National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Rep. Michael Cloud, Texas Constitutional Conservative
Hi. This is sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, and this is the NPA report podcast. You know, we pay attention to what's happening in Washington DC and, of course, around the country when it comes to pro law enforcement policies, pro law enforcement, laws, legislation, court decisions. And to that end, we wanted to bring you somebody today who is really working hard to try to help law enforcement help law enforcement. You know, we hear so much about how local law enforcement is not supposed to help ICE or maybe they're supposed to help ICE, and there's so much confusion around it.
Betsy Smith:So we have representative Michael Cloud to talk to us about what is happening in DC, especially when it comes to legislation to help the current administration remove criminal illegal aliens. Representative Cloud, welcome to the show, and thank you for making time for us.
Rep. Michael Cloud:Well, thank you. It's good to be on with you. And let me first of all just thank you and thank all those in your organization and law enforcement for the work you do day in, out to protect families. It's very much appreciated. So thank you.
Betsy Smith:Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Now you and I both are from border states. I'm sitting 80 miles from the southern border, here in Arizona. And, of course, every day, we're hearing about the removal of criminal illegal aliens, from this country.
Betsy Smith:We're hearing, you know, some large blue cities and counties don't wanna cooperate with ICE. Other states like Florida are working really hard to cooperate with ICE. And you're introducing some legislation to make that whole thing easier for law enforcement. Can you talk about that?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Yeah, sure. We've introduced the two eighty seven gs Program Protection Act. And so the two eighty seven gs program has been around for a little while. It's a program that helps law enforcement cooperate with ICE honoring detentions and making sure we have people in the offices who are trained and ready to work with them. But what happened under the Biden administration is they basically they just stopped approving applicants to this program.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And it's one of those, even though it was the law of the land, they just slow rolled it. They weren't interested in securing the border. And so this legislation puts in measures where basically it's a kind of forced approval process. They have ninety days to approve the application. If there's a reason that they're going to reject it for some reason, they have to make sure to inform Congress and allow us the oversight capacity to look into it and to make sure that we're equipping our law enforcement who wish to, you know, those officers who wish to participate in the two eighty seven gs program to make sure that they're able to do so.
Betsy Smith:Now, I was a cop for almost thirty years. And when I was a cop in the Chicago area, we worked really hard to cooperate and to help our federal partners. You know? We really saw ourselves as as, we were all cops. And that has changed, especially in the last four years because we have this issue with ICE who are simply trying to do their job to to get illegal criminal aliens out of this country, and they do it by issuing and then serving these detainers.
Betsy Smith:Sometimes they're criminals. Sometimes they're civil. But it does require kind of a team effort with local law enforcement. And there's already laws and procedures in place for this. Why do you have to introduce this legislation that sort of protects existing
Rep. Michael Cloud:law? Yeah, it's kind of sad, but like you said, I mean, this used to be assumed. Of course law enforcement is going to help law enforcement because we're all on the same team. We want crime out of our communities. And that was kind of the common held ethic.
Rep. Michael Cloud:Really we've seen just such an extreme embrace of lawlessness, you know, along the political spectrum that's detrimental to society. And then you have certain cities who are embracing, calling themselves sanctuary cities, which basically means that they're choosing not to follow the law. And they're advertising it. We're not going to follow the law in our community, which is really sad. We had a hearing recently where we had four of the mayors of major cities as witnesses in our hearing.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And with the exception of Mayor Adams of New York who said that he would honor ICE detainers, The rest of them, they were trying to make it about immigration and all those kind of things. And I was pointed out, it's like we're a welcoming country. There's an immigration process. This is about there's a legal way to come and an illegal way to come. My wife's actually a naturalized citizen, so we've been through the immigration process.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And certainly there's work we could do to streamline it or to address that kind of thing. But when we're talking about why these mayors were in front of our committee, it's because they have announced that when they already have people in custody and there's a detainer on them, many of them criminals, they're already in their custody, that they're going to release them into the public and not honor an ICE detainer. So ICE could just send one or two individuals to pick up those people in a safe and a secure environment. They're already in custody. And just send one or two individuals to pick them up and to detain them into ICE custody.
Rep. Michael Cloud:But instead they release them into the public, which takes more resources. It puts federal law enforcement's lives in danger because already the local authorities have gone through the effort and the risk, the safety risk of rounding up this individual and detaining them. And so we're going to send law enforcement again many times into dangerous situations to detain this person who was already detained. And so it's a safety issue. It's a resource issue, all on some errant misguided policy that it's kind and compassionate to ignore the law.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And that's unfortunate.
Betsy Smith:You know, you bring up such a great point because and I don't think a lot of people really understand that when ICE is picking up somebody who's already in custody and then they're taking them into ICE custody, To be able to do that in the confines of a county jail or a city lockup, it's so much safer, for the person in custody. It's so much safer for not just federal law enforcement, but for local law enforcement, and it's definitely much safer Yeah. For the community. And yet I I hear a lot of pundits, you know, quote, unquote, journalists who are trying to convince people that your your local deputy sheriff is gonna be hand in hand with an ICE agent kicking in doors and plucking out illegal aliens. And that's not the case, is it?
Rep. Michael Cloud:No. Not at not at all. And the irony of the situation is, too, many of these communities are the same ones saying, We don't want ICE in our community. Well, if you don't want ICE in your community, honor the detainer. And then they could just come to your jail and pick them up and take them into custody.
Rep. Michael Cloud:As opposed to now, if you release them into the public, they have to go into the community to find the individual. And, you know, it's a much difficult situation. And to your point, yeah, they're already in a safe and a secure environment. And that's certainly better way to go, you know, for the community, for the safety of the individuals involved. It just makes complete sense.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And it's ludicrous that they wouldn't honor that.
Betsy Smith:You know, the National Police Association is is, really supporting this legislation and and because because of the, officer safety element to it, among many other things. You've been in the legislature since 02/2018, and you've really seen firsthand the politicization of law enforcement like nothing I've never seen in my lifetime. What what have you seen in Washington DC in the last, you know, five or six or seven years?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Yeah. It's I I have to tell you the issues I thought we would be discussing when it came into Congress and the ones we are discussing have been completely different. You know, you run for Congress and you think, you know, we're going to have these intellectual discussions over policy and legislation and budgets and moving the country forward. And those do happen at some sort of level. But the idea that we're talking about whether or not we're going to follow the law or not or whether these long held, you know, you wouldn't think of you wouldn't even map them on a political spectrum because they were just part of American ethic of understanding the difference between good and evil and these values that have really made America such a shining city on the hill, you know, of course we're going to honor law.
Rep. Michael Cloud:Of course we respect our law enforcement. Of course we respect, you know, those who are protecting and providing for our communities and those kind of things. You saw communities where they were, you know, holding those who are protecting and serving in disregard and then providing every sort of avenue for criminals to it's like the incentive structure for justice got perverted. And it was disgusting, really. And thankfully that's being restored now.
Rep. Michael Cloud:It's something that the American people by and large never bought into. It's such an outspoken fringe movement within our country that, you know, had loud voices, but thankfully the heart of the American people still hold true to those values.
Betsy Smith:Hear from Texas, and Texas, generally is in the top three every year of police officers killed in the line of duty. You know, it's a big state. You've got a lot of cops, a lot of different police departments, and so a lot of concerns for law enforcement, in Texas. You're on the oversight committee. You're on the, appropriations committee.
Betsy Smith:What are some of the other pro law enforcement things that you're seeing, that you're hearing about, in Washington DC?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Yeah. That's certainly been one of the big concerns. I I think getting the criminal element out of our communities will certainly help. Yes, as you mentioned, I'm from South Texas. And there's where I live and where my district is, there's two major highways that come from the border and meet in Houston, which we know to be basically the distribution center for the cartels.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And so they call that area the Fatal Funnel because of all the criminal activity that's going on, the cartel activity that's going on. When we give law enforcement the tools to do their job, we give them the equipment to do their job, we don't tie their hands, you know, and make sure that they're able to protect their communities and protect themselves and go home to their families at the end of day. That's just so important. So, you know, us being able to support policies that do that is is just essential.
Betsy Smith:Fentanyl is such a huge issue, for the entire country, but, of course, for border states as well. And, you know, we see we know that, you know, the cartels run that whole situation. They are getting the components from China. They're putting it together sometimes in Mexico, sometimes here now because we've had this proliferation of, so many of the criminal gangs, not just from Mexico, but, of course, from other, nations coming here, putting it together, distributing it, and and not just and, you know, of course, with fentanyl comes guns, human trafficking
Rep. Michael Cloud:Mhmm.
Betsy Smith:All of that. What are you seeing in Texas? And and what are the concerns of your constituents, you know, in Texas? Then, of course, what are you seeing in DC?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Sure. Yeah. You know, if when people ask me a year, year and a half ago, like, what's the biggest issues in your district? I would always say that the top three issues are border, border, and border. You know?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Thankfully, the new president, we've seen just in a couple months a tremendous, dramatic 94% drop. And so that's making a huge difference. Now, a lot of this criminal activity is still in the communities, and so we've to work on rounding it up and getting it out. But, you know, that's what people, you know, where I live, are really concerned with. And yes, I mean, we have people in our district whose families were, you know, affected through people being killed by cartel members.
Rep. Michael Cloud:Or you can go through ranches where, you know, kids are afraid to go out on their granddad's property because of what they might find. You know, they find stash houses or, you know, there's a point where the cartels would actually go up to the house and say, Hey, we're going to be using this side of your ranch tonight. We suggest you stay out of the area. You know, and this is the kind of craziness that had been going on when lawlessness was just embraced. And, you know, it's I say it's simple.
Rep. Michael Cloud:It doesn't mean it's easy. But it's, you know, of course we are going to stand against things that are illegal, to push back against evil, to make sure that we're standing strong on that. And so what the president's done in labeling them terrorist organizations allows us to collect intelligence data, will play out and be very helpful in the long run. The cooperation that you're seeing now between federal and local law enforcement, I think, is good, you know, and much improved. And, you know, as we mentioned, you still have a few outlying communities.
Rep. Michael Cloud:But by and large, you know, most communities are very happy and thrilled to see administration is bringing federal resources to the table on this. And then, you know, in Texas, we had we would in Texas, our governor and our state legislature understood that the federal government was leaving the border unchecked. And so we paid with our Texas tax dollars to do what we could to secure the border. Then we had the administration opposing the states resorting to similar thing in Arizona as well, you know, where your state efforts are even being pushed back on. And so we've introduced legislation to help with that as well to make sure that states have the right to secure their borders, for example, to keep the buoys in the water that our state had deployed.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And, you know, I remember when I just got elected, people would be like, Is that border thing a real issue? And we began to take members down to the border as other members did. You know, Andy Biggs, know, Eli Grain, others who live along the border would take people down there to kind of, like, educate them on what's going on. But then, you know, now everybody knows that every community in America has been affected by But what had been going on at the border, and I'm thankful to see that it's being cleaned up pretty quickly. It's such an important priority.
Betsy Smith:It is extraordinary that we've seen in, literally, in sixty days, we've changed the very fabric of our border and brought this country back to a to, frankly, to a sovereign nation. And and that's in, you know, in large part, like you said, thanks to that cooperation between federal and local law enforcement, also between different federal agencies. And and one of the other things that we're seeing is, FBI director Cash Fattel, who the National Police Association, we endorsed his, his you know, the choosing of him, and and we encouraged his confirmation. He just, I think, recently, is deploying about a hundred or more ATF agents, transferring them to the FBI to work on actual crime rather than, nitpick gun owners. What are your thoughts on that?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's great. And we've we've been dealing with the ATF for quite a while because what happened, you know, we have one of the pieces of legislation we have is to deal with the database that they've collected. We found out a couple years ago that they had amassed a pretty large database, and they're not supposed have a federal gun registry, but yet they have a digital searchable database of gun owners and transactions.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And so typically what would happen is those records would stay with the gun owners in case there needed to be a trace at some point. And then if for some reason I say with the gun owners, but with the FFL license or the gun store if that gun store would close down, then they transferred those to the ATF for safekeeping for twenty years. Well, they removed the twenty year cap, then they started really doing like a zero tolerance policy on these FFLs and really going after them to try to drive them out of business, really to force the data collection. So it was all the tail wagging the dog when it came to this to where the ATF was really, you know, for being named alcohol, tobacco, and firearms didn't seem to appreciate any of them. Anyway, so they were going after legal firearms owners instead of going after the criminal element.
Rep. Michael Cloud:So, thankfully, those priorities are switched now. We have law enforcement going after the criminals instead of going after law abiding citizens.
Betsy Smith:And you really can't walk into a seven Eleven and buy an AR-fifteen, can you?
Rep. Michael Cloud:No, no. No, you cannot. There's certainly a process to do that. And, yeah, the scare stories of everything, you know, it's just we shouldn't buy into those sorts of things. One of the other pieces of legislation we have is the Shush Act, which deals with tax on silencers.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And so we're working to get that repealed as well. And it's one of those things to where, you know, we know that they're not, I should say suppressors, they're not the silencers you see in movies where you think it's, you know, the little that you get. They just help protect your earring. Oddly enough, in some countries, like, it's required to have that because it protects the sound, it's considered noise pollution and those sorts of things. But here, it's again going after the legal gun owner and us making sure that we get that tax on suppressors removed.
Rep. Michael Cloud:Lots of things that are happening to make sure that we rein in the authority of the ATF, get them serving the American people again. And really a lot of what the work in our office is just about making sure that the government serves the people as opposed to the people who serve the government. One of the things, and certainly we appreciate everything that law enforcement does in keeping our community safe, But when it comes to what we do serving in Congress, we have to remember that safety is important, but our primary responsibility in government, you know, in an elected official role, is to keep people free. And so we have to make sure that we're not being heavy laden and that we let the local law enforcements, we let those who do the best work close to the people at home are are helping, and they're well equipped to to handle the safety aspect of it.
Betsy Smith:What a concept. Right? Getting back to the constitution and Yeah. Are you because I only have a couple of minutes, but are you optimistic about the next couple of years?
Rep. Michael Cloud:I I am. You know? We see a lot of stuff happening. People are just really excited to see. You know, a lot of a lot of what the president Trump and current administration are doing are things that presidents have talked for for a long time.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And the only thing that's really astounding is the fact that we actually have somebody who's doing what they said they would do when they ran in many of these efforts. And so the American people, even if they might disagree on a nuanced aspect of it, are very excited to see that action is taking place, that this isn't status quo, that we're right sizing the federal government, we're getting government working for the American people again. And, you know, my task in Congress now is to do everything we can to make sure that we codify the good things that are happening for the long term so that this isn't just a four year reprieve, but that this is actually the course correction that we need for our federal government.
Betsy Smith:Well, representative Clough, we so appreciate what you're doing. If people wanna follow you, find you, reach out to you, where can they do that?
Rep. Michael Cloud:Sure, yeah. You can go to cloud.house.gov and visit us online. Of course, we're on X and all the other platforms. It's RepCloud TX, think is what it is. And you can follow us there.
Rep. Michael Cloud:And happy to interact and engage and and appreciate any input. Thank
Betsy Smith:you so much. And we can't thank you enough for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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