Peter Del Rosso ~ Retired ICE Agent ~ Says Terrorists Will Attack USA in 2024

Peter Del Rosso ~ Retired ICE Agent ~ Says Terrorists Will Attack USA in 2024

Gene Valentino: [00:00:00] Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast. You know, it’s funny, we, we find our guests from various walks of life. Political, social in business, entrepreneurial religious local versus national versus state issues. They come to us from our existing guests.

They come to us from other referrals nationwide. I am very proud today to do a deep dive with a new friend I’ve met. His name is Peter Del Rosso. He is involved for several years, decades, in issues of various levels of homeland security throughout this nation. And we’re going to go all the way back to prior to 9 11.

We’re going to discuss Peter’s background, and we’re going to do a deep dive on how national security has changed, and his personal experiences. With fire with direct, taking direct fire from the enemy at the border. And we’re also going to talk [00:01:00] about the status of our homeland security system, immigration, and where he sees it’s going.

Peter Del Russo, with us on Homeland Security, right after this.

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Gene Valentino: Hi, friends, and welcome back to our Grassroots Truthcast. Today, my guest is going to be Peter Del Rosso from Homeland Security. Well, he’s retired now, but Peter, welcome to our show today.

It’s great to have you. It’s a pleasure. Your background is most fascinating. I appreciate the referral from friends who Both been with us on the show and people in the community who know of your background that brought you to Grassroots Truthcast. Folks, we’re going to spend as much time as we want.

I suspect it’s going to be around an hour. I’d like to get into a deep dive with you, but instead of me boasting about you, why don’t you tell, why don’t you boast about yourself? Where were you? Where were you born? Where’d you go to school? How did you end up in 30 years plus with the federal government on security?

Peter Del Rosso: So, my, [00:03:00] my, I was actually born in a town called Bayonne, New Jersey, far from New York City. I Was born in 1966. Anyway, my, my parents were immigrants Italian, first generation. They came to this country and my dad was a businessman. He owned a couple of restaurants. New Jersey area. My mom actually followed and she became a business owner as well with my dad.

Were your parents first generation Americans? My parents were first generation Italian and they became American. A naturalized in this country to both of them. Yeah.

Gene Valentino: So you have a, just as a footnote, you have an appreciation for this immigration process. I do. Absolutely. I’d like to hear you talk about how they went through an immigration process versus the immigration process we’re [00:04:00] dealing with now, but we’ll save that for later.

Go ahead. Sure.

Peter Del Rosso: So anyway I was actually born into the business. My parents worked when I was five years old. I, my parents both put me to work. I was washing dishes and working in a restaurant, helping whatever I can, and that’s how I grew up. A little later, my dad passed away. He passed away in 1981 and my mom couldn’t hold the businesses anymore, so she ended up selling the businesses, and we kind of got out of that, because she went by herself.

She never remarried. My mom died during COVID. Oh my. Because of COVID or during COVID? Because of COVID. She died in one of the nursing homes.

Gene Valentino: Was this the Governor Como

Peter Del Rosso: issue

Gene Valentino: of allowing allowing COVID infected people back into the nursing homes? We

Peter Del Rosso: were in New Jersey at the time. So it was under [00:05:00] Governor Murphy.

Same story. Which, yeah, basically. Succeeded.

Gene Valentino: Let me this wasn’t the topic for today’s discussion, but let since you brought it up COVID infected patients ended up back in a nursing home with where your mother was and she died of Covid. Yes. I’m sorry to hear that. There’s a whole other story that I didn’t expect us to be talking about.

But that, to me, is one of the biggest egregious acts this nation has suffered from, aside from the the border being overridden. So let’s come back to that sometime in the future. We will. Okay. Continue with your thought. I know you became a, you got your degree in criminal justice. So,

Peter Del Rosso: in 1985, um, I actually decided to go into the military.

After I graduated high school, and I always wanted to be in the military. It’s something that I always [00:06:00] honored, and I loved the guys in the uniform, and I respected the, the the people and military. It was something that I wanted to do my whole life growing up. How many, how many years? That I was in the military?

So I went in in 1985, and Right after a desert storm is when I got out and I went into the reserves shortly thereafter and was honorably discharged in November of 1993.

Gene Valentino: Well, first of all, thank you for your service. It isn’t said often enough and I appreciate what you and thousands of folks like you who still have that American spirit of patriotism in your bloodstream.

Till

Peter Del Rosso: this day I

Gene Valentino: still do. God bless you. And I’m glad today you’re working as you were working soon after as a field agent.

Peter Del Rosso: So my career, once I got out of the military I wanted to [00:07:00] continue. I wanted to be in law enforcement and I decided to join sheriff’s department, local sheriff’s department where I live.

So, I was briefly a sheriff’s officer and from there I ended up running into a friend of mine who I was in the military with and he had asked me, he says, well, he says, what do you want to do? And I said, well, I want to continue into law enforcement. I want to do my job. I mean, I, I love law enforcement.

He’s like, well, why don’t you come on and be a federal agent with us? Just like that. You can work with the department of justice. And he was working for immigration at the time. So, I met him later at the gym and he ends up coming and at that time we didn’t have any computers. So he hands me an application.

He says, here, fill this out. So I filled it out and I brought it back to him. And he goes and hands it in [00:08:00] for me, submits the application. About three weeks later, I get a call from the director of Immigration in New York City and says, Mr. Roso, are you still interested in a position with the US Department of Justice?

I said to him, I said, absolutely I am. What year was that? So that was back in right after a desert storm. That was like around 91. Okay. Right after that. Anyway so I continued and I, I was hired. I went into, into the into the office and they swore me in and. They send me to the academy. I attended the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glencoe, Georgia, came out and I worked in New York, approximately in New York City, approximately seven years from 91 all the way to 97.

At that point, I transferred to the New Jersey field office. Still continue [00:09:00] to work for the Department of Justice. But moving back a little bit since I got hired, just I want to tell the folks some of the things that I actually experienced, some of the cases that I’ve actually worked on. Yeah. I want to bring that.

Just kind of share it, whatever. Well,

Gene Valentino: was that part of your assignment in immigration enforcement? So, so I was an

Peter Del Rosso: agent. One of the interesting cases that I worked on, a couple of them back in 1993, when we had the first World Trade Center bombing that they attempted to take World Trade Center down, not taking any credit for it.

But when they arrested the Blind Sheikh, I was involved in, in that case there. That’s

Gene Valentino: 1993. It’s about eight years

Peter Del Rosso: before 9 11. Yes, that was February of 1993.

Gene Valentino: Wow. And what was

Peter Del Rosso: your role in that? So I was an agent. I was one of the arresting agents and involved with the you know, with [00:10:00] that case and going in with the blind shake and

Gene Valentino: up to that point in your experience in immigration, had you seen, would you say the amount of.

Illegals and terrorists in this country was pervasive in the thousands in the in the scores, maybe 20, 40, 60 or 80. Or would you say we had terrorists running

Peter Del Rosso: around in the thousands? So at the time we had an influx of a lot of males that were Arabic descent coming into the country. What year?

And that was back around 1993. 92. Oh my words. Yes.

Gene Valentino: That’s almost eight years before, correct.

Peter Del Rosso: Nine 11. There was a, there was a huge influx of these Arabic males coming into the United States. A lot of ’em were coming in. Under F1 Visa, which was a student visa. That’s how they were entering the country.

Gene Valentino: [00:11:00] And what was your role up to that point in time? Were you just identifying them so, or you, or were you arresting them? So

Peter Del Rosso: at that time I was immigration enforcement at the time. So we, we had a fugitive operations unit and we were working our cases. Just like normal you know, people who entered the country, they were here illegally.

So we’d have a case in front of us and we’d go out and we would find this person, you know, cases that we were assigned and we would go out and pick them up, bring them back and we would detain them and then they would go through a process, legal process.

Gene Valentino: Now this is before what I would say immigration.

And law enforcement related to the incarceration and charge, charging of wrongdoers. Correct. This is, this is early ICE.

Peter Del Rosso: Early ICE, which was Immigration at the time. We were Immigration

Gene Valentino: Enforcement at the time. Were you [00:12:00] arresting or were you then taking them back to their homeland? So we

Peter Del Rosso: were arresting them.

We had majority of them, we had admin, we had two different types of warrants. So we had administrative warrants. And we had criminal warrants. And we also picked up people on Interpol warrants as well, which was international warrants. So those were the warrants that we would usually pick the people up on.

Gene Valentino: What were they being picked up on

Peter Del Rosso: for? So a majority of them were, if they were under administrative warrants, they would come in on what they call a B1 or B2 visa. A B1 or B2 visa means that you would be able to stay in this country. Six months to one year, and then you would have to go back. Well, a lot of these people would obtain these visas, these B one, B two visas, and they would overstay their visa.

And then they wouldn’t go back. They would just come here, stay here, and never [00:13:00] report back.

Gene Valentino: Were these people of Arabian or Muslim descent? Were they

Peter Del Rosso: suspicious? So these people that were coming in were from all over the world, every single nationality.

Gene Valentino: What you’re saying to me is before 9 11, there was the perpetration of illegal immigration which seems to be, from what you’re saying, much worse than we even knew of it to be.

Peter Del Rosso: Correct. So what happened was, a lot of these people, and when Europe opened up, it’s open, they had open borders. Obviously we know when that started. We’ve got 30 years ago, what they were doing is they were going to Europe because it was very simple for them to go into Europe and they would obtain citizenship.

Let’s say in the UK, let’s say someone from Africa would go to the UK and they would obtain citizenship there as an example. Well, now they get a passport saying they were living in the UK [00:14:00] And then what they would do, let’s say they wanted to come in here to the United States because the UK was part of an international agreement that we had, it was a treaty, and they had what they called Visa Waiver Pilot Programs at the time, and they still do till this day.

It’s a VWPP program, and there was approximately 22 countries signed up for this program, the uk all the European Co, you know Italy, France, of course. And basically anybody under this program would be able to come into this country without a visa and be able to stay here for 90 days, visit their family, conducting a little business, and then they would go back without a visa.

So, that’s how these people were coming in, but they were also, they started to abuse the system. The people that were going from other countries that wanted to do harm here in the United States, started to [00:15:00] use that system. So, they

Gene Valentino: would become Started to use the system to bring their family in, or to bring in other terrorists.

Bring

Peter Del Rosso: themselves, if they were terrorists. Some of ’em weren’t, and some of ’em were legitimately coming here. But if you could see a whole a hole in a system, something that’s not that you can use and take advantage of, criminal element would see that and they would use that program. Let’s say, Hey, you know.

I could go in there under the VWPP program, which is a visa waiver. I don’t need a visa, so I could just go in there, use that, and never go back. I would be undetected. And now you’re

Gene Valentino: employed within the United States, either with your own business or you’re working for an

Peter Del Rosso: employer. A majority of them would do that.

With their own social security number. They would give me a social security number. Out of

Gene Valentino: [00:16:00] those people, I’m talking pre 9 11. Pre 9 11. Pre 9 11, 2001. 2001, pre 9 11. How pervasive was it? Hundreds? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?

Peter Del Rosso: I would definitely say in the hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands, yeah.

They were coming in. And we had, for example, Chinese. There was lots of Chinese coming into the country. I Mean, people from all over, I mean, international, I mean, we dealt with people from everywhere, obviously. Okay. But they did have time periods where you had influxes of people coming in. So, let’s say we had an influx of Chinese, which was in 1993, there was another case that we had, which was the Golden Venture, Golden, Golden Venture.

The Golden Venture was a, a barge, a ship, [00:17:00] that actually came in from China, and they had Chinese nationals on board Came in where, to New York? Came in to New York, they, actually, the ship actually landed in Queens, New York. Oh my. And they had, it was when we get, when we got called that Sunday, I’ll never forget it was on a Sunday.

We got called up to respond to this ship came into New York and loaded with Chinese nationals. We went in there, opened a bar job down below. There was hundreds of Chinese migrants that were being transported here to the United States for slave trade, for slave trade, slave trade.

Gene Valentino: You opened up the hatch and

Peter Del Rosso: what did you see?

There was feces everywhere. Pee everywhere. There was, they were eating each other’s food. I mean, there was garbage everywhere. It was disgusting. It was just something the normal person wouldn’t want to deal [00:18:00] with. Or understand. Or understand. Yeah. So, a lot of these people coming in were being used for prostitution, they were being used to work in

Gene Valentino: sweatshops.

Now, time out, that’s in the early

Peter Del Rosso: 90s. In the early 90s. We’re not even up to 9 11. We’re not even up to 9 11

Gene Valentino: yet. What I’m, just to time out from my point of view, I moved from Connecticut to Pensacola in 1992. My big debut to a national crisis. Was the was the Twin Tower crash and the 9 11 and then the Pentagon and then the hijacking of the other aircraft.

That was 9 11. But you’re talking about incidences going back 10 years prior. Correct. Would you say from your experience, from your intelligence with the, with the government that this was to the extent to which you can disclose, was this Was this a perpetration of a of a conspiracy initiated by [00:19:00] Russia, China?

Was this the Islamic groups ISIS or the Islamic Jihad? For Islam Osama Bin Laden had actually made an attempt. Almost a decade prior to nine 11 on some of the stuff you’re talking about in New York City. So obviously we

Peter Del Rosso: all know Desert Storm. You were in Desert Storm. I was in Desert Storm.

And it started prior, yeah. Prior to that, obviously there was, what

Gene Valentino: role did Bin Laden have in that earlier

Peter Del Rosso: event? hE my knowledge, I mean, being in the military, he wasn’t talked about much,

Gene Valentino: you know, who was one of the leading, terrorists at the time running these

Peter Del Rosso: subversive groups.

so Saddam Hussein actually was the main guy that they were actually portraying as a terrorist. You know, and that’s the person in the military. You know, we received our orders and it’s like, this is who we’re going after.

This is where we’re going. It’s what we’re doing. So each unit had a mission. [00:20:00]

Gene Valentino: Each of the unions. That’s one thing I wanted to get to. You know, we’re gonna jump ahead. This is fascinating, folks, because I’m here with Peter Del Rosso, who’s got a pretty extensive background for decades in with and through the Department of Homeland Security and initially ICE.

I’d like to have you talk about how ICE morphed into with the other agencies in a minute. But let’s, let’s stay on the timeline. This is great. What happened to those, let’s go back to the Chinese ship with the hundreds of people down. The Golden Venture. The Golden Venture. What happened to the people?

What happened to the captain?

Peter Del Rosso: So most of the people that we ended up taking into custody, we had to process these people, they were detained for a while. And the reason why we had to do that was because we had to find families for them, people who would actually take them in. They would have to be credible showing, you know, that they could support.

And, you know, some of these people had. Deportation [00:21:00] hearings to send them back. So there was multiple, now

Gene Valentino: this was a, a policy of, right. Immigration. That was an

Peter Del Rosso: immigration policy, so they would go under their own. Everybody was. They got out, per se, then there was a hearing set up for them. And what happened after that, I don’t know, to each individual.

I mean, there was hundreds of them.

Gene Valentino: Footnote, the immigration policy today refuses to address the fact that if such a wave of immigrants, illegal immigrants, are coming into the nation, That they would use a policy back in the 1990s to get basically a sponsor, an American sponsor, to get behind and support this immigrant, regardless of their status.

Correct. To control and manage the ability of the United States Customs and State Department and Immigration to decide if that person’s getting booted out and going back home, or if they could legitimize themselves in becoming a citizen. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. [00:22:00] That whole policy and process seem to have melted away, especially more

Peter Del Rosso: recently.

Under the Biden administration, it most definitely has. Let’s

Gene Valentino: come to that. We will. Okay. What happened to the captain of the Chinese

Peter Del Rosso: ship? So, the captain and his mate, both of them were charged with smuggling. And both of them did serve time. Once they served their time, then they would come back and they would go through their deportation proceedings.

After they served their

Gene Valentino: time. Peter, you’re in ICE at the time, and you’re headquartered somewhere in New Jersey or New

Peter Del Rosso: York, right? I was in New York till 1997 and then I transferred to the New Jersey field office. Yes. You saw all of this. I did. You had,

Gene Valentino: you were training and, and, and, and educating the consolidation which was about to occur in, in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and these agencies [00:23:00] coming together, which happened soon after 9 11, but you had a front row seat to the movie.

I did. For sure. How many of these people got away with murder?

This is, where have I been? I haven’t seen this in the news.

Peter Del Rosso: Man, they wouldn’t put it in the news.

Gene Valentino: Guys like you working could have talked about that.

Peter Del Rosso: Could have, but you know at the time everything was classified. You had your top secret clearance? I do.

Gene Valentino: Were you working for an agency that mandated you not

Peter Del Rosso: talk about it? We’re under, under our policy. We’re not supposed to talk about, but

Gene Valentino: America was being undermined, correct?

I mean, this isn’t about two planes hitting the twin tower and a few other related incidents, correct? This is about thousands of people, nine years before

Peter Del Rosso: nine 11 and even probably even before that, the generation before [00:24:00] that.

Gene Valentino: If you were an elected official, I’m jumping on you. If you were an elected official in Congress, what would you do to, what law would you want to see in place to protect immigration and the citizenship of this nation?

Peter Del Rosso: All the laws are in place already. We don’t need to make any more laws. We don’t need to change any laws.

We need to take the laws that are on the book currently and start using them the way they need to be used. Bravo.

Gene Valentino: I happen to agree with you. In fact, we need fewer laws, not more laws. Correct. But, but they’re not being followed. They’re

Peter Del Rosso: not being followed. Now,

Gene Valentino: let me jump on you again. There’s a guy by the name of Tom Holman who, who went through the ranks like you did and went all the way up the political side of it to become assistant deputy director of ICE and Homeland Security.

What, what What does a guy like him do? Did he look the other way? I

Peter Del Rosso: know Tom Holman, and I’ll tell you what, I would work for that man anytime, any day of the week. If he were to ever [00:25:00] go back and ask me to come and work for him, I would definitely work for him. Folks, last

Gene Valentino: week we had on the show Jason Jones, who went to the border in the last three or four years, and he was serving in a different capacity, going after some of these

I’m not sure if it was for Homeland Security or ICE, but it doesn’t matter. He was, he, he, he said the same thing you did. He knew Tom Holman, and he thinks the guy walks on

Peter Del Rosso: water. Tom Holman, he’s the type of guy who went through the ranks, he was with his officers, his agents, and if it was time to go out in the field and get your hands dirty, he was the guy who would be leading the charge.

That’s the type of guy that Tom is.

Gene Valentino: I see in his expression when interviewed on the various networks, a total sense of frustration. The man is totally, in fact, I don’t know where he gets his stamina from. We’re, we’re all

Peter Del Rosso: frustrated the same [00:26:00] way. We’re the guys who went through the ranks. Tom went through the ranks just like I did.

You know, he started back in heroes. I mean, he has a very extensive career.

And became the director. Interesting.

Gene Valentino: Folks, we’re talking with Peter Del Rosso. You know, he’s had assignments that have included immigration enforcement and protecting the homeland of this nation from terror threats from all over the world. And I find it interesting that you were also assigned to the Fugitive Operations Unit in high risk environments.

And served as team leader on these missions during the global war on terror. That jumps ahead after after 9 11. After 9 11. Let’s take a break at this point. We’re talking with Peter Del Rosso, a very interesting person who served in a few different [00:27:00] roles under a total career of over 30 years with the Department of Homeland Security.

And he he has he has different chapters that we’ve come to identify in his career path here that are worthy. The best is yet to come. We’ve got a few more to share with you right after this.

Hi everybody. Gene Valentino, founder of Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truth Cast. This segment is the opening segment of 11 segments. To follow. The 11 segments will be each of the amendments to the second Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States, which I’ve written as suggestions. To improve the governing democracy, the democratic republic in which we live and work today.

You know, the constitution of the United States is a [00:28:00] document written to protect the people from the overreaching government power, the overreaching government hand. And it’s supposed to be able to unite people based on respect and individual liberty and freedom. It presumes that our government. Is one that succeeds, that governs less, not governs more.

Meaning of the people, by the people. And for the people. The republic, which is why we call it a democratic republic, has more to do with the concept of a decentralized form of government. In fact, in the early days, our founding fathers reached out to the different states of the nation in just that way and asked them to sign on to this thing called the Declaration of Independence.

Then the Constitution and to do so, it was a way of gathering [00:29:00] the many together of different cultures, different religions, different ways of life, and ask them to form one United America. It was a different, different, a difficult challenge, but one that worked and has worked longer and better than any other governance in this world.

But over the decades, over the two centuries, and more so recently, we’ve seen an acceleration of dysfunction, bad behavior, deceit, treachery, and abuse of that beautiful democratic process. And for that reason, I’ve proposed this second bill of rights. This second Bill of Rights complements the first Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, and the 17 more.

A total of 27 amendments to the Constitution [00:30:00] exist today. This Bill of Rights I propose is the second Bill of Rights, 11 more amendments to the Constitution. I’d like you to sit back and join me. Take one or two of these in sequence. Obviously, you’ll find them on the website, which is where you’ve seen this.

www. genevalentino. com The second Bill of Rights on the top tab toolbar of the website. The first one and the other eleven will follow. Stay tuned

hi folks. And welcome back to the second half of our episode with Peter Del Rosa came out of Homeland Security and has so many different chapters of interesting experiences over the last 30, 35 years that he’s sharing with us. It’s not just about the border encroachment on the Southern border today, but really an overview of the lack of good administration I’ve seen, we’ve seen in the protection of this nation.

You know, a good [00:31:00] nation has good borders, and the deterioration of these borders over the last decades, few decades, has evidenced itself. But my words, this guest of mine with me today, Peter Del Rosa, has revealed some things that I think are just are factual, and are also insightful. And so, let’s continue the conversation.

Thank you for being with us. Before we get to 9 11, Peter, what was your day like under ICE? So, before 9 11, we were actually immigration under Department of Justice. That’s what we fell on, post 9 11. Okay. So, I would go into the office, we’d have our cases. Our administration allowed us to handle our own cases, basically treated us like adults.

You know, this is your job. This is what you got to do. You know what you need to do. [00:32:00] Go ahead and work it. And I could work as many cases as I want during my, my work week, you know, and I did. I mean, we all did. Did your family suffer? So at one point my family did suffer because the first couple of years of my marriage, I was never home.

I was always working. Why? Because I wanted to do better for this country. Once you start getting involved in these cases It almost becomes, it becomes part of you, part of your life. I spent more time at work than I did at home. Did you actually get face to face with the enemy and take on gunfire?

Every day. Well, gunfire, I mean, when, gunfire per se, but I’ve had a few incidences, a couple of incidences in my career. But as far as putting hands on and arresting these people. Yes, it was every day. [00:33:00] And, you know, you don’t know who you’re going up against. So whoever you, you know, whether it’s an 80 year old little lady or if it’s a little girl.

You know, 18 year old little boy that’s coming through the border. I mean, there’s always a chance that something can happen, you know? So you’re putting hands on these people and some of these people, they want to fight. So you’d have to fight. So I moved down to Pensacola, Florida in 1992. And I’m listening to this last nine years prior to 9 11 that you’re just referring to.

My wife and I watched on the news daily. David Pasqualone, Remarkable People Podcast, Listen. I was watching the commercial airlines go into the Twin Towers. Yes. It was almost as if it was a [00:34:00] movie in surreal. Where were you with that? So I was on, I was with my partner. We actually went that morning to pick up a prisoner that we arrested.

We were working a case and we were going to bring this gentleman up to the U. S. Attorney’s Office. That’s what our mission was. Downtown Manhattan. For that day, right. So we were going into New York. We were sitting on Pearl Street, and it was almost nine o’clock in the morning and We looked up and saw a plane hit the building.

Pearl Street. Pearl Street’s right next to the Twin Towers. Right next to the Twin Towers. Yeah. I looked up and I turned around to my partner and I said Something just came and I said we’re getting hit and he turned around to me and said what the fuck are you talking about? I said dude, we’re fucking getting hit.

Just like that. What happened? That was a conversation. Where were you? Sitting in a [00:35:00] car on Pearl Street. And we were, when the plane hit for a second, it’s like, did the plane just crash into the building? And something told me we were getting hit. Just, I felt it. Well, minutes later, the second one. So minutes later, the second one went.

And he turned around to me, he said, dude, you’re fucking right. Just like that. That’s exactly what he said, word for word. And what happened? What’d you do? So with the prisoner we had in the car, I said, well, we have to make a decision now. I said, let’s take this guy. Let’s bring him over to the MCC over in Manhattan.

MCC is the? Which is the Federal Detention Center over in Manhattan, lower Manhattan. So I call the office. And I told them what we were doing. Wait a minute, isn’t that where Epstein was kept? It was. Okay. Absolutely. So, we brought him over there they took him, and at that time we ended up responding to the World Trade Center when it came down.

So you, you were on [00:36:00] some sort of group channel frequency? So, we ended up turning our radio on and we had what we call spend channels. Spend Channels is a state police network and basically it integrates all the different law enforcement agencies. It integrated Port Authority, New York City Police Department, and integrated all police departments in the area.

And they were screaming on the radio they needed all available emergency personnel to respond to the World Trade Center at the time. We were there. We were available emergency personnel. You were there under the auspices of ICE or Homeland Security? We were there under Immigration Department.

Immigration. Justice at the time. At that time. At that time. Because it hadn’t emerged yet. Correct. So under administrate, adminigrate, immigration department of justice, you were heading some two to four hundred people, weren’t you? In your, in your network? So, at that time, no, not yet. Okay. Not at [00:37:00] that time.

That was under Homeland Security. So you and your partner were on your own? We were on our own. And what’d you do? So, we responded to the World Trade Center. And we assisted with the rescues pull any people out of the we did the subways. We did. We, we went out there and there was rubble. There was fires everywhere.

There was dead bodies everywhere. You know what? I mean, if you pull a brick take a brick and pull it off and you think you’re rescuing a body and you might pull a hand out, you know, I mean, and that was all that was left. I mean, people disintegrated. There was burning paper everywhere. Fires everywhere.

It was just, you know. That was at around 9 o’clock, 9. 30 in the morning, Eastern Time. wHat happened that was a pretty long day for you. It was. We never, we never ended up going home. So, I remember just hearing they grounded all the [00:38:00] planes. They grounded everything. All traffic. That’s right. And I remember we were there even that night.

And, you know, I mean, people have been to New York City and that whole area. It was full of life. And that night you could literally hear a pin drop. Everybody was just quiet and working just to rescue people. So where were you working? Let’s, let’s get more specific. Were you specifically at the crash site of the Twin Towers?

I was, yes. And what were you doing? So we were there, we were assisting with the rescues and helping to rescue people and pulling bodies out of rubble. Well, the gear you see on TV, even the firefighters had masks and different things. Their bodies were covered in some soil. We were covered in soil, yes. We, did you have any protection?

We had, we had respirators. That they handed us and we did what we did. I mean, just threw on your work gloves and, do you have a [00:39:00] sense during the day of how many people you recovered, living or dead? There was lots, probably hundreds. Hundreds. Hundreds. In your, in your, that you were exposed to. Yes.

With the time that I that I assisted. Go ahead, keep going. So, anyway at that time, uh, things started to. Come under control. So more of the fire department and the rescuers that were there, and they ended up pulling us off. And finally they gave us a mission, uh, immigration because immigration once they started to figure out what happened and terrorists and obviously that’s what it had to do with, was immigration.

Because these people were here on F 1 visas, which was student visas. They came in here. These people, the terrorists? Terrorists came in as students. They were [00:40:00] here studying as students. They were all here on F 1 visas.

Did you arrest any of the original terrorists? So, no. So what happened was the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency did not want to share information with our agencies. There was a, everyone wanted to keep their own. Kingdom, right? Correct. So eventually the president got involved and they were talking, and this was above my pay grade, I mean, all up above.

And they came to a an agreement where the FBI and the CIA started to share information with the immigration service. Yeah, let me jump in there. That was during the Patriot Act. Who was prior to that? Prior to the Patriot Act? Well, they started sharing it. But I think the initiative under presidential order was a mandate from him that you will [00:41:00] consolidate your information.

You’re going to consolidate your information so then that way we could do our job and go out there and grab these people. Because immigration at the time was the only ones that were really authorized to enforce immigration law. That was what we did. Yeah. Right. That’s our expertise. That was our database.

You know, we just need the names of these people, get our, get the information that we need so we can go out there and get them. Did you? We did. Go into it as far as you can. So, I can’t go all the way into it, but we’ve arrested in the New York, New Jersey area, metropolitan area, a substantial amount.

Suspected terrorists, twenties, hundreds, thousands. I, it was a lot. I’ll just put it to you now. Well, a lot to me in this environment would be over a thousand. Let’s put it that way. Holy schmoly. And that was probably between [00:42:00] 2001 and 2003. So the Patriot Act hadn’t been instituted yet, but the president, yeah, but the president had demanded.

A consolidation of the agency information. I know when I came into my job as a county commissioner decades later, that there was a mandate as a result of 9 11 that mandated agencies all glue their databases together. So you’re working off the same sheet, right? So the Patriot Act and the reason why that came about.

Was because a lot of these suspected terrorists that were coming in, uh, all started to open businesses because what they needed to do was they needed to get money back to their organization and they needed to fund their costs. Do you find that these thousands of people you arrested were more interested in becoming Americans?

Or were they more interested in, in taking down America? They were interested in taking down America for sure. Were they [00:43:00] Islamic and Muslim? Yes, they were. 100%? 90%? 100%. Where was China at the time? At the time, they were doing their thing. They were just hanging out, watching everything that was going on, but I’m sure they were contributing to Well, you were on the front line.

You saw who was coming in and who wasn’t. Aside from this shipload of of people who were being shipped in illegally most of them were not planned terrorists trying to take down the nation. China, at the time, it was It was Muslim and Islamic Jihad and Taliban. As far as China, China had a vision.

Think of it that way. You’re looking at everything that’s going on and now we have a vision. You mean today is the vision of China from 20 years ago? Correct. Okay. You know, this is where we’re going to need to be. And they’re out there and they’re collecting intelligence back. Let’s stay back there. Cause we got a lot more to [00:44:00] cover.

Okay. So we’re still on nine 11. Yep. I, you got burnt out after a few days of working 20 hour days, weren’t you? Oh, it was more than a few days. I was actually away from my family for years. I’ve actually missed my kids growing up. My son was. 5 years old, I was away, I was traveling around the world, working internationally, just away from home all the time.

I was never home. Can I ask? Was there a price to pay? Did it cost you a problem with your family? It did not. And You stuck together. We stuck together. God bless you. You know, my wife That’s an unusual family. My wife took care of my kids. My kids are growing up, doing well today. Wonderful. You know And now they look back at Dad during an era of this nation and what you did to protect this democracy.

They do. And my son was actually You should be very proud of that. I am very proud. My son was born [00:45:00] in the year 2000. He actually saw a lot. I mean, he doesn’t remember everything going on, but he kind of remembers.

Alright, we’ll expound a little bit more on what happened around 9 11, 2001, and then let’s continue forward. So, uh, after that we started going out and we started arresting a lot of these people. We started you know, getting them in. Some of them we had to keep incarcerated here in the United States.

Some of them we had to actually bring them back to their country of origin. A lot of, we were doing a lot of trips to Pakistan, and we were turning them over to Wait a minute. We were returning terrorists to a homeland. Correct. Which was an American expense. Correct. We did not incarcerate them and imprison them for clear evidence of terrorist act?[00:46:00]

Some of them not. Some of them you couldn’t, we didn’t have a case on. You know, unless they actually committed a terrorist act. You can’t charge ’em with anything. Okay. My number, thousands of people, what percentage of them would you say were were incarcerate and should have been imprisoned? 90% or 10%?

I would say 90%. And how many really went home? Not a lot. 90%? Al almost, I, I would, so 50 to 80% I would say. So. So we let a lot of criminals walk that did damage to this nation. Right, because they know that if they come back into this country, they, it was easier for them to get out and say, okay, well, I’m going to get expulted out of the country.

And it would be easier for them to come back into the country. Interesting. You know, let’s do it through the Southern border. Okay. That’s where I’m going. [00:47:00] Right. That’s where I’m going. Before you hit the Southern border, talk to me further about the, the genesis of what happened and that we were left the Bush administration during 9 11 and we moved into the subsequent administrations and how did they treat the terrorist movement and who was running what became truly Homeland Security.

So, under the Bush administration obviously, as everyone saw, they were pushing enforcement. And that’s when the Patriot Act, that’s when Homeland Security came together, that’s when everyone was behind us, that’s when all the money was going to Homeland Security to, to actually, actually, what I do want to talk about I want to talk about Homeland Security.

A little bit and how it was actually formed. 1993. No. Homeland Security was formed in February of 2003. In 2003. What they basically, what they did. That’s right. [00:48:00] Was they ended up putting together Immigration, U. S. Customs, Border Patrol, U. S. Secret Service, The Coast Guard, The U. S. Air Marshals, and Federal Protective Service.

And TSA came under that too. TSA also fell under that as well. Yeah. Okay. So now they integrated all these agencies together, which gave us approximately a hundred thousand in manpower. Now what they did was they created, obviously all these people had to be trained. So we had to go back to the federal law enforcement training center for additional training to become, because the reason behind this was.

Let’s say if the air marshals needed more manpower in the air, so we would [00:49:00] be able to assist each other. So we would have our guys detailed to the air marshals and they would be able to go up there and fly and act as air marshals. If we needed, let’s say for example Secret Service agents to come and help us, assist us.

With our cases because we had an overload or an influx at the border or something is going on We would be able to pull Secret Service from what they’re doing and they would be able to come over and assist us and then vice versa. And you were working off a new rule book. Correct. And your new director of Homeland Security was?

Tom Ridge. Tom Ridge. And he this new, this new rule book was the consolidation of administrative rules of these various agencies that morphed, morphed into each other. Correct. So you had the authority to kind of pick up where the other left off. Yes. [00:50:00] I’m jumping ahead now. Is that why a border patrol group in Mexico is within the first, what, 25 miles?

So then ICE picks up after that? Right. So on their homeland security, we have what’s called border enforcement and how they actually organized it was they took the guys like the inspectors, CBP officers, That were uniform, that work at the border. When you come in through a checkpoint, those guys would handle the border.

They were, they fell under what they call CBP, customs and Border Protection. Customs and Border Protection. Right. The Border Patrol was not Border Patrol, they’re now CBP. Okay. Customs and Border Protection. Of course, they’re still border patrol. Yeah. So they would handle everything, let’s say at the front line.

So picture the, the front line at the border, your line. So these guys would be here. Basically, they’ll say, okay, as an example, you guys will handle [00:51:00] everything at the border all the way 20 miles in from the border, 20 miles in anything after 20 miles becomes an ICE problem, which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Enforcement is a key word. Why? Because we do it for interior enforcement. You were on the ice side. Ice side. Did you actually get face to face with the criminals? We did every day of our. So what was your role? What was your exact role? Were you carrying a gun or were you actually? No, I was carrying a gun.

Yes. So were you, were you confronting criminals? We were, yes. And how many times per day per week? Every day. Every day. You wouldn’t see that on the six o’clock news. No. Why? And most of our work time was about 60 to 70 hours a week.

Maybe longer than that. This is before or after you were escorting terrorists back to their homeland? It was before, during, and after. [00:52:00] So, the border patrol policies and the immigration rules that were failing and not being enforced, was it because you couldn’t do the job, you wouldn’t do the job, or you were told not to do the job?

Well, what happened is the administration, how they ended up working, taken a little bit further under the Obama administration. Okay, so we went from Bush to, to Obama, Obama, right? So at that time, what happened is under his administration what, what he, what they were doing was they were defunding programs.

So we have funding codes in our programs. So we had what’s called, let’s say, I’m going to give you some examples. We had a fugitive unit and then we had a. Smuggling unit. Those are two units. So let’s say they come back and say, you know what? We’re going to start [00:53:00] to defund the fugitive unit. For example, they’re not, they’re not going to give us as much money the following year, which means we don’t have the resources.

To operate that unit anymore. What are we talking about? 2001 to 2005. That was under the Obama administration, which was probably, we’re talking 2008. Alright, we’re moving forward. Okay. We’re moving forward. So so defunding of police in effect happened a decade before, so Yeah. So they started to defund our programs.

So when they defund our programs, we weren’t able to work it because we don’t have the money to work it, which means we don’t get the vehicles, we don’t get the resources, we don’t get the officers, we don’t get support personnel. So everything gets taken away when we defund. How are these bastards who are violating law Compromising American security and trying to perpetrate a fraud against our democracy.

How could a [00:54:00] guy like you see these bastards face to face? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’d make sure they paid a price whether they went to jail or not. How about that for an answer? I think so. Huh? Yes. I’m not putting words in your mouth, but you can see how I feel. Were you alone with that feeling or were there others that felt the same way?

No, everybody felt the same way. Well, when you finally ran out of money to do anything And found yourself as a gatekeepers watching him come over the line. What happened to the moral the morality, right? The actual agent in the field, they’re all great guys. Every single agent out there, they want to do their job.

That’s not the problem. The problem is the administration. It’s up top. They think that they own the government. They think they control everything and they, I hate the word they, you’re talking about the elected official at the time, when I say they, I mean, the, the official that’s put into place. Not even [00:55:00] elected.

These are not elected. Alright, so they would be high end appointed people. Correct. By the elected. Correct. Okay. You know, and these people think they own the government. They do not own the government. Well, Tom Holman must be the exception then. Correct. He’s one of the exceptions. And there’s a lot of good guys in the agency.

You know again, you know, we have to fight the upper administration. This is what they want. Where does that come from? It all comes from the White House. Obviously, they run it. It’s gotta be them. That’s what I wanted to know. That’s the bottom line. Okay. So what happened? Okay. Moving toward the Obama administration.

What happened prior to Trump? So prior to Trump under the Obama administration obviously he was defunding all of our programs. Every time we tried to work certain cases. Certain things had to go through the White House before they could actually get approved for us to actually [00:56:00] work. So it reminds me of the Johnson administration during Vietnam, where everything in Vietnam was running through Johnson.

Correct. And it was a mismanaged, erratic, circuitous path of Of the policymaking. Correct. Were you still involved in Homeland Security at that point? I was involved in Homeland Security until 2016. Okay. So you were, you, you took, you saw it up to Trump. Correct. Keep going with Obama then. What happened? So you know, as we know he started to defund all of our programs.

He needed to monitor everything that certain cases that we were working had to be monitored through the White House and he had to give us approval to actually work a certain case. Yes, you can. No, you can’t. Were your colleagues retiring around you? No. [00:57:00] Actually, I was probably in for a long time because I had a pretty long career.

And we had a massive hiring spree from like 2000. So when we went into Homeland Security, because we had all the money. So, you know, I had a lot of new guys. The last 10 years of my career, I was actually an instructor. I taught firearms, defensive tactics. I, I was an instructor for everything. I mean, I taught everything.

I was the main guy. You know, a lot of the younger kids, they all looked up to me as a mentor. I was mentoring their career and, you know, I was always keeping everyone safe on the training end of things. You’re retired now, do you stay in touch with any of them? I stay in touch with a few of them, I do.

Would you go back in? So, I would go back in if President Trump becomes President, Tom Ullman becomes Director of Homeland Security again, and if they [00:58:00] ever ask me to come back as a contractor, I will be the point on that sphere. I will put it to you that way. Let’s make sure they know that. I will do my best to make sure they know that.

You know, you have We glossed over the time you served during the Obama administration. You must have, while you were training the newbies coming in, you must have seen a lot of demoralization. I did it and there was especially after I left and I did keep in touch with a lot of the people there was a lot of demoralization.

A lot of guys told me, they said, you’re lucky you made the right decision when you got out in 2016. I said, I did. I said, and I, and I’ve seen it coming. Because while I was in the government, while I was working there they would keep you blind to everything else that was going on on the outside. [00:59:00] And you don’t keep you in your box, isolated from You’re isolated to a lot.

Well, I take a friendly disagreement with you on that. I wished you’d stayed in. Not I can see how people like you became demoralized, but it was people like you that saved this nation from further destruction. And I wished you had stayed involved. In fact, the opposite’s true. Since you think in terms of Trump I didn’t prod you for that answer, but since you obviously think support him, it would seem to me that you should have been as aggressive in the Obama administration, which might’ve cost you, it might’ve cost you had you been so bold then under Obama, but you certainly would have been someone who would have stood out as a patriot.

You know, in defending this border you know, it’s like we’re putting money into new ideas and new technologies, but many of those technologies on the border. Existed decades earlier. I remember back in my very early days [01:00:00] working for a security company. We had a teletech type of system, which was underground vibrations, vibrations on fences that created zones of alarming alarm notification.

That was long before. So back in my days, let’s just take it back for a minute. Being that you just brought that up. I Was detailed to the border. Oh, you were, I was. I was in Calexico. Where? Calexico, just outside of California, San Diego. Okay. In that area there. So, I’ll give you an example. They had sensors on the ground.

A lot of them ran through farmland and all the way down into ravines. You don’t know if you’re in Mexico or you’re in the United States in some of these areas. Because it was so vast, and so some of these ravines went down so deep. So at one point, let’s say, and I’ll give you an example, a sensor might go [01:01:00] off.

So you would get a call from dispatch, and they say a sensor went off in this area. Okay, border patrol agent will have to go down into that area, but you might be able just to take your vehicle so far. Now you would have to leave your vehicle. And you’d have to trek down into these ravines and it might take you an hour, hour and a half, maybe two hours of walking all the way deep down in this forest, right?

And now who knows who you’re going to run into. And if you’re on the other, on one side of the border and you had The Mexicans, the cartel on the other side, on, on ridgetops, they will actually shoot at you. And this happens every single day to these border patrol agents. And I can guarantee you, I’ve been out of the service for good, almost seven years or so.

I can guarantee you till this day, it’s [01:02:00] still happening every day. That’s what they have to face every single day. And shooting it on the border is a very common thing that happens. The news broadcasts give you the impression that the Border Patrol folks, they didn’t even come inland to ice yet, but the Border Patrol folks are only there currying the people through a processing process.

Get the sense today. It’s not from the six o’clock news that there are people that are, uh, actually engaged in combat with people coming over the line, right? So right now they actually limited them on the border. So now that we have less people to go and fight that fight and what they ended up doing is they ended up taking a lot of these guys and instead of doing their job, which should be border enforcement, and I blame the Biden administration for this.

For taking ’em off and [01:03:00] wanting open borders. It’s, I’m gonna give you guys an example. I’m gonna give the audience an example, please. Okay. Would you take the door off your house, put a big sign in front of your house and say, anyone who wants to come in and take whatever you want, you come in my house.

It’s open. Would you do that? Ask yourself that question. It’s a perfect analogy to what we’re experiencing. Nation. Ask yourself. Ask yourself that question. That is a good question. Would, would you, I want to ask you that. Would you take the doors off your house? Hell no. Put on the road. Hell no. Say if you want who, who in their right mind would do that?

Because that’s exactly what we just did here in the United States. We just opened the door, took the doors off our house and said, anyone who wants to come in, you can come in and we’re not even gonna see who’s coming in. And that’s exactly what’s happening. My opinion is we are going to get, there are so many terrorists in this country [01:04:00] right now, that between now and 2024, and you can mark my words, Because I hope maybe you’d bring me back after that.

If we still come back here, we’re going to be attacked. Hold on, hold on. That’s a significant statement. Based on what you’ve revealed on this interview today, you’ve already talked about the thousands that have been infiltrated this nation that have gone undocumented, unreported. And not returned back to their homeland, whether they should have been imprisoned or not, they sit here in the United States as sleepers.

Sleeper cells, terrorists that haven’t exposed themselves yet. And you’re saying there’s not a few hundred, there’s several thousands? Thousands. Tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. Of what I would call terrorists. Sitting silent, waiting to act [01:05:00] awaiting orders from somewhere, and you’re saying that by the year 2024.

We should see a response from these people? I believe so. I strongly believe it and I think that’s my opinion. That’s a significant statement. I’ll tell you. That I hope reaches the United States Congress because I don’t believe the president has the cognition to interpret the seriousness of that. I’ve dealt with these people coming in about almost 30 years of my life.

I’ve done this job for almost 30 years of my life. I should know a little something, right? Absolutely. You know, I mean, I think I learned a little bit of something and I’ve been through those different stages in my career. When you see Chinese nationals between the ages of 17, 18, 25 coming across our border, that’s got to tell [01:06:00] you something.

That means you’re in fighting shape. That means you’re in war fighting shape. Look at these guys that are coming through. You can actually see these people coming across the border. They just had, I just watched. And they actually showed a glimpse of these people crossing the border. Chinese nationals.

What does that tell you? Do you have any insight as to whether this is a bait and switch trick on the United States part? Can I give America some credit and suggest that maybe we’re documenting these wrongdoers, these suspects, excuse me. Through our AI technology, through camera and character recognition equipment that maybe we’re documenting to create a bigger sting, setting up for a bigger response from America against these perpetrations, against this potential perpetration.

If you let these people into this country, you’re failing to do your job. Well, I agree with that. We already did, didn’t we? They’re here. They’re here. They’re [01:07:00] here. Okay. So to your first point we have not protected our borders. You’re not protecting the border. We’re not. Folks, on our on our podcasts and our radio interview on WMXI, you’ve heard me talk about genes.

Second Bill of rights and one of them, one of the 11 bill amendments that I propose through this second bill of rights to the United States Constitution specifically addresses the sub, the, the, the by by amendment to the Constitution, thereby giving credence to the importance of an amendment, a law of this nation that mandates we protect our borders first.

It has to start there. We’re a, we’re a humble, we’re a very generous nation. We’re a very giving nation. The Monroe Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, going back toward, toward World War II. All these things we’ve done as a nation to protect others. But what are we doing to protect ourselves? And if I can extend to that, [01:08:00] Peter, what is the rest of the world doing to support the protection of America?

We really don’t ask for other nations support, but shouldn’t we? The rest of the world isn’t doing anything. They’re just standing by with their hands out, waiting for us to hand them money. That’s what they’re doing. They’re not doing anything. The United States is the head of everything. They are the spear.

We actually held the world together. This nation held the entire world. Picture we are the spine of the world, and now with the administration that actually took over and all the work that we ended up doing, all these agents, all these law enforcement officers that were out there trying to protect the country, they ripped it apart.

In just one election year. In one election year, they ripped it apart and we all saw that. What happened in Afghanistan, which is which is a total debacle. It shouldn’t have happened. [01:09:00] Yeah, you know and right there And when they come on the news and a lot of these The White House and they’ll come on there and they’ll put on a good show for you And they come on there with these faces saying well, we really don’t know what no you do know what’s going on Yeah, and a lot of it that they’re doing is intentional.

They know exactly what they’re doing Peter Del Rosso, we’re out of time. Would you promise to come back and do a follow up with me? God forbid, I need you to articulate these terrorists evidencing themselves in 2024, as you said earlier. Absolutely. You have a personal invitation from me to come back to Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast for another episode.

We’ve run out of time today. Folks, this is Peter Del Russo. He’s retired now, but had decades of first hand experience on border [01:10:00] security, immigration all aspects of Homeland Security. We were very proud to have you with us today. We have opened Pandora’s box on so many issues. And folks, we’re getting it from the source who experienced it first hand on many levels that you won’t see on the 6 o’clock news.

I’m proud to have you here with me today. And I’m proud to have you here with me today too. Gene Valentino here on Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast. Join us again for another episode.

Narrator: Thanks for joining us for Gene Valentino’s Grassroots Truthcast. Be sure to like and subscribe and God bless America.