CNN "Erin Burnett Outfront" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Ron Johnson

Interview

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BURNETT: And OUTFRONT now, Chairman Ron Johnson, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Chairman, look, I appreciate your time. You know, and your raw emotion we saw today. What went through your mind when you first saw that picture?

JOHNSON: Hello, Erin. What was going through my mind -- I've got two daughters. I have four grandkids all under four years old. I think that's what goes through every American's mind.

And Republicans hate it. Democrats hate it. The men and women of DHS dealing with this crisis hate it. The president hates it. And I'm hoping from this tragedy -- I hope it will catalyze -- be a catalyst for action so we can fix or horribly broken immigration system. I'm not here to assess blame I'm here to try and solve the problem.

I don't think there's been a committee in Congress devoting more time and effort to understanding the complexity of what's happening at our border in Central America. So -- and we have to work together in a non-partisan way and start addressing this problem, continue improvement, start fixing it.

BURNETT: Well, look, I have to say, that is one everyone should applaud, I mean, this sort of pointing the finger, it's Democrats, it's Republicans, it's at the least counterproductive. At the most I think offensive to Americans.

But I want to understand, Senator, what your- -- you know, your bill would do. Oscar's mother -- Oscar, of course, is the father in the picture. His mother said that her son's goal, his wife, their daughter was to get to Dallas. They wanted to go to Dallas, Texas, to work and have a better financial situation.

We understand that such claims to come to the United States for economic betterment are pretty much rejected when it comes to asylum, which is the way they were coming in.

So would you change that? Or even under the bill you're talking about, would the situation still have happened?

JOHNSON: Well, first of all, I'm not talking about any bill right now. We're still laying out the reality of the rm. The fact of the matter is that's not a valid asylum climb. As sympathetic as it is people wanting to come to this country for the economic promise I understand that but it has to be a legal process.

If you are concerned about people being exploited -- that was the subject of our hearing was the human trafficking and the exploitation of these migrants, by the evil human traffickers, if you are concerned about that kind of exploitation, you ought to be concerned about people coming into this country illegally, exploited by unscrupulous employers.

We had a group arrested in Wisconsin that was -- they were trafficking legal immigrants taking away passports, threatening them. So, we have turned to an illegal. Allow people to climb asylum or refugee status in their home countries so they don't have to take the journey.

BURNETT: Right.

JOHNSON: So, let me finish with this. We have to understand it. Our broken immigration system is sustaining this wicked business model of human smuggling and human trafficking.

[19:35:03] That's what we need to address.

BURNETT: Yes. Look, I hear you but I'm just trying to understand. I mean, in the horrible situation that this picture brought to light, right, a young family they're not going to make the asylum bar, right? But they feel so desperate that this was worth a shot.

It doesn't sound like that would change.

JOHNSON: Well, again, this year alone in just eight months this fiscal year 411,000 unaccompanied children by people come in illegally as a family unit and crossed illegally and have been apprehended, 411,000. The pace is quickening. If May's pace continues, in the next four months, another 400,000 will enter. And by the way, 93 percent are entering between the ports of entry because that is the easiest path in.

So I understand in story and these people got impatient. And it ended in tragedy. But 93 percent of people aren't necessarily waiting. They just realize if they come in illegally, they get a free pass in border patrol is a mere speed bump into the longtime residency. That's a huge incentive for more people to come and more tragedies will occur.

BURNETT: So what -- what are you going to do? I mean the asylum system and some people are showing up you got to wait 14 months not enough people to stay. Some of them have to sleep on the street. One can understand how they might feel desperation.

People who want to not even try to come in through the asylum system, there aren't enough judges. There aren't enough beds. I mean, what specifically is going to be done to change this?

JOHNSON: So there are many things we can do. Again, allow people to claim asylum and refugee status in their home country so they don't have to take the dangerous journey. That's part of many people's bills.

From my standpoint, I've introduce add guest worker visa program that's governed by the states. The president -- Jared Kushner is working on a revision of our visa system. BURNETT: Yes.

JOHNSON: I think we need more legal immigrants, legal immigrants. We don't have enough workers in the country to grow our economy the way we need to but it has to be a legal system.

So, again, what I'm going to be doing is holding meetings with our Democrat colleagues.

BURNETT: Yes.

JOHNSON: Hopefully, we can get initiate operations safe return. The goal of that is to rapidly and more accurately determine those people who don't have a valid asylum claim and safely return them to the home country as deterrent so that more people don't take the dangerous journey. I think that's compassion.

BURNETT: Can I ask you a question, though, that's really important? Because I understand your point about claiming it in your home country. But that's a lot easier to enforce, shall we say right, when your home is country is across an ocean.

But when your home country has a land path to the United States and you're worried about being killed or murdered in your home country, which you may be in Syria or somewhere else, which is a hell of a lot harder to get here. But in Guatemala, you're going to come.

How would provide them in their home country stop them from coming if they think that's a difference between life and death?

JOHNSON: Again, because if they have a credible fear and they really are being persecuted and they actually qualify for asylum, they'll be granted asylum. And again --

BURNETT: But the ample wait times are, what, six months to a year. So you expect them to wait there for that long.

JOHNSON: You know, Erin there was a poll taken in Guatemala that a third of Guatemalans intended to migrant to the United States.

We couldn't some simulate 6 million and Guatemala doesn't want to lose the population. We do bear great responsibility. It's our insatiable demands for drugs, given rise to the drug cartels, destroyed those public institutions, but we also have to crush the drug cartels so we can actually provide development dollars to create opportunity in the Central American countries as well.

This is an incredibly complex problem.

BURNETT: Yes.

JOHNSON: Those are long term solutions. The short-term solution, the short goal ought to be to reduce the flow, make sure that human traffickers realize we're not going to allow them to exploit our laws and exploit those migrants. We have to stop -- reduce this flow because we can't accept all of them and people are going to take the risks and see more tragedies like we saw in that photo.

BURNETT: All right. Chairman Johnson, I appreciate your time thank you very much for the conversation.

JOHNSON: Have a good night.

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