Congresswoman Kat Cammack joins this week’s episode to talk about the increasing crisis at our southern border, what the “defund the police” movement has meant to communities across the country, and, finally, what it looks like to stand up for law enforcement in today’s climate.
Congresswoman Kat Cammack proudly serves Florida’s 3rd Congressional District as the youngest Republican woman in the 117th Congress. She is a third-generation sandblaster who grew up on a cattle ranch and understands the hard work and determination it takes to run a small business. A proud alumna of the Naval War College, Kat knows the issues and constituents of Florida’s 3rd intimately, having served as the longtime former deputy chief of staff for the district prior to her election in 2020.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, Congresswoman Kat Cammack joins us to talk about the increasing crisis on our southern border, what the defund the police movement has meant to communities across the country, and finally, what does it look like to stand up for law enforcement in today’s climate? But before we bring her on, a little bit more about the Congresswoman. Representative Kat Cammack proudly serves Florida’s third congressional district as the youngest Republican woman in the 117th Congress. She is a third-generation sandblaster who grew up on a cattle ranch and understands the hard work and determination it takes to run a small business. A proud alumnus of the Naval War College, Kat knows the issues of constituents of Florida’s third intimately, having served as the longtime, former deputy chief of staff for the district prior to her election in 2020. Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining She Thinks today.
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Hey. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
Beverly Hallberg:
So first question for you is what is it like to be the youngest Republican woman in Congress?
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Well, I can tell you, even though I’m 33, some days, I feel like I’m 73. And when you have very late night or, recently, this morning at 1:00 AM, a vote, you don’t exactly bounce back as quickly as you did when you were younger, but it’s still an incredible honor and a privilege. You feel like you have a real responsibility to represent your generation. So I feel a particular sense of responsibility for millennials and Gen Zs and young women. But at the same time, it’s also a pretty cool experience because I get to share so much of what millennials and our culture is like with my older colleagues. And that can be everything from helping them navigate iPhones to social media, but then also explaining how policies impact us a little bit differently than, say, your normal average voter because today we find ourselves as the largest voting block in America. So it’s a pretty cool experience, and it’s almost like a clashing of two different worlds, the old school and new school.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I know that your run for Congress probably came about because you faced something personally. I know that you have shared before about your family’s ranch and how certain policies forced your family to sell the cattle ranch. Is that the main reason why you decided to run for office?
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Yeah. I had had a life plan to take over our family business, get involved in oil and gas industry, and that was kind of my plan all along. But I was in my final year of college, my last month actually, when we got the news that we were losing our ranch where I grew up. And it wasn’t because my family missed payments or anything, it was because we were wrapped up in one of Obama’s signature housing projects. And what that was, was about an 1800-page bill that created a program called HAMP, which essentially incentivized banks to push people out of their homes and collect a tax credit on the front end from the federal government.
So my family, along with 7 million other people around the country, over the course of several years, they found themselves homeless. And it was during that several-month period where we had no place to go that I really became infuriated and decided that if there was ever a time for me to get involved, that it was now because I certainly didn’t want any other family in the country to go through what mine had just been through. And so that’s what woke me up to politics impacting your life whether you want it to or not. And that’s how I got my start at the tender age of, I believe, I was 22.
Beverly Hallberg:
And you have been involved… One of the areas you’ve been involved quite significantly is on the border. And I was wondering if, first of all, is that part of the fact that so many ranches and those who own land right on the border are suffering from it? And really how bad has it been for those family-run farms and ranches that are on the border?
Rep. Kat Cammack:
It’s an incredible blessing to sit and serve on the Homeland Security Committee in Congress because border security is part of our jurisdiction. And one of the things that I’ve learned over the course of this last year, visiting the border three different times, is the stories firsthand from ranchers and farmers that live right there at the Southwest border. In one particular occasion, I visited with a multi-generation operation that, for years, had a farming operation. It was right there at the border. And they talked about how they had concerns about the wall being built because of, not security, but because of irrigation and how that would impact the flow of water. Because when you look at the Southwest border, a lot of it is a flood plain, and so they had concerns in that way.
But in talking with these families — in particular, this one family — they said that even though they had concerns about how they would have to take additional steps to mitigate the challenges about irrigation with the wall going up, they were more concerned about the security. Over the course of the last few years, and especially recently, they have a fear, a real fear of letting their children and grandchildren play outside. They leave food and water out in the fields for illegals that are crossing in the middle of the night as a way to dissuade them from cutting fences and from committing crimes and burglarizing their barns and their shops and their homes.
And it was really, really sad to hear that many of these families who … many are of Mexican descent, they used to travel across the border and have lunch on the other side and visit with family. And they say that it is too dangerous now, and for years they haven’t been back. Even though they can see right across the river, they just don’t want to go back because they feel a great sense of danger and threats. And they’ve seen the horrific increase in crime that is being perpetuated by the cartels and the coyotes that are smuggling people and drugs across. So it’s been pretty heartbreaking. A lot of family operations are looking at selling. And in a time when we need more farmers and ranchers passing that incredible heritage, that operation, and those skills onto the next generation, many are selling out because they want to see a different path for their kids because the threat has become so great. So that’s pretty heartbreaking being down there on the border and hearing those stories.
Beverly Hallberg:
And we often hear about the human toll of the migrants who are coming over here, and that is something —
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Yes.
Beverly Hallberg:
— obviously to take into account as well, but you bring the human aspect of it, of what it means for those on the U.S. side of the border and those who own land, and I think many people who live on the border are asking what this administration is going to do. They’ve struggled to admit that it is a crisis, but yet the numbers are continuing to go up. As we look back at the year of 2021, how much has the migration to our country increased on the Southern border in comparison to prior years?
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Well, this has been a historic year, and the numbers don’t lie. We have seen upwards of 1.7 million illegals apprehended in this year alone. Now, why is that significant? Because that number, one in itself is historic. It’s a record-breaking number. But it also doesn’t account for the got-aways. And the got-aways are people who are actively seeking to avoid apprehension. Most of these family units who are being smuggled, they pay the cartels about $6,000 per man, woman, and child, and they pay to be smuggled across the border. That is a situation where people want to be caught or apprehended by border patrol because then they’re subsequently processed and released into the United States with a piece of paper that says “report to your nearest ICE detention facility in five years for deportation.” Now 99.9% of people never show up for those court dates, so those people are in the country and then they start to build lives.
For those that are actively seeking to avoid apprehension, it’s because they have a record, which would prohibit them from being processed and subsequently released into the United States. These are sex offenders, violent offenders, gang members. We have people on the international terrorist watch list that have been apprehended, but we have seen some that have gotten away. These got-aways are determined by sightings via camera that are all over the border, be it deer cameras that the border patrol uses or some of the drones, and then also from eyewitness accounts from border patrol agents themselves. That got-away number is upwards of a half a million just this year alone. And again, these people are smuggling drugs, they’re violent offenders, these are people who would never be eligible to be in the country in the first place.
So when you couple the number of people that we know are got-aways with the number of apprehensions and then, of course, those that we have yet to even know who’s getting across and how because we have so many gaps along that Southwest border, it’s pretty staggering when you think about the impact that that then has on our communities, be it on the education system and the modifications that have to take place to put Spanish-speaking teachers in classrooms to accommodate for children who English is not their first language. Also, you have the social and the healthcare services in a community that are typically reserved for people in underserved communities. Well, that problem now gets exacerbated because these migrants, they have very little to no resources available. So they tap into these resources. And we’ve seen for years, about a decade and a half, the hospital system becoming overrun because they’re using hospitals as primary care facilities.
But then you look at the crime. The crime that is being associated with direct results and ties back to the Southwest border is staggering. And I’ll give an example from my own district in Northcentral/Northeast Florida. I took my sheriffs down to the border on my last border trip because I wanted them to see firsthand what the crisis was like, up close and personal. And it was an incredibly eye-opening experience, even for me, being down there multiple times. One of my sheriffs actually presented a picture of some narcotics that they had recently picked up in a drug… a routine traffic stop.
The stamp on the brick was a cartel that belonged to a Southern… Southwest border cartel that was identified immediately by Homeland Security investigations. The drugs that had been confiscated by this particular sheriff was enough to kill every man, woman, and child in the state of Florida 11 times over. Now, that’s just in one little community of about 75,000 people. And then, one county over, one of my other sheriffs, Sheriff Gator DeLoach, he, while we were at the Southwest border, was notified of a double homicide, and the suspect was an illegal who had been in the country and he was fleeing authorities, trying to make his way back to the Southwest border to cross over into Mexico.
Now, that’s just two examples out of thousands that has really rocked communities, be it the opioid epidemic, which is fueled by the drugs coming across the Southwest border, where so much of the raw materials that make these drugs comes from China, but also the criminal element of these gangs that are using American gangs as basically subcontractors to do their bidding when it comes to burglaries, crime, drug dealing, murder, you name it. And so we’re seeing an increase in crime across America, and you can tie back, time and time again, people who perpetrated these crimes that were never supposed to be here in the first place but found their way here through the Southwest border. So this effectively has turned every single town and city in America into a border town. And it’s because of this administration’s failure to one, call it a crisis, and two, then actively work to secure our borders.
Beverly Hallberg:
And of course, that leads to then our other topic that we wanted to discuss today, which is the defund the police movement. So as you just very eloquently pointed out, at the same time, we have those who are coming across our border, finding those gaps in the border, those who are selling drugs, are here to do ill to us. You then have police systems that, first of all, may not have the resources to be able to handle the influx of crime in their cities, but also just feel like their hands are tied. Even if they do arrest someone, they can get out on bail quickly.
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Yes.
Beverly Hallberg:
Tell me a little bit about the defund the police movement, at least in Florida. I know Florida hasn’t seen it to the same extent we have seen it in other states, but just as somebody who works on Capitol Hill and hears about these issues on a day-to-day basis, how bad has the defund the police movement meant when it comes to crime? Because the Biden administration wants to say it’s because of the pandemic and guns, we have increased crime.
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Well, that’s just patently false. And again, I mean I know the science and the data, that seems to be an inconvenient truth for the Democrats and the Biden administration. But the fact remains that in the cities with the toughest gun control legislation, they have the highest rates of crimes and homicide. We have historic, record-breaking numbers of homicides in six of our major metropolitan cities. And when you talk to some of these officers… And I have had these conversations with officers from NYPD. Indianapolis, for example, is experiencing some of the worst homicide rates in America today. And I’ve gone to their stations, and I’ve visited with them at shift change. They tell me that they are not getting the support that they need for a litany of different reasons, one being you have this cultural call to defund police. If you are serious about making communities safer and more in tune with their police departments, you want to invest in that relationship, not strip resources from the very people that are trying their very best to do a very difficult job.
And so that right there, off the bat, we’re seeing the defunding, the actual taking of resources away, that’s eating away at people’s ability just to do the job. Then you couple it with issues like bail reform. Bail reform is not criminal justice reform. What bail reform is, is it’s a liberal push to basically get rid of bail altogether and cash bonds, taking judges’ ability away to make that judgment call, which they are elected to do. That is very troublesome because it’s a demoralizing factor for our police. One minute they arrest a violent criminal. The very next day, they’re back out on the streets committing and perpetrating more crimes.
We saw that in Wisconsin, where the media was so quick to say that a car plowed through a Christmas parade and killed innocent people, when in fact, it was a violent criminal with a long and storied rap sheet that had no business being back out on the streets. But because the judge’s hands were tied and these Soros-backed liberal DAs and prosecutors had put forward initiatives to basically reduce and have no bail whatsoever, this man was able to go back out on the streets and continue to commit crimes that led to horrific, horrific deaths.
And so you see all these things happening, the actual defunding of these departments, the cultural calls to dismantle entire police departments, the lack of upholding of the law and prosecuting these crimes, especially violent crimes. And then I think you look at what’s happening on the Southwest border. You can’t protect your hometowns if you can’t defend the homeland. And these two issues are intrinsically tied to one another. When you look at the drugs that are coming across the Southwest border, they land in our communities. And for every mile that they get further inland, the more valuable they become. And there’s a price point on each bit of drugs. And so the people who are transporting and distributing and selling all these drugs, they get a sense of importance and definitely more determination the further inland that the drugs get. Because at that point, like I said, they’re more valuable. That puts our men and women in law enforcement in a very precarious situation.
There’s no such thing as a routine traffic stop, first of all. But when you do a traffic stop, and maybe you find yourself in Ohio, and this person has been smuggling drugs across state lines with intent to distribute, and it is millions of dollars’ worth of drugs, they’re going to protect those drugs at all costs. And that’s putting the lives of these men and women making those stops, doing their jobs, in danger. And so there’s a really clear line that we are able to draw between what is happening with the open border policies of the Biden administration and then the calls to defund police.
In Florida, we don’t see it so much. I do live in a very liberal city, the city of Gainesville. And so my husband, who is a SWAT medic… I’ve heard the stories of some of the changes and policy changes that have been proposed and how they have had to change the way they do things. It’s not always for the better. It seems like many of the police departments around the country, particularly those run in liberal cities, are more hellbent on meeting a political objective, rather than a national security or community safety objective. And that to me is the most dangerous part about the defund police movement.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah. And so just final question for you on that, I know that people are concerned about the safety of our law enforcement across this country. We know that there have been many early retirements, there have been people who have just been leaving law enforcement altogether because of, as you were just saying, the increased danger that they face and also just the morale, the low morale that they face. It’s made me wonder: what are we looking at a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, when it comes to those who want to be part of our law enforcement, who maybe did a few years ago, but now don’t want to be part of it? Are we seeing that young men and women are just not entering this area, this occupation anymore?
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many sheriffs and police chiefs I talk to on a regular basis, and not just from my own district, but from around the country, and I ask them, how is recruiting going? How is retention? What you’re seeing is a cannibalization of officers from one department to another because now it’s becoming very competitive. The pay has gotten more competitive because they’re having such a hard time retaining folks. And I know it’s because of the very difficult conversations that are being had around the kitchen table at night. I know because my husband and I have actually had these conversations. When he as a firefighter is having to put a ballistic vest on the truck because they are now becoming the first on scene or they’re experiencing drive-by shootings as they have, that’s a very scary thing to think about as the spouse, as the wife of a first responder, of my husband might not make it through the door at the end of that shift. So I know if I’m having these conversations, many families are.
And so a lot of people are looking at, well, maybe I can go to a safer community, one that’s maybe got a different elected leadership that is going to support first responders in law enforcement. So you’re seeing a lot of people moving away from these blue-run cities and towns and, quite frankly, states. But then you also have parents who are very concerned about the direction that this culture is taking law enforcement. And they say, you know, “I know you always wanted to be a cop when you grew up, but maybe it’s time that you look at going into the military, or maybe it’s time you look at something else.” Because if we don’t have that pipeline of talent going into the academies and then working their way through the ranks and really finding a home within these departments which … these become the fabric of our communities. If they’re going in and they’re saying, “I don’t know if this is so much for me, there’s a lot of vitriol and hatred coming my way,” they’re not going to be in it for the long haul.
Which again, then perpetuates this very dangerous situation where we have no institutional knowledge and experience that gets passed on to the next generation of law enforcement. So it’s a very, very difficult cycle that we’re finding ourselves getting deeper and deeper into with a lack of recruits coming in, but then also the cannibalization, as I said, of people… departments poaching other, more seasoned officers to fill up ranks because people are leaving and retiring at record rates. It’s an issue happening all across the country, but mostly in blue cities and states.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I think that’s why it’s so important to have people like you speaking out about these issues, not in a siloed way that there’s just a border crisis and then we have a defund the police crisis. They all connect with each other, so I think it’s great to have people like you on our show to connect those dots for us. Representative Kat Cammack from the great state of Florida, thank you so much for joining She Thinks today.
Rep. Kat Cammack:
Thank you so much. And Merry Christmas to everybody out there listening, and Merry Christmas to you and your team.
Beverly Hallberg:
Thank you so much. And before all of you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and wellbeing for all Americans. So please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That is iwf.org/donate. Last, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or a review on iTunes. That does help. And we’d love it if you shared this episode so your friends know where they can find more She Thinks. From all of us here at Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for watching.