This part of the fence was built by the Obama administration. President Trump purchased all this material. The day that he took office, President Biden issued an order to shut down construction.

Cochise County, Arizona Sheriff, Mark Dannells joins me now. Sheriff, thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. A lot of attention at the border. It's not happening in your state, but your state is actually where you're seeing the number of crossings right now. What do you attribute that to, Sheriff?

Well, thanks for having me on, Martha. Let me just say this. I think Governor Abbott is doing in Texas, the message he's sending, the action he's put behind his message is taking the cartel and routing the criminal activity, the smuggling, the trafficking into New Mexico, Arizona, and California. That's what happens when you do your job as an elected official. So again, kudos to Governor Abbott for doing. But we're seeing the impact. We're seeing record numbers. Last year, this time, we had over 100,000 in federal fiscal year. This year, we're pushing almost 300,000. So you can see the impact that we're addressing right now.

So what's your message to your governor? California is going through the same thing. Governor Newsom 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, Governor Ducci and I work very close on a lot of our enforcement programs. I met Governor Hobbes numerous times. And I'll say this. She told me last week that she was going to DC to meet with the President, Secretary Mayorkas at the White House to see what they can do here. Because the bottom line is, right now, over the last two years, we've had 9.4 million dollar expenses for border-related state-related crimes in my county alone. $9.4 million. And the governor's office in the state's helping me pay those bills. The amount of people we're seeing here on state-related crimes of the murder is off the charts. The only one left I got helping us, Martha, is our state. The federal government and the majority of Congress has abandoned us down here on the border. So when you put almost 3,000 people in jail in two years for border-related crimes in my jail, you can imagine the impact. I need our governor. I've told her this. She hasn't turned her back on it yet. And we're going to keep pushing her because I need her. I really do, because this President and this majority of Congress have turned their back on this border, and we're paying the impact.

We're paying the dividends right now.

So what How does she view what Governor Abbott has done? He moved to put people on busses 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 got nine National Guard that she sent down here over the last couple of weeks to help me just in our jail aspect of it, to help on some of our border initiative programs. I don't think that, and I say that because when this governor took office, She removed the containers from Governor Ducey. That was something she was not in favor of. Politics is driving this, Martha. You got Democrat governors, you got Republican governors are so divided on this. You look at the two presidents. You got President Trump down there that had a strong prioritization on the border, strong message on the border, and strong action on it. You got President Biden that's 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. He's down here right now for show and tell, for for political photo offices, exactly what he's doing. Come to Arizona. We've invited President Biden to come work with sheriffs, and we have not seen that yet.

Well, protecting the country, as I said before, is the number one job of the President of the United States. As voters look at this, they're going to see whether or not they think he's taking it seriously. We watch these busses. I know you all have had enormous numbers of busses 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 Cochis County, we're on the southeast corner of the state of Arizona, is God aways. We see the God aways that Director Holman was talking about. We see the majority of God aways in the Tucson sector. We don't deal with give-ups. But thanks to the fractured wisdom of Washington, DC, and I don't want to sound critic, but I'm very frustrated with this. I can tell. People that come across the southwest border right now outside the proper of Cochise County, are being bused to my county and processed here since May eighth of 2023 up till, I think it's February 20th. 717 or 715 busses through the state of Arizona and my local resources have bus street releases from border patrol out of my county. I'm not blaming the agents. I'm blaming Washington DC for sending them here, taking my agents off the enforcement and putting them in administrative processing. This is a fractured mess on this border right now, and it amazes me. You're exactly right. I say it. The oath of office for a sheriff, the oath of office for a governor or President of the United States or a Congressional member is all the same.

You got to protect the citizens in our country first.

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. They came out against it, mainly because of this. I was notified of this bill from one of your senators. Friday, I was in DC on Saturday with national sheriffs. I said, Come on over. Let's talk about this bill. I do nothing about the border bill being put together. America's sheriffs didn't know about it. Mayors didn't know about it. I invited them to a meeting on Sunday. Nobody showed up. Monday, national sheriffs voted to oppose it. So again, I said this to our two US centers in Arizona, you got to bring your national sheriffs to the table and work together with us as a community to get your mayors there, get your governors. And let's do this as a collective government. That's how we're going to solve this. Right now, that's not happening. And that's why there's so much opposition to, in fact, I'll just say this, too. Part of that bill was to take the judicial side out of this and put it under an administrator side, which puts the trust back in this administration. That trust is not there, and I've shared that back, too. You got to put...

It's just not working right now, Martha. I hear you, Sheriff.

You got to do a better job. You know what, sir? Thank you very much. Good to hear from you today. We wish you well. We hope you'll come back and talk to us more in the future. Sheriff Daniels from Arizona. Good to speak with you today.

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