STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): You hear these stories about -- and you look at the caravan, and you hear these heart breaking stories. These are women and children, they're just trying to escape violence and drugs where they live. That is the case in a number of instances, but there are a lot of people who are trying to sneak through, aren't there?
RONALD COLBURN (PRESIDENT, BORDER PATROL FOUNDATION): Yes. The family units and the unaccompanied children stories tend to make a very heart-wrenching appeal to the public in general. However, just beneath the surface are those that are mixing amongst those that enter. Many of them adults trying to pass as juveniles to get the benefits of the unaccompanied children program started with the last administration. These are dangerous criminals. MS-13, 18th Street gang, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico.
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DOOCY: So many people have talked about -- well, the president is trying to deport the criminal illegals. But when he does, and when they are deported, then, in many cases, those are the people who are trying to come back across the border.
COLBURN: Yes. I've been following this very closely in the open source information and intelligence community. I still follow this and consult with the government as well as with private sector on this threat. There are a number of criminals that are returning after having been deported. They were located in the United States after serving time in federal prisons for violent crimes, deported, and now they're coming back. They're coming back in droves.
DOOCY: Well, Ronald, one of the reasons they're doing it is because our immigration laws have been a joke in the past. Between how easy it is for some to get asylum and then you cross the border and then they have the catch and release. The border patrol agents are told to do that from D.C. Why not try?
COLBURN: Absolutely. Ironically, it's the federal government that is funding the criminal organizations that are guaranteeing delivery to the United States. The benefits, including cash moneys, that those that are coming under the current release program get cash moneys in other social welfare support, and they use that to pay the smugglers that brought them to the border.
DOOCY: And the last point is, Ronald, just the fact that given there are so many gang members who are trying to just melt in with the women and children trying to come into the country. Every time one of our border patrol agents apprehends one of those guys, you just never know, they're putting their lives on the lines.
COLBURN: Yes, every border patrol agent suits up, as they say, to go in to the field and work wondering if they're going to come back to their families at the end of their shifts. It's dangerous work. At least one in ten of the entrants historically had criminal records. When you add those that are fugitives from their own countries and villages, especially pedophiles who are being driven out of their countries but finding sanctuary here in the United States, you're talking one in five violent criminals that will take on a border patrol agent, kill, or seriously injured.
