OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The head of the Department of Homeland Security made a claim this week about the state of the U.S.-Mexico border that is getting a great deal of pushback from those assigned to patrol it.
“Look, the border is secure,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday. “We are working to make the border more secure. That has been a historic challenge.”
He went on to blame lawmakers for failing to pass broader immigration legislation until the security situation is taken care of, Fox News reported.
“I have said to a number of legislators who expressed to me that we need to address the challenge at the border before they pass legislation and I take issue with the math of holding the solution hostage until the problem is resolved,” he added.
“There is work to be done,” Mayorkas continued before noting further that “safe and secure are two different words.”
“There are smugglers that operate on the Mexican side of the border and placing one’s life in their hands is not safe,” said the DHS boss.
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But Border Patrol agents and officials who spoke with Fox News gave a far different version of reality.
“Hundreds of thousands crossing every month is not the definition of secure,” one agent told the network. “They are liars and anyone who believes them are fools.”
Fox News added:
Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) also disputed that the border is secure, pointing to not only the drug flows into the U.S., but also the number of migrants that get past agents.
A high-level CBP source told Fox News last month that there have been 440,000 known gotaways since the fiscal year began in October — with over 50,000 in May. Combined with the 400,000 known gotaways since the beginning of FY 2021, that means that more than 800,000 illegal immigrants have gotten past agents since October 2020.
“As bad as the apprehension numbers are, and they are beyond bad, the scariest part of border security is the gotaways and the amount of drugs that are coming into the country,” Judd told Fox News. “Secretary Mayorkas knows the cartels use illegal border crossers to facilitate their higher value contraband including criminal aliens and fentanyl.
“Secretary Mayorkas knows we have the least secure border in our history as evidenced by nearly one million known gotaways and over 100,000 overdose deaths from narcotics coming across our southwest border,” he continued.
“There are easy solutions but based upon the evidence and a refusal to implement programs to secure the border it is clear this Administration including Secretary Mayorkas clearly does not care about the American people,” Judd noted further.
Another Border Patrol agent anonymously told Fox News that Mayorkas is telling the American people “bald face lies” regarding the situation along the southwestern border.
“They’re using issues like poverty, crime and climate change as reasons for asylum but those do not meet the legal standard of the law,” said the agent before going on to claim that the vast majority of asylum claims are “absolutely bogus.”
“Mayorkas, [Border Patrol Chief Raul] Ortiz and [President] Biden are failures that do not have the support of agents and many command staff, they all have violated their ‘oath’ of office to defend the laws and Constitution and should be removed,” the second agent added.
The Biden administration is supposedly concentrating efforts in response to the ongoing migrant crisis by focusing on so-called “root causes” such as corruption and poverty in Central America, though migrants are crossing illegally from dozens of countries not in Central America, Fox News reported.
Republicans, meanwhile, have blamed the administration for causing the problems at the border after President Biden reversed most of former President Donald Trump’s border and immigration enforcement and security policies on his first day in office.
They have also criticized Biden for ending border wall construction and leaving vast swaths incomplete.
