this problem. he went down once quill awhile ago and this is his second time there as president.

your take on what we're seeing today. >> yeah, he likely wouldn't be there today if not for president donald trump. also being there and caring about the problem. sean is exactly right. there's a reason that he is where he is. it's because he doesn't want the optics of the invasion in the back grouped. he doesn't want the media with him to capture that invasion. unfortunately for him, donald trump is there talking with change makers like governor abbott that are doing something to secure our nation. meanwhile, the biden administration has done everything that they can to tie the hands of texas who is actually trying to solve this problem. he's not in places where you'll see an invasion, he's not speaking to these border patrol agents and implementing anything that these agents will tell him to ftx the problem. he's there to check a box, nothing more. i would also caution the american people. don't fall for this. there's a good chance that president biden will say he's serious about the issue. there's a good chance next week at the state of the union he might do something to appear like he's addressing the issue. seven million plus have come in

under his watch and he's just now deciding he wants to address this? why? because we're edging closer to an election. that's the only reason democrats are caring about this or even appearing to care about this. he could make a decision today in washington d.c. from the comfort of his office to fix this problem. he's chosen not to do that. do not be fooled, american public. >> president -- former president trump has said my thanks to both of you, tomi and sean. president trump said he would reininstitute remain many in mexico and end catch and release. president biden has to figure out what to do with criminals already in the country. that is a very tall order as he is in brownsville today. we're about to hear from both of them on fox news. stay tuned. i'll see you tomorrow. >> neil: all right, martha. thanks very much