http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2016/08/23/trump-on-deportation-stance-want-to-follow-laws/This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," August 23, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And welcome to "Hannity." And tonight, we are broadcasting from ACL Live at the Moody Theater. We're here in beautiful Austin, Texas.
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HANNITY: This is a first of two one-hour events with Donald Trump on the very important topic of illegal immigration. These topics have become central issues to the voters in this campaign. So we have decided tonight to go in depth on the direct impact they are having on you, the American people.
And tonight, you're going to hear heart-breaking stories from just some of the many, many family members whose loved ones were victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants. And tomorrow, we'll be joined by law enforcement experts.
Now, to put it simply, the effects that illegal immigration is having on our country is absolutely staggering. Now, the Pew Research Center estimates that over 11 million illegal immigrants now live in this country, not respecting our laws and sovereignty.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform calculates the U.S. spends, get this, over $113 billion per year on illegal immigration. States and local governments, they're feeling the brunt of that cost...
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HANNITY: ... and are shelling out over $84 billion per year. Now, this includes over $49 billion for education, $10.8 billion dollars for medical care, $9.6 billion on general expenses, $8.7 billion on justice expenditures, and $5.3 billion on welfare-related costs.
Now, illegal immigrants make up 5.1 percent of the U.S. labor force. Over 8 million illegals now are working or looking for work. By the way, we have 95 million Americans out of the labor force right now.
The Migration Policy Institute, they have an estimate that says of the 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the country, 820,000 of them are convicted criminals!
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HANNITY: And the most recent numbers show that in 2010, 55,000 illegal immigrants were being held right here in federal prisons.
And when it comes to federal crime, data from 2015 -- get this number -- 36.6 percent of the more than 70,000 federal sentences for offenses were committed by illegal immigrants.
And if you look at the breakdown of the numbers, the federal sentences from last year alone, illegal immigrants responsible for 18 percent of drug trafficking, 30 percent of kidnapping, hostage-taking, 75 percent of drug possession, 10 percent of money laundering, 21 percent of national defense sentences, 5 percent of murder sentences.
And right here in the great state of Texas, well, there have been hundreds of thousands of crimes only in the last few years alone. I have visited this border numerous times, over 11 times, and have seen up close and personal the impact of illegal immigrants trying to cross into this country.
I've also seen massive drug tunnels and drug warehouses full of narcotics and other drugs confiscated by authorities. They, of course, were aimed for your children.
Now, you would think that federal, state, local governments would see all of this as overwhelming data and do everything they could do to curb illegal immigration. That's not the case. There are in America today over 300 sanctuary jurisdictions, which protect and shelter illegal immigrants from being deported.
Tonight is about the truth. This is truth you will not hear from The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, certainly not CNN, the Clinton News Network.
And to be fair, we've offered Hillary Clinton the same opportunity that we are giving Donald Trump over the next two nights. And as of tonight, her campaign, they haven't gotten back to me.
Now, in just a few moments, Donald Trump will join us right here on this stage, along with mothers who have lost their children to crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
Here's just part of what you will see in this investigative reporting tonight.
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DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our open border has allowed drugs and crime and gangs to pour into our country and our communities.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My best friend, my rock, my son Dominic (ph), was killed by an illegal immigrant.
TRUMP: So much needless suffering, so much preventable death.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When somebody reaches in your house and grabs your littlest kid and tortures them, you're afraid of everything for a long time.
TRUMP: Nothing has affected me more than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence, which we can solve! We have to solve it!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My son's life was stolen at the hands of an illegal alien.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One minute I'm hearing my son's voice, Be right home, old man, I'm right around the corner. The next minute, gunshots, and Chad (ph) was dead.
TRUMP: My opponent wants sanctuary cities. Where was the sanctuary for all of the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered and who have suffered so, so horribly?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Joining us now for the hour, Republican presidential nominee, welcome Donald Trump.
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TRUMP: Thank you, everyone. Wow. Thank you.
HANNITY: All right, Mr. Trump...
AUDIENCE: Trump! Trump! Trump!
TRUMP: A lot of people.
HANNITY: You've got a lot of people.
TRUMP: A lot of good people.
HANNITY: By the way, we've got one, two, three, four (INAUDIBLE).
Good to see you. Between the refugees that you said you will extremely vet and illegal immigration, I don't think there's any one other issue besides the economy and national security that's defining this election.
You heard all of those statistics. Your reaction.
TRUMP: I think it's horrible. I've gotten to know these families. And Jamil (ph) is a friend of mine, lost an incredible son who was going to go to one of the great colleges on a football scholarship, and a smart, young, beautiful guy. And he was shot in the face by somebody that just wanted to shoot somebody.
In this case, they wanted to shoot somebody because he was black. And it was a disgrace. And he shouldn't have been in the country, wasn't supposed to be in the country. And you know, whether it's Jamil or so many others that have been just -- you know, their lives have been destroyed by this.
And I hope -- I hope -- in the case of Jamil, I hope it's not destroyed, but how do you ever recover from a thing like that? And we can stop it. We have to stop it. You know, when I first went on June 16th...
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HANNITY: That was 2015.
TRUMP: Yes. On June 16th of last year, when I talked about illegal immigration, a lot of people didn't know what I was talking about. And we started a dialogue. I took a lot of heat. You know that.
HANNITY: I remember.
TRUMP: More than anybody, you know that. And they started looking into it, and all of a sudden, they realized I was right. It's a tremendous, tremendous problem. And we want people to come into this country, Sean. But we want them to come in legally. They have to come in legally.
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HANNITY: I want to talk about -- you've said a lot of things about immigration. Let's start with, I guess, your signature issue on immigration, which is you're going to build the wall.
TRUMP: Yes, 100 percent.(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
HANNITY: Who is going to pay for the wall?
AUDIENCE: Mexico!
HANNITY: All right.
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HANNITY: Here's my question...
TRUMP: Well, you know, what has been interesting that I've been watching over the last week or two, and they've been saying, Oh, well maybe he won't build the wall, maybe he won't...
HANNITY: Jeb Bush said that. Jeb Bush said, he'll never build the wall.
TRUMP: Oh, he said that a long time ago. I think...
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TRUMP: I think people now realize we're building the wall, it's going to happen, it's 100 percent simple. You know, I tell the story all the time, the Great Wall of China, 13,000 miles long. This is 1,000 miles and we have Caterpillar tractors to build, OK?
It's 1,000 miles -- it's 2,000, but we need 1,000. And it's so easy to do. And it gets higher and higher and higher every time somebody says I'm not going to build it.
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HANNITY: I think it's time for -- if you get elected president of the United States of America, how...
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HANNITY: According to the crowd, when...
TRUMP: When, yes.
HANNITY: Yes. But here's my question.
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HANNITY: How long -- how long would it take you to build that wall start to finish? You're a builder.
TRUMP: Yes, I'm very good at it, almost immediately. Now, if you would believe it, you know, they were going to build the wall a while ago, not so long ago, like in '06. And they couldn't get environmental impact statements, can you believe it? OK?
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TRUMP: Now we got lucky because it is such -- it was such a little wall, it was such a nothing wall, no, they couldn't get their environmental -- probably a snake was in the way or a toad or...
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: A turtle, could have been a turtle.
TRUMP: ... or something that you've probably never heard of. But something was in the way.
And you think of China, in the South China Sea, they're building this massive fortress. They're building this massive military fortress. And they're digging that water, they're digging, digging.
And you know what happened? They said, Let's do it on Sunday, and on Monday morning, they started. So in our case, look, that wall is going to start very quickly. I've got, as you know -- and we have a lot of the Border Patrol...
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TRUMP: We have a lot of the Border Patrol agents here tonight. And we have 16,500 Border Patrol agents. They know the border better than anybody. Their job is much easier without Trump because all they have to do is let everyone just keep going by.
These are unbelievable people. They see what's happening. They see what's coming in. And they want it stopped. They want -- look, they want people to come in, but they want the people to be vetted.
So here's the story. So they endorsed me. First time in the history of the Border Patrol agents that they've endorsed (INAUDIBLE)
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