Few reporters are as brave as Real America’s Voice, Ben Bergquam, who took an opportunity recently while covering a Judicial Committee hearing in Yuma, Arizona, to draw a connection between what he has discovered motivates people to flee their homeland to invade the United States- (the consequences of Socialism), to the results of poverty and crime- (human slavery and trafficking).
GOP members of the US House Judiciary Committee inspected the local area of Yuma, AZ for the impact of Democrat Joe Biden’s open border policies on the real lives of Americans and found that the pressure from open borders is causing systems meant to safeguard, protect and serve the American people are being overturned with crime and an infestation of foreigners.
Bergquam appeared on the War Room with Steve Bannon to talk about what he discovered in his investigation, while he was in the area to cover the hearing:
“This is the fight for America’s future. It’s a fight for our children and our grandchildren. Just as Joe Biden has abandoned the people of Ohio, he’s abandoned the people on the Southern border. I want to show you some of the evidence I got yesterday; I was just down there at the border, here in Yuma, at 3 am today. We saw groups coming across, and I found this Passport of a young girl., Bergquam said, holding up the passport of the girl from Colombia,” Bergquam said holding up the passport of young girl, adding more details about the concern he had:
“I don’t know if she was trafficked, but the amount of human trafficking and child slavery is out of control.”
Bergquam showed more evidence he found that had been dumped like garbage on the ground right near the border.
“Money from India. We continue to find currencies from all over the world because they know that they’re going to get your money when they come into our country,” Bergquam told Bannon, even later holding up a wad of money that at one time was worth $100,000 and was not worth one cent.
Bergquam slammed Democrats for wanting to implement policies that would bring about socialism in the United States, while we as a nation face a crisis of mass migration from people who are fleeing those exact same policies- which destroy people’s lives.
Bergquam told Bannon about the other passports he had found and what he found out about them, adding that people are coming to the US from all over the world. Here is why:
“They see that the gravy train is open in America. So now they’re coming across, but they have to dump their ID before they come or else they don’t qualify for Asylum. It’s an absolute disaster,” he said.
Watch Bergquam’s exchange with Bannon on the War Room:
According to a press release from the Judiciary Committee on the hearing:
House Judiciary Republicans Expose the Biden Border Crisis in Yuma, Arizona
February 24, 2023
ICYMI
YUMA, AZ – House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) led a delegation of 14 Committee members to Yuma, Arizona, for a field hearing on the Biden Border Crisis. During the two-day CODEL, members met with border patrol agents, toured the Yuma Regional Medical Center, and visited the Yuma Community Food Bank to discuss the impact of illegal immigration on community resources.
WATCH: Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) join Hannity to discuss their findings during the Judiciary Committee field hearing in Yuma, Arizona.
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- Chairman Jordan: “On day one, Joe Biden said no more wall, no more remain in Mexico, no more deportation, and as a result of that, we got all those facts and figures you just cited Sean. But what we also got today what we heard from people here in Yuma is how it overwhelmed their school system, their hospital system, their first responders, their law enforcement, [and] border patrol. The cost to the folks here on the border and across our border, and maybe most importantly now, that’s coming across the country. It’s coming to Florida. It’s coming to Ohio. It’s coming to New York City. Even Mayor Eric Adams said they can’t take any more. That’s why this is so serious, and that’s why we got to change things and pass legislation out of our Committee and out of the House which we plan to do.”
- Rep. Gaetz: “Tens of illegal immigrants show up in Martha’s Vineyard, and they go crazy as if they’re being overwhelmed. Yet here in Yuma, Arizona, we see a community on the frontlines of an invasion. And American babies in their most frail moments in their first days and hours are being crowded out of neonatal intensive care units by migrants.”
READ: The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Republicans led by Ohio’s Jim Jordan survey Arizona’s border woes
- Yuma County Sheriff Leon N. Wilmot told a standing-room-only crowd that U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions in his county soared from roughly 40 a day to over 1,000 a day after Joe Biden took over as president. Wilmot attributed the boost to changes in immigration policy under Biden, such as stopping a past requirement that immigrants remain in Mexico while they wait to hear whether they’ll be admitted to the United States.
- Wilmot said his county supplies 90% of the United States’ leafy greens in the winter, and its farm fields are endangered by “tons of trash, pharmaceuticals, and biological waste” being left by those who illegally cross the Colorado River. He said its emergency management agency has spent $70,000 to lease portable toilets to keep immigrants from defecating in crops, Wilmot said.
- Wilmot said the price tag for migrants being illegally smuggled by the cartels begins at $6,000 per person. Cartels use social media to recruit juveniles to smuggle humans and narcotics into the country because the federal government won’t charge them with a crime because of their age, he said.
WATCH: Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA) outlines why border security is important for the entire country.
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- “History is screaming this warning at us. Countries that cannot or will not enforce their borders simply aren’t around very long. We can’t and we won’t let that become the epitaph of the American Republic.”
READ: The Washington Times: Illegal immigrants taking beds from local residents in Arizona hospital
- The main hospital in Yuma, Arizona, put a price tag on the border crisis, with its officials telling lawmakers Thursday that it spent $26 million last year on uncompensated care for the wave of illegal immigrants who threaten to swamp the facility.
- Dr. Robert Trenschel, president and CEO of Yuma Regional Medical Center, said migrants are particularly stressful patients, needing everything from dialysis to heart surgery to prenatal care — often the first such care pregnant women have ever received. “And when babies are born, they may have to stay in the intensive care unit for a month because of the complications of their situation.”
- Dr. Trenschel said discharging migrants is also tougher because they have to provide for a safe discharge, which can mean buying them medical equipment and flying them to relatives.
- The migrants are crowding out Yuma’s residents, competing for beds in the emergency room or forcing delays in elective surgery because doctors are needed to care for the migrants.
READ: Townhall: Border Patrol Agents Slam House Democrats for Not Showing Up to Field Hearing
- Thursday marks the first official congressional hearing at the U.S.-Mexico border regarding the ongoing immigration crisis. GOP members on the House Judiciary Committee traveled to Yuma for the hearing, but Democratic members announced last week they would be boycotting the trip, calling it a political stunt.
- Democrats accused the GOP of not consulting them about the trip, but Republicans on the Judiciary Committee said they had consulted the Democrats three weeks before the hearing. Border Patrol agents based in Yuma expressed their disappointment and frustration to Townhall about the Committee’s Democrats not bothering to show up to an official hearing.
- “It was expected that Democrats would not show up to the border. I don’t think they want to see what’s going on and the damage they have done. The Democratic Party has not offered real solutions, just unrealistic promises,” one agent said. “Democrats have been a no show at the border for two years. What else is new?” another agent quipped.
- Local 2595 President Rafael Rivera, which represents Border Patrol agents in Yuma, said it was “sad” Democrats did not want to come down and listen to the agents about what they have been facing during the past two years. He noted that while Senators Mark Kelly (D) and Kyrsten Sinema (I) have toured the border in Arizona, no other Democrats have bothered to reach out to him to find out what is going on in Yuma.
- Chris Clem was the Yuma Sector’s chief patrol agent from 2020 to 2022 before retiring. He was in charge of the Yuma Sector when it experienced its historic highs of illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona, when it has been one of the less busier sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border pre-Biden administration. Sources told Townhall at the time the border was not being patrolled because most agents were pulled from the field in order to process the thousands of illegal immigrants who surrendered themselves to them on a daily basis.
- “I think that it should’ve been a bipartisan hearing down here because in order to solve a border security and immigration crisis, we need to involve the community, the experts, the business community. That takes everybody and so that means everybody that is represented and their representatives need to be here,” Clem stated.
- “Border security should be a nonpartisan issue, but immigration is a socioeconomic issue and that’s why it requires all sides of the aisle to address,” he continued, adding he believes more hearings about the crisis should take place at the border.
MORE COVERAGE:
The New York Post: House Dems skip tour of Mexico border wall gaps before Yuma hearing
The Washington Examiner: Biden administration slammed for border surge at GOP-only hearing in Yuma
Fox News: Jordan rips Dems for skipping Arizona border crisis hearing, blasts ‘reckless’ Biden policies
KYMA: House Judiciary Committee brings border hearing to Yuma City Hall
The Daily Signal: Local Arizona Leaders Detail Reality of Border Crisis at Hearing Democrats Boycotted
Breitbart: Arizona Hospital CEO Raises Alarm on Staggering Migrant Healthcare Costs
Fox News: Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz predict Biden’s border crisis will impact entire country
NTD: Judiciary Republicans Gavel in Second Hearing on ‘Biden Border Crisis’ From Yuma, Arizona
For more Frontline America coverage: