facebook. noon untile from 3:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. c-span, where history unfolds daily. created bypan was america's cable companies. we continue to bring you unfiltered, -- coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court and public policy events from d.c. -- washington, d.c. and around the country. now, president talks about immigration, joined by family members and victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants.

>> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states accompanied by the vice presiden the uted states. [applause] president trump: we actually spent some time together, so i didn't mind giving you a second hello.

we have known each other a long time from the beginning of the campaign and these are special people. please, sit down. vice president pence, thank you very much for joining us, mike. i also want to recognize acting holman, whoe and -- is leaving us. he has been truly a star and he is leaving. he is retiring. where is tom? stand up. is he around here some place? tom, stand up, tom. great guy. [applause] tom has been doing what he's doing for 34 years and doing it with strength and dedication and you are really outstanding and you are highly recommended. your replacement is going to do

a great job. we know him really well. thank you tom, for those years of service. thank the i.c.e. officials and border patrol agents who join us here today. if you could stand up. these people are all so special. [applause] president trump: and they are good-looking people. good-looking people. thank you very much for being here and thank you for what you do. what you end there is incredible. i also want to stand and have the brave men and women from all over government agencies. just raiseot, maybe your hand or stand, but we appreciate the job you have done especially during the last year and a half, because i know you put in a lot of extra. so, please, thank you very much. thank you. [applause] we are gathered to hear directly from the american victims of illegal immigration. you know, you hear the other

side, you never hear this side. you don't know what's going on. these are the american citizens, permanently separated from their loved ones. the word permanently being the word that you have to think about. permanently. they are not separated for a day or two days, permanently separated, because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens. these are the families the media ignores. they don't talk about them. very unfair. we have to look at everybody, but this is a very unfair situation. and i knew that years ago when we would be together out campaigning. happensid, if this ever we are never forgetting you. , incredible people. and dedicated -- these are the stories that democrats and people that are weak on immigration, they don't want to

discuss, they don't want to hear , they don't want to see or talk , about. no major networks or cameras sent to their homes or display the images of their incredible loved ones across the ghtly news. they don't do that. they don't talk about the death and destruction caused by people that shouldn't be here, people that will continuously get into trouble and do bad things. for years, their pain was met with silence, their plight was met with indifference, but no more. i told them three years ago when we were together, day one, just about day one, i would say, i hear you, see you and will never let you down. and we have been working together and their loved ones have not died in vain. we all know that. we call these brave americans the angel families, angel moms, angel pops, these are the angel families.

your loss will not have been in vain. we will secure our borders and we will make sure they are properly taken care of. the word will get out. we have got to have a safe country. we are going to have a safe country. and your loved ones are going to be playing and will continue to play a big part of that, right? you know that? so here are just a few statistics of the human toll on illegal immigration. according to 2011 government report the arrests attached to the illegal alien population, 25,000 people for homicide, 42,000 for robbery, nearly 70,000 for sex offenses and 15,000 for kidnapping. in texas alone, within the last seven years, more than a quarter of million criminal aliens have

been arrested and charged with 600,000 criminal offenses. you don't hear that. i always hear, no, the population is safer than the people that live in the country. you have heard that, fellows, right? you have heard that. and i say, is that possible? the answer is it's not true. , it is like they are better people than our citizens. it's not true. in 2016, more than 15,000 americans died from heroin overdose. more than 90% of the heroin comes from across the southern border. 90%. as a result of sanctuary city policies in fiscal 2017 more , than 8,000 criminal aliens, these are really hard core criminal aliens, were in police custody and were released because of our weak laws, weakest in the world, weakest in the history of the world.

they were released back into our civilian population. and these gentlemen had to do some of the releasing and i don't think you were too happy. because you knew, they knew better than anybody. you knew it was trouble. and it often comes back to be trouble. where is the media outrage over the catch and release policies that allow deadly drugs to pour into our country? where is the condemnation of the democrats' sanctuary cities that release violent criminals into our communities and then protect them like of the mayor of san diego. thatshe warned everybody coming and they scattered. they were altogether. and they all scattered. and what are they going to do about looking at her, by the way? i have been asking this question now for four weeks.

should we do that? and where is the outcry over the savage gang ms-13 and its blood thirsty creed, kill, rape and control. overlooked their stories, i want the american people to hear directly from these families about the pain they have had to endure losing not only their loved ones, great people, great americans, people that would have been very successful, people that in some cases that could have been here one day, could have been here. i know the way you feel. could have been right here, standing here. first, i would like to ask a friend of mine now for a long time laura wilkerson from , pearland, texas to share her story about her incredible boy, right. laura, just say a few words.

laura: we want to tell you a little bit today about josh. he was brutally tortured and strangled over and over. he was set on fire after death. his last hours was brutal. as everyone standing up here. none of our kids had a minute to say goodbye. we were not lucky enough to be separated for only five days or 10 days. we are separated permanently. any time we want to see or be close to our kids, we go to the cemetery, and we can never speak to them. we cannot skype with them. and i want to thank you so much in this room for what you are doing. you guys know the permanent separation. it's the media that won't share it with other people. it is permanent, we can never have them back on this earth. thankfully i will see him in , heaven. and thank you mr. trump and vice president pence for keeping their commitment to us. it has been ongoing and continues on and please understand, there are so many more of us than what you see here that have the same story.

over and over, drunk driving, killed. and they don't prosecute. and they are out in 30 days. it is sad for our country and time to take it back and thank you law enforcement, you know it and love it and want to do our jobs, and thankful whave a president that will allow you to do that now. thank you so much. [applause] president trump: thank you, laura. next, i would like to ask juan pena from greenfield, california. juan, please come up. thank you, juan. juan: thank you. my name is juan pena. first of all, i want to thank the remembrance project for bringing my daughter's name out to light and for candidate trump to let me speak about her, and i have got a lot of people that i need to thank. my daughter.

sie sue pena,tie' in 1990 she was kidnapped, strangled, stabbed and sodomized and her nude body was found in an artichoke field. i have been fighting for 28.5 years. he was loose for 25. and in the last 3.5 years he has , been fighting extradition. and on may 3, god answered my prayers. mexico finally turned him loose to us and he is now in the monterey county jail and start we can start court procedures for my daughter's death. and i want to thank everybody that was involved in getting him over here. the sheriff's department of monterey county, the investigator told us don't give up. just stay on it and stay on it. ore she waskie sw

going to get him over there and she did. and i just want to thank the president and everybody. and i just hope everybody can get what i just got. and i'm out here speaking for the thousands of victims that we have here in the united states. and i want to thank you all. thank you. [applause] president trump: juan fought for many years. and it's hard to believe but that is actually a great feeling. juan: yes it is. , president trump: incredible job. incredible job. also here with us is steve ronnebeck from mesa, arizona. steve, if you could come up and share a few words.

steve: thank you, mr. president. january 22, 2015, grant was at work on his overnight shift and an illegal alien came in and wanted to buy cigarettes. dumped a jar of change. grant went to count the change and wasn't counting fast enough. so basically, this man pulled a gun. grant did everything he was supposed to do and gave him the cigarettes. the man went ahead and executed him and shot him point blank in the face. you know you don't hear these , stories. and some of our media won't talk to you about it. but this is permanent separation. for his birthday, i go to his grave. for christmas. we set up a christmas tree on grant's grave. i received something earlier n, it from director holma is a challenge coin.

and i want to thank you for that. to me, this is a sign of integrity. i wish some of our media had the same integrity as our president, our vice president, director, all of you in law enforcement, i wish some of our media had the same integrity. and i want to thank all of you, especially our law enforcement for what you do. mr. president, mr. vice president, thank you. and members of voice, barbara gonzalez aviac, i thank all of , them, too. because they are helping the o get the stories out. since 9/11 have been killed by illegal aliens. this is a problem that isn't going away. it's getting bigger. thank you. [applause] president trump: 63,000 and that number they say is very low because things aren't reported.

63,000 and you don't hear about that. also here with us today is michelle root from modale, iowa. michelle, please come up. thank you, mr. president. my daughter sarah root was killed within 24 hours after graduating with a bachelor's, 4.0 in criminal investigations out celebrating. andpped at a stop light goingnded by edwin -- 70-plus miles an hour. he was arrested, but then he paid a $5,000 bail and now he has fled. our separation like everybody has said is permanent. sarah never gets to go out to be -- on to be a wife, mother, grandmother, an aunt. my son does not have his only

sibling in a longer. my life has been devastated. so has my daughter's family and friends. i want to thank president trump and a vice president pence, barbara gonzalez and director ho lman for all their support. they have never given up on us. aviac was a group that we started because we were tired of not having anybody else to go to to get information. when sarah was killed january 31 of 2016, i had nobody. but i was thankful for my politicians in my area. and you know president trump was , one of the first ones to reach out to my family. and he has been there from the beginning and never left our side. now we just need to get my daughter's killer found. again, my separation is permanent.

sarah is never coming home. i never get to take a selfie with her again. i have no more pictures with her. so, please, thank you guys for everything. keep up the great work. our police officers, our border patrol please continue to fight. thank you. [applause] : my name is mary anne mendoza and my son was killed on may 12, 2014 on his way home from work by a three-time illegal immigrant drunk who was high on meth. he had driven over 35 miles per hour over the speed limit before hitting my son's car. as you know, they could fill this stage every day for the

next five months of victims of illegal alien crime and keep going. unfortunately we are members of , a club of our children and killed.es have been but hundreds of thousands of victims every year who are affected by illegal alien crime, rape, assault, identity theft. these are things that go unreported, unchecked. you know if the public would go , to illegalcrimereport.com and see the amount of crime being committed by illegal aliens you will be sickened because mainstream media doesn't let you know what is happening. and we are here to educate the public as to what is happening. and if anybody has been a victim of illegal alien crime, contact us because we have close connections with barbara gonzalez at i.c.e. and connections at the department of homeland security that we are trying to get people the help they need and sent in the right direction. president trump, vice president pence, you have been there for us and there are no words to describe what your support and

your caring has meant to each and every one of us. and thank you from the bottom of my heart. [applause] president trump: your story is incredible. >> i'm one of your legal immigrants. i came the right way. i paid lots of money, took me five years to become a citizen, a proud citizen. and i did not name my son. my son was nicknamed german chocolate. i didn't drag him over borders or deserts or place him in harm's way. i protected my child from harm, but i couldn't do that on july 12, 2012.

he was 30-years-old. i couldn't protect him because an illegal alien with guatemala, with two felonies one , deportation and two d.u.i.'s, he was protected. riverside, california, sanctuary. the judge, the d.a., they knew who he was. they gave him probation after his second d.u.i., five weeks later, he killed my child. and if that wasn't enough, that was my only child. i have no family. that's it. the public needs to know and they deserve to know that this could happen to each one of you at any given second. you hug your child, you send them off no matter what age they are, and then you get that ugly phone call that will forever change your life. and thank god our president and vice president, they rallied behind us.

they were the only and gave us a ones. little light. i was going to end my life. i had no purpose. but president trump coming down that escalator that day and talking about illegal immigration stopped me in my track. and i had no clue at that point i would ever be at the white house. and i thank president trump, vice president pence, everybody behind me, i thank you. i thank everybody out here. make sure you get your story out. i brought my son. this is what i have left his , ashes. i wear his ashes in a locket. this is how i get to hug my son. so remember when you go home and hug your kids, that there are many of us, thousands of us who don't get to do that anymore. and let's work together and get

this done. all politicians. i don't care what side you're on. you don't want your child in a casket or in an urn, so get it together for god's sake, for our country, for our citizens. thank you. [applause] ray: my name is ray. and i retired from the navy. i flew off of aircraft carriers and had a great navy career. and then i started my family in the 1990's. i had two little girls, tessa and kelcie and they had a bigger brother, dylan. i raised them. and their mother and her mom is hispanic. and -- so tessa was hispanic. and as they lived near the border as well. tessa was 16, a dreamer, so was

her friend, allie. 16 years old, 17 years old. both beautiful girls. they just loved talking about the future. they went to a wawa in virginia beach to get a pack of gum. they were stopped in the stoplight. and alfredo ramos was driving at 70 miles an hour. he was three times the legal limit. he had been arrested before for d.u.i., in which the judge gave him no time or fines. he had a fake i.d. from florida bought by the cartels. he had a fake driver's license on his car. and he couldn't speak english. and he needed an interpreter for the last d.u.i. hearing. he was also arrested for drunk in public. bottom line, as he came in through mesa and he tried to make it and he was going -- he was three times the legal limit so the police told me that that, it's like wearing almost blackout glasses while you're driving.

when he hit the girls from behind, it was an explosion. the neighborhood thought a bomb went off. the girls were almost instantaneously dead. they worked on tessa for a while and i got to see her in the hospital. those are the dreamers that the united states should focus on. i can't -- i can't make an opinion about the young people that are here illegally because their parents brought them, but i can guarantee you, the government had nothing to do with that. and everybody wants to blame, but the parents of those children are to blame. and there was a lot of -- well, maybe they'll feel sorry for them because they're kids and maybe if they behave they'll just magically beat the system. my mom came from ireland. took her 10 years to get her citizenship. she had a sponsor. if she got in trouble, not only did she get in trouble, the sponsor was in trouble.

i would have been speaking northern irish right now if she got out of line. that's the way it was with i.n.s. in those days. and mom loved being an american. i helped her study for her exam. so i'm all about legal immigration. but the invaders and people who come over our borders and decide to take the law in their own hands, and maybe are supported by a group of people that for god's sake i don't know why they would want to do it. it's evil. it hurts people. and it costs us billions of dollars a year. and they don't seem to want to pay for it. they want us to pay for it. the other taxpayers. i want to thank president trump because when my -- those kids died, i was in -- i was a city employee. so of course i sued the city and the judge and the adjoining city with the judge there and, of course, they're immune.

but it didn't make me really friendly with the city. it didn't make me friendly with i.c.e. because basically they claimed they weren't called, the sheriff's department said we called them and it was a back and forth so no one took responsibility. so being in that situation where no one takes responsibility in this government at all means that you're standing in a dark forest at night when it's raining and it's cold and you're lost. everybody you talk to, yeah, yeah, yeah. but, you know, he was drunk. we have a lot of drunks here. blah, blah. let me tell you. the guy shouldn't have been there at that time. he shouldn't have been there, and we had many opportunities to get him out. so what's happening? our representative is the president and the vice president. they took us in and we're going to fight this battle and we're going to win it and we're going

to clean it up and i'm very proud of that. i'm very proud to be a part of that. i will support you as law enforcement and my president and vice president as much as they need. i want to thank the remembrance project for standing there when i had no one else. and god bless you and i hope this doesn't happen to you. [applause] president trump: this is tom selleck except better looking, right? [laughter] better looking. angel: thank you. my name is angel agnes. my family legally emigrated from hungary. we escaped during the revolution. we couldn't come to the united states as my mother planned because my father was born in yugoslavia.

and they wanted us to stay. and because my mother said no they didn't allow us to come to , the american embassy. we wt to -- we had the choice of south africa, austria or brazil. we went to brazi and we lived there for 13 years trying to legally emigrate to the united states. when we emigrated to brazil, we wear state lists we didn't ate-less, we didn't belong anywhere because the government took our citizenship because we escaped. when we came to the united states, we were stateless. i'm very honored and proud to say this is my home, my country, and i will fight for this country until my death. thank you, law enforcement, border patrol, immigration, barbara, everybody that got me here today. and thank you for fighting this fight with us because, trust me, you don't want to walk in our shoes. and president trump, thank you for always standing behind us. you are the biggest birthday

present i got, and i'm still waiting for that shovel to help build a wall at the border. i live in california, and i would like to ask if you don't want your state to become a sanctuary state, so i would like to ask president trump if you would tweet and endorse us to sanctuarystate.com, to help us so we're not going to go down, because if we continue on this path, the rest of the country will follow. i am so proud and honored of you, mr. president. the integrity and character you have shown us, pulling the daggers out of your back every day hasn't been fair. but i want you to know that i'm very honored to call you my president. god bless you and your family, always, and mr. pence, and god bless this country. thank you so much. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you, mr. president. this my son, drew. he was in law school in san francisco in 2010 when roberto gallo tried to make a last-second left-hand turn and hit him. instead of stopping, he tried to flee so he accelerated, drove over his body. my son was in a motorcycle. his helmet came off, wedged under one of his tires, he backed up driving over him a second time and then trying to get away, he went forward. by that time a guy had gotten out of the car and stood in front of gallo's and he stopped with his rear tire on my son's abdomen and five people had to lift the car off of him. but i want to talk about somebody else. and you heard agnes mention fightsanctuarystate.com. in april of this year, i filed

with the state of california an initiative to overturn the sanctuary state. there's just way too many deaths, way too many traffic collisions. i should just add on an aside, we gave out driver's licenses in 2015, and in two years, the first two years of that traffic fatalities on what was supposed to be safer roads have gone up 19%. hit and runs have gone up 26 %. yet, they're still telling people the roads are safer because of that. there are so many other -- somebody that's not here, a woman named veronica cabrera ramirez, i'll give you an example of what happens with sanctuary. she was a domestic violence victim. called the santa rosa police. they arrested the perpetrator. he was -- had been deported previously.

i.c.e. filed a detainer. and then the day that they decided to release him, instead of calling i.c.e. and giving i.c.e. a chance to show up, they were an hour and a half away, they gave him 16 minutes to show up and they released him. 16 days later he murdered ms. ramirez. and according to kevin de leon, who was the author of the sanctuary bill, that makes the state safer if you keep the federal police, the federal law enforcement over here and you keep the state law enforcement here, that makes the state safer. that's absurd. it's outrageous. and something has to be done and i hope that as agnes -- if we don't kill this in california, it will spread. i know it already is in some places. it's a death sentence for american law-abiding citizens. anyway, i'd like to thank the president and vice president, everybody else who is there.

-- here. director, thank you so much. you've become an incredible friend. john, barbara gonzalez, and my new friend today, kirstjen nielsen. anyway, thank you very much. particularly law enforcement. [applause] president trump: i just said, would you like to speak, and you said, no. she said, i have been crying too long for too much. it's fine, right? that's good. well, i just want to thank everybody for being here. i know these families. i know many more families that have gone through the same thing. and i cannot imagine it being any worse. but we pledge to act with strength and with resolve and in the memory of those who have been lost. so needlessly. and it is because of families like yours that my administration created the new

office of d.h.s., the victims of immigrant crime engagement, which has been doing, i hear, a fantastic job. we call it voice, so that your voices can be heard. today, we have released the first voice report within the first months of voice. we've opened more than 2,800 victims registered to receive information on their perpetrator. we're following these people. we're following them. so it can't happen again by that individual. voice assisted hundreds of families. already connected them to crucial services, such as grief counseling. followed up their cases and help ed ensure the criminal aliens that harmed their families so egregiously were detained, removed and deported. our first duty and our highest loyalty is to the citizens of

the united states. we want safety in our country. we want border security. we don't want people in our country that don't go through a process. we want people in our country based on merit, not based on a draw where other countries put their absolute worst in a bin and they start drawing people. do you think they will put their good ones? they won't give the good ones. they give their bad ones. and when they commit crimes, we are so surprised. we will finally end the immigration crisis wungs once -- once and for all, we want safety in our country. we want strong borders. we want people to come in, but we want them to come in the proper way. so thank you, all for being here. these are incredible families, incredible people. your loved ones have not died in vain. much of what we're doing today is because of what you had to endure. and we just thank you all very much for being here and god bless you all.

thank you. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated until the president has exited the building. thank you.

>> on the house floor, california democrat ted lieu played a tape of children crying after being separated from their families. it came during a speech about migrant children at the southern border. after consulting the parliamentarian, the chair ruled that the congressman was breaking the rules by playing the audio. here is a look. >> thank you. i would like to adjust -- addres s -- >> without objection, you are so recognized for 60 minutes. mr. lieu: i am congressman ted lieu of california. if the statue of liberty could cry, she would be crying today. as i stands here there are 2,300