You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis, and we're here once again in the Clearview Today studio with our host, Dr. Abbadon Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.
Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio. It's good to be here. Thank you. Thank you.
Absolutely. A lot of things going on in the world today. We wanted to take a break from our walk through Rome, as it were, and talk about some of the things that are happening over in California. Lots of exciting things.
We talk about exciting things on the show, but this is not one of those. So we talk about, you know, the positive developments in the world, and certainly those are still happening. But I mean, the situation in California, the riots that are happening, and, you know, as things often do, protests have gotten out of control, and it's just, it's become a terrible situation of what's happening over there. And it's only been going on for a couple days, so if anyone's listening and just is not aware of what's going on, you know, one of the biggest platforms that President Trump ran on was the, you know, the deportation of illegal immigrants in the United States, particularly those with terrorist affiliations and terrorist backgrounds. And, you know, some of the numbers under Dr. Shah, you've written on this extensively in the past, some of the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country with terrorist affiliation is kind of staggering. It's pretty alarming. Yeah. We have a problem.
And for anybody to think that we don't, they either have their head in the sand, or they are listening to the liberal media, they're listening to people with an agenda. And it's sad. A lot of people do that. But if you just look at the statistics, and we've covered this before. For example, just according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, there were 246,432 encounters of Chinese nationals nationwide in March of 2024. That's almost a quarter million people.
Quarter million terrorists. In just March of 2024. Just one month. We're not talking about a year, we're talking about a term, we're talking about just in March of 2024. That's literally 16 months ago. Yeah.
Okay. 189,372 of those encounters was just at the southwest border alone. So I want people to clock those numbers because we're talking about encountering people with Chinese terrorist affiliations, right at the southern U.S. border. That's extremely specific. And you know what, that's about 8,333 a day.
Every day. Almost going on 8,400 people. And again, we don't know if every one of them was a terrorist, but here's my question.
Why are so many from China coming here? And then that was a jump, just to give some statistics, that was a jump of 28% in the past three years. 28%. From 2020, 21, 22, 23, I'm sorry, 2021 to 2024, in just three years, it was a jump of 28%. And that was nationwide and 9% at the southern, at the southwest border.
Right. All together, this is crazy. All together, we're not even talking about those who have come illegally from Venezuela and other countries in South America or other places.
Just from China, that is 9.2 million encounters of Chinese nationals nationwide. Wow. That's a lot. Just through March, 2024. No, no, this is all together in those three years.
Got it, got it, got it. But still, I mean, what was the number again? 9.2 million. Over 9 million. Over a three year period just coming from China. That's crazy. 7.6 million encounters simply at the southwest border. And just with Chinese nationals coming. Yeah.
You start opening up the parameters, you're going to get a lot more numbers than that. Right. We're not talking about from other countries, let's say Haiti or like I mentioned Venezuela, other places, nothing like that. Yeah. This is simply from China. That is, that should be disturbing. That should be, I don't care where you stand on political issues.
You just stop and go, that's interesting. Why is that? This isn't people who are like, I want a better life for me and my family.
I want opportunity. These are people with terrorist affiliation. Right. Now 1.8 million of those are known gotaways or unlawful border crossers, which could be undercounted. Yeah.
Okay. As many as six individuals were stopped in just March of 2024. Six people about 15, 16 months ago, tried to cross the border whose names were on a terrorist watch list. Right. Like these are known terrorists. And this is not under president Trump's administration. This is under the last administration. Right.
So, you know, the numbers were far more than that. Right. Of course.
Okay. In the 2023 2024 fiscal year, okay. 2023 2024 fiscal year, 18,465 individuals with criminal convictions or warrants were arrested with about 248 being known gang members and 35 of those being MS-13 gang members. Which sort of begs the question, how many weren't arrested? How many got life? This is the last administration.
Not right now. Again, we're not saying the border patrol is not good, but when you are being, when your hands are tied and there's only so much you can do, you know, catch and release type stuff, you can't really say, guys, it's more than that. But when you've been told, Hey, don't, don't stop them, let them go, take their names and let them go, let them come on into the country. Some of these people have even killed American citizens as we've been hearing for the past several years since coming into our country. We've seen some big cases like there was one in Georgia and other places and almost 10,000 pounds of fentanyl was confiscated in just one year.
10,000 pounds, which is more than enough to claim the lives of 2 billion people. So when you talk about drugs in America, it's not most of those are, I mean, we're not having the old drugs, right? This is all. Yeah, yeah. And so one of the platforms, one of the biggest platforms that president Trump ran on in the 2024 election was that this was going to stop, right? We got to do something.
We got to do something. The numbers I gave you are simply Chinese nationals, right? Whether they were all terrorists or not, you know, that, that I don't have the numbers on that, but I gave you the ones about the, the, the got aways, the warrants that still, I mean, 1.8 million. That's a lot of people. Yeah. It's a problem that has to be addressed.
The point is, is it's too many. Yeah. Just among Chinese nationals. Right. And I think the American response to president Trump's campaigning on that issue was overwhelming and positive.
I mean, he was elected in a landslide victory. Absolutely. And so starting, you know, I made five, five days ago at the time this airs, ice started carrying out these, these raids that the president Trump promised were going to happen. This is not a shock to anyone that this is or should not be a shock to begin the rates began a months ago, but in LA, that was, yeah, well there was a, there was a couple of, a couple of high level rates that were conducted on like warehouses.
I think one of them was at a home Depot. There was a detention center, lots of arrests, people arrested and protests started happening all over. So as the way the policy works is going after those who have known criminal background, whether it is, it is a human trafficking, sex trafficking, sexual abuse, gang affiliation, murders, you know, any kind of those kinds of convictions or terrorists background. Anytime something like that is there behind the person, they will go after them, which they should have been doing all along.
But as I mentioned, their hands were tied. So a lot of these good men and women could not do their job. So now that they're doing their job, all of a sudden you have people going, Oh, wait a minute, why are they coming up in my neighborhood? Because in your neighborhood there is a criminal, right?
They're keeping you safe. Now where this took a different turn is when they would come to a house or to a warehouse, do a job site and catch a person who was that person, that target. Then they would also see other people there, ask them for their IDs and find out that they were also illegal immigrants. And so at that point they were taken and that's when people went, Oh, wait a minute, what are you doing? You're just rounding up round people.
That's the rhetoric that's being had. You're just rounding them up or you're taking people who are otherwise just good, hardworking people, right? These are not criminals. You're taking non-criminal. And the answer that has been given is they are illegal. They're illegal immigrants and that makes them criminals. Breaking the law. That's what a criminal does. And that I know is very tough because at that point you're not seeing an MS 13 gang member. You're not seeing a known child molester. You're not seeing somebody who murdered a college student at a respectable university. What you're seeing is somebody's uncle or somebody's parent or somebody's mom or somebody's son.
And you go, wait, why are you taking them? Now I get it because a lot of emotions are tied, but you have to stop and go, wait, illegal immigration is illegal. It's a crime.
You know, the border czar, I cannot remember what is, what is the border czar's name? I know. Yes.
Yes. He said this in an interview, not with this specific one, but in an interview with, um, with AOC months ago, he said this, he said, you know, every criminal who's ever lived is somebody's brother. That's true. Every criminal who's ever lived as somebody's friend is something to someone.
So just because, yes, those are true and it may be a sad case at the end of the day, being in the United States illegally is a crime. And so you get these people who are protesting, right? We, we, we said that this is very emotionally driven. And of course the media is going to capitalize on that and kind of push that emotional envelope. But it turns from protest to something else. When people, you know, the demonstrations escalate and people start throwing rocks, they set off fireworks, they're setting fires, they're vandalizing property. So my question is like, if we're trying to be champions of the people and we're trying to say, hey, it's wrong what you're doing, why is the answer to that? Or why is my response to that property damage? Why is it physical violence? Why is it, why do they turn from protest to riots? Right.
I mean, so what happens is now people feel entitled to, to fight or sort of stand for their family or stand for their people kind of thing. And I get it. I understand the emotions behind it. I see the tears and I see the frustration.
I get it. But at the same time, they have also to recognize that these people are doing their job. They are going after known illegals.
And so for you to say, you cannot take my family. Yes, they have to. Yeah. That's doing their job right now. They may get due process. That's a different issue. That's the department of justice. They will handle those kinds of things, but here they have to do their job.
What people want is just come get the criminals and leave everybody. How in the world can you do that? How can you do that? You know, I think about the fact that if I were, if I were to wake up one night and I were to see someone in my house who should not be there, I don't know who this person is, but they're just in my house. There may not be, you know, actively robbing me. Maybe they're just sitting down and having some cookies, but they're in my house.
I want them out. I call the police and the police get there and go, we're not going to, this is a nice guy. He's not hurt nobody. No, he can't be here. He's inside of my house. He should not be.
He does not have authorization to be inside my house. One of the things that I see online, you know, talking about your question, Ryan, and I don't have an answer to this. I don't have a good answer. Dr. Sean, maybe you can kind of help me formulate my thought on this is people say that violence is necessary.
You know what I mean? Think about your founding fathers when they don't like the way that their government was being run. They didn't sit down and that, well, they did sit down and ask politely for the crown to stop. And the government was like, no, we're not going to, we're going to continue doing what we're doing.
And the only way to resolve that was with violence in the streets. It sounds like a good argument on its head, but it's flawed. It's a flawed argument.
It's hugely flawed because when I watched so many reels and I've watched so many news reports from liberal media, conservative media, and what you see is what's happening now. It's not that they are just standing up for their families. It's, we're going to destroy property.
One of the things that's very disturbing to me is being an immigrant myself and I came the legal way, you know, applied and, and paid money and went through interview after interview and all those kinds of things just to make my way here. What disturbs me the most is in these riots that are happening, they're not only destroying property, they're not only burning shops and stores and cars, they're also attacking law enforcement officers. Okay. Whether they are FBI officers or they are ICE agents or they are local police, sheriff, whatever you are attacking them, you are spitting on them. Okay.
All those things are horrible. One thing that shocks me the most is, and then you're waving the flag of your home country. Right.
I don't get it. You want to stay here. You want America to be your home and you're waving the flag of Mexico or whatever other country you hold. It's America in our image. It's America with the rules that we want. It doesn't even seem like it's America in our image. It just seems like this is our Mexico in America, or this is our Venezuela in America, or this is our Germany in America, whatever, whatever country it is. I mean, what is, what is the reasoning behind that? I mean, if the, if the outrage is, why aren't these people allowed into America?
Why are we then flying the flag of a different country? Right. I don't, I don't understand the logic behind it. Right. And that's, that's, that's, I don't either. I mean, why would you do that? And being an immigrant coming here, I was, yeah, of course I'm, I'm happy from my heritage coming from India, but when I chose to be an American citizen, all that changed.
It was no longer about, like somebody asked me that question very early on. So let's just say if India and America go to war, which side are you going to fight on? Like without blinking my eye, I said America, because this is my country now. I chose this as my country.
Not that I hate India, but I have walked away. So if you have, sorry, if you have people who are coming into the country, I mean, essentially you have two groups, those who are arriving legally and those who are arriving illegally. Immigrants who are coming into the country and following like you did, Dr. Shah, that process of naturalization, what it means to be a citizen of America versus those who are, you know, coming here on their own terms. Do you think that has a difference in the level of patriotism that people have for America? From an immigrant perspective? I don't know.
I think it's, I wish I could give you a definite answer, but I don't have any solid research in my hands to be able to say that. I think when you have to work for something, you value it more. That's a good point. Illegally when you're coming in, sneaking in or giving money to the cartels or whatever, however you got in here, you never truly are sold out to the country. That's why many times people who come from that background, whether it's because they don't have the opportunity or they don't have any inclination, they never learned the language.
They never get involved in the culture. Maybe they feel like I'm an outsider. I don't know. It's a complicated matter. It is because you see a lot of people who do come from these countries, even if they come illegally, but they're like seeking the best life where they do put forward some effort where it's like, okay, I'm at least going to learn English. I'm going to get a job.
I'm going to work hard, provide for my family, try to stay under the radar, not cause any problems or whatever. But then you do see people where it's like, I want the opportunities of America without the identity, which I don't understand. I like my identity. I want my culture. I want all of this.
I just want it here where I don't have those problems. And I don't even get it. Bring the food, bring the dance, whatever. I get it. But then become an American does not mean you got to go to all the baseball games, go to the soccer games, right? You know, it does not mean that you always have to eat mashed potatoes and fried chicken.
You can eat whatever you eat. I get it. I get that's fine. But then when it, when it comes down to where does your loyalty lie, right? How do you see this country? Do you see this country as a, uh, a villain or do you see this country as a place of hope and refuge for you?
How do you value, how do you try to protect this nation that is protecting you? And I think sometimes when people come with the illegal background, they can disagree with me all day. They can do that because I know there are a lot of people who came illegally, became legal, uh, and are very patriotic. They'll bring up those examples and I get it.
Wonderful. But then there are many who came illegally and they have this, this us versus them mentality towards Americans, towards America. And, and if you disagree with me, you answer that question. If you came illegally, how do you see America? Do you constantly find fault after fault after fault? Or do you at least some point in time defend the nation and say it is a good, or do you just constantly find faults?
There's your answer. And then what brought you to America in the first place? What was, if your, if your country was so great and it was, it was the pinnacle of achievement. I know many people aren't saying that, but what brought you here? Right. What was it that, that, that we didn't lure you in? You know, nobody here.
I mean, we're sitting here. I'm first generation immigrant. John, you're third generation. Yeah. My grandfather came here. Yes, of course.
Yeah. And he, you know, I never met him, but I don't, I don't imagine there was any anti-American sentiment. He was a sponge diver in Greece. There was no money.
There was no work. If he either dove for sponges or he didn't eat, that was the life. That was his, that was his entire destiny. And so he saw the opportunities that were here in America. And as far as I, as far as I'm concerned, you know, he, he was very, very patriotic.
Yeah. That's one of the things that has always made America wonderful is that there, it is opportunity. It is a place for you to come and make a better life for yourself. But there's also that celebration of culture. Like we're not going to tell you to not honor your heritage. We're not going to tell you to not bring your cultures and traditions.
And you know, the infusion of that into American culture is part of what makes America special. St. Patrick's day. Okay. Well, it's great is to have that or, uh, uh, I don't know what the Italians have, but um, like spaghetti day or something. Yeah.
I don't know what's, um, I was going to say with Germans, the Oktoberfest, but that's not really good, but yeah, maybe a week away. So I don't know. I don't know if that's any good, but I think people are very quick to turn this issue.
What's happening in Los Angeles and with the deportation of illegal immigrants, they're quick to turn it into a cultural issue or a race issue when it's not that it's a legal issue. Yeah, that's right. Um, you know, the, the whole, the whole president Trump is rounding up Brown people is just patently absurd. It is. It's not true.
It is absurd. And one of the things that people often bring up is that this country itself was founded illegally. Okay.
That's a big thing that is being thrown. And maybe we can talk about that for the rest of the time of the show and maybe bring it up again in the next show because I want us to continue this conversation that is often brought up that this country like Europeans, especially those coming from Britain came here illegally. They were on Indian land. And so now you're telling other people that they're illegal.
What right do you have? I mean, that's a big question that is often posed. How can you say these people are legal when you are illegal?
I mean, that's what's often said, right? The way I answer that is yes, those people did come here. Okay. They did come here, but how the Indian nations were set up here, they were not set up as, as the welfare state that we have today.
The Indians who were here, the indigenous people who were here were not like, okay, so we're going to have to enroll you into our government program where you're going to get free health care and your kids are going to go to our schools and have a naturalization and they're going to be able to stay in these section eight homes. And this is how it works. Right. There was nothing there. Yeah. Zero. Okay. Now the only thing maybe we can say is they, they help teach the, the English settlers how to grow corn. Okay. Something like that. Right.
I don't know if that's real true or anecdotal, who knows, but maybe I'm sure they helped. There was no citizenship process. There was no, there was no citizenship benefits. Right.
There was nothing to get them into that society. And that is a faulty argument that is being made against South Africa right now. You know, like all these white people that came here and stole our land. Okay. That's often said, and I know it's a sensitive issue, but I want us to understand when they came there, some were not good people.
Okay. Some Europeans who came there were not good people. That's a fact.
But many came and they built homes, they built cities, they built infrastructure. Apartheid was horrible, just terrible to do that. Just the way in America, there was that distinction between white people and black people and for whites only and for blacks, those things are not good. Never can anyone ever justify and say, no, that's a great thing to do. That's wrong.
It's sinful, horrible. Same in South Africa with that, that apartheid is terrible, wrong, sinful, horrible. Having said that, to say they just came and stole lands and they are illegal itself is logically and historically, it's false. Right.
Because there was no such system. Right. So they came here, yes, there were other people here.
They had to be pushed aside or pushed over or like a slide over. And sometimes some horrible things happen. We can admit that and say, that's a sin.
That's terrible. The massacres that happened or they were thrown on the reservation, all that. We admit that those things are not, cannot be glossed over. Yes. But to say that we have the same problem today. No, we don't.
Right. There was no citizenship. There was no country. There were no hospitals. There was no road system. There was no school system. There was no construction job. There was no farming jobs. The Europeans who came here did not go working in native American fields.
No, it was wilderness with some settlements on it. That's right. So when you try to compare those two things and say, see the same thing. Now you can bully us and say, that doesn't matter. That's the same thing. That's the same thing.
Okay. Well then reason stops. Well, yeah, because, because the only argument against that is, well, we don't need, and I know we're running out of time, but it doesn't matter if there was no system, the system itself is evil. It's like, then no human progress happens at all.
Right. Everybody stays where they are. If you go somewhere and there's other people living there, you just have to turn around and go home because there's no process. How is any nation founded? How is any nation founded is people have to arrive there from somewhere else. And then build lives.
Right. Same thing with Israel. Israel came there. There is what you find in Palestine back before the 1900s. I mean, Tel Aviv was nothing. There was nothing there.
Okay. Look at some of the old pictures and photographs. You'd be like, that's Tel Aviv. And then you have kibbutz here and a little settlement there and they start building. And today you go to Tel Aviv and you go, wow, look at this since 1948 to today, you know, skyscrapers, medical facilities, diamond market. I mean so much that has been built by the Jewish people. And then for people to say, you stole our land. Like, wait, what? Yeah, there was nothing there.
There was nothing there for us to steal. You see. And so if we're going to truly reason with one another, then we need to agree on some of these things and go, okay, to say that these people who are illegally coming to America or sneaking into America in 2025 are no different than those Europeans and those English settlements that came into America in the late 1500s or the early 1600s is the same thing.
No, it's not. Right. We're getting close to running out of time, Dr. Shah, but as believers who are listening to this show on either the radio or online on a podcast, how should we be praying for this situation?
Both from a government leadership standpoint and from those who are in LA? Definitely. We need to have a heart of compassion.
Of course. We always say that, you know, the Bible talks about, you know, you were a foreigner, so always have a heart of compassion. Having said that, we also have to be a nation of laws. Laws have been broken so badly over the past four or five years. And I would say even longer than that, that to enforce law seems unlawful.
That's a great way to put that. Like somebody saying like, okay, so we got to do this legal. It's like, oh, how dare you? It's like, why don't I just take all your stuff tomorrow, John? I mean, come over to your house and just on gunpoint, take all your stuff and then say, because I need it. I need it. If I'm willing to steal it, I must need it more than you do.
I need it badly. I need your computers. I need your car. I need your bed.
I need, I need it all. What would you say to that? It's like, no, you cannot take it. But if I, if I just convince you that I need it and then if everybody convinces everybody that they need other people's stuff and just take it. Or I can convince you that you stole it in the first place. Right. And then what do we do with that? But you haven't stolen it. But no, no, it's kind of like as a figure of speech, generationally you stole it from us. Society cannot function like this.
So where do I stand? It's time to enforce the law. Because if not, we're going to spiral down into nothing but chaos, into anarchy. That's right.
That's right. So important for us to think rightly about the things that are going on today. If today was helpful for you guys, write in and let us know two five two five eight two five zero two eight. Join us for tomorrow's episode. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the Clear View Today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. And you can always support us financially at Clear View Today show.com. John, what are we leading listeners with today? Definitely want to encourage you guys to follow Dr. Abaddon Shah on pray.com.
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