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Under the direction of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, the U.S.-Mexican border has become a nightmare of danger and ineptitude, according to two analysts on border security.
Mayorkas testified before the House Judiciary Committee on April 28 as part of an annual request for funds and congressional oversight. The day before he testified before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.
Mayorkas said he inherited a damaged process and has worked hard to get the border under control. That was challenged by Republicans on the subcommittee, including Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican who represents Texas’ 10th Congressional District.
“I would have to say that I’ve never seen the border more broken,” McCaul said Wednesday. “It is not under operational control. It is out of control.”
Ken Oliver, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s senior director of engagement and Right on Immigration in the foundation’s Washington, D.C. office, and Rodney Scott, a retired U.S. Border Patrol chief and Texas Public Policy Foundation senior distinguished fellow for border security, agreed with that assessment.
They discussed what they termed the Biden administration’s irresponsible and reckless border management, immigration enforcement and asylum policies during a panel discussion sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Joshua Treviño, TPPF’s chief of innovation and research, served as moderator.
Oliver said after hearing Mayorkas’ testimony about a secure border, he could only shake his head. In fact, “the exact opposite is true” and the truth must be told, Oliver said.
“The Biden-Harris administration has been dismantling effective border management, immigration law enforcement, asylum policy,” he said. “And that’s been what’s leading to this tremendous, vast amount of human smuggling and drug trafficking, which is anything but humane, orderly or safe.”
Scott said Mayorkas is “nothing but a master of words” but his grasp of the facts is quite something else.
“I do believe that they are acting on a deliberate plan," he said. "But it's not to secure the borders. It's actually quite the opposite. And if you watch the entire testimony, either he's very, very disingenuous or he's literally delusional. He went on in his statements to say that the border is secure, the border is more secure than it was under the Trump administration. And that's just not true.
“I was having a conversation with somebody last night, and I pointed out as the secretary of DHS, he's not only responsible for the border, he also oversees the Transportation Security Administration,” Scott said. “He also oversees FEMA. I just wonder if he uses the same definition of secure when he's reviewing their operations.”
He said the U.S. Border Patrol has reported more than 360,000 known “getaways” in 2022.
“And that’s not even talking on how much of the border is not even being patrolled," Scott said. "Could you imagine if we took that same definition of that secure and applied that to TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, or that airport setting. And if 70% of the people going into an airport actually complied and or at least got caught as they were trying to go around without going through security, but 30% made it past, got onto an airplane without going through security. That seems to be this secretary’s definition of secure, and I think that's delusional. His testimony was rife with inaccuracies and coming a little short of calling them lies, but definitely, they weren't true.”
Treviño said people who live in border states understand better than other Americans the dangers facing the country. He said once Title 42 goes away, there likely will be “historic inflows,” and he asked Scott and Oliver to put that into perspective.
In 2020, President Donald Trump invoked the 1944 Public Health Service Act, known as Title 42, to prevent immigrants from entering the country, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. While Biden and other Democrats criticized it, it has been retained, although Biden plans to end its enforcement May 23.
Scott said in his three decades with the Border Patrol, there were “ebbs and flows” in immigration numbers “but we are consistently getting better and better.”
That has changed.
“The dynamic today is first and foremost, we're not trying to slow down the flow. We're actually just facilitating the processing of people into the U.S.,” he said. “But the demographics have changed dramatically. In ’86 it was primarily adult males from Mexico coming over to work and then going back. I heard actually it's up to about 160 different nations exploiting the Southwest border coming across.
“But more importantly, the processes have changed dramatically where you could use to process somebody very quickly, return them to Mexico," he added. "It takes approximately two hours to process somebody under immigration proceedings, and that backs up the agents.” Today, the cartel is shifting the border environment. They control every single crossing. They tell these groups when and where they can cross, and they use the people willing to try to claim asylum, most of them under false pretenses. That creates holes in border security where there is no law enforcement.”
This allows massive drug smuggling, he said. Without agents in the field, cocaine, fentanyl and other drugs are being brought across the border.
Oliver said the new plan announced for Southwest border security is “chock-full of lies.” More politicians on both sides of the aisle are becoming aware of that.
“And this this plan they announced is not inspiring confidence,” he said. “And that's why you're seeing even more Democratic senators this week to demand that Title 42 be kept in place.”
Scott said building an effective wall system made the border more secure and helped agents be more effective. But that has been shut down, and border security has suffered greatly.
Treviño asked if Biden administration officials grasp the enormity of the problem. Scott was doubtful.
“I briefed everybody coming in on what was going on on the border,” he said. “Some of them just choose to not believe it or ignore it. Others like Secretary Mayorkas, he's been around, he's been in conversations in all the high-level briefings. He knows the information. Whether he understands it, I don't know. I tend to believe he does and he's just ignoring it.”
Scott said during his 30-year career, he watched the border change dramatically. Drug cartels have seized control.
“Migrants are not able to just walk up to the border, look left and right and try to find an opportunity to come into the country anymore,” he said. “Every inch of that Southwest border is controlled by the cartels, and whether they pay those cartels directly or indirectly, the cartels control who and what crosses through that area.”
Scott said when he talks with people on the left who believe immigrants are coming here to seek a better life, he asks them if they understand the reality of the situation.
“I just ask them this: If you are from some other country, you're coming to the U.S. and your full intention was to claim asylum, surrender to the first law enforcement officer — and so why would you wait until after dark, let alone 2 to 3 in the morning to cross the Rio Grande River with your kids?” he said.
Oliver said it is all part of a grand scheme, and the Biden administration is assisting it.
“The current policies are enriching the cartels," he said. "It's completing the cycle of human smuggling with U.S. taxpayer money, putting the Border Patrol into processing mode. The only thing that's improving is they're processing faster and they're focusing on processing.”
That leaves huge swaths of the border unguarded.
Treviño quoted another line by Mayorkas during his testimony: ”We are administering consequences for unlawful entry including removal, detention and prosecution.”
Oliver dismissed that.
“DHS has lessened the consequences for unlawful entry," he said. "That's precisely what Border Patrol has been telling us over the years. When there are no consequences or when there very little consequences, that incentivizes the illegal entry."
Scott said he agreed with Oliver, calling the government’s arguments “misinformation.”
Treviño said Mayorkas says the government has “better understanding of who is attempting to enter the country than ever before.”
Scott dismissed that.
“What he said is a flat-out lie," Scott said. "I say that is because, like Ken pointed out, I believe even the union was quoted in a couple of articles of 230 to 250 miles of border, the Southwest border, go unpatrolled on a daily basis now. Whatever you’re thinking of right now, criminals from rapists and murderers to include terrorists. In my time as the chief, the very last year under Biden, we had already arrested 14 people off the terrorist screening list crossing the Southwest border between the ports of entry."
Oliver said the current policies are facilitating the trafficking and smuggling of illicit drugs.
“And it's the exact opposite of effective management,” he said. “It's been incentivized, the trafficking.”
Treviño asked them how they would respond to people who believe that a liberality in immigration policy and even a straight opening of the borders to all comers is compassionate.
“It's exactly the opposite,” Scott said. “Just think about general law and order. And when there's chaos, criminals take advantage. Human beings take advantage of each other. That's just how it is. So under the Mayorkas’ open border that we're having today, with this massive amount of flows, there are more trafficking victims being snuck past us on a daily basis than we have any idea. There are more documented deaths in the desert. There are more people being raped. There's just more people to basically take advantage of.”
With an average of 7,000 arrests a day, Border Patrol agents cannot conduct interviews and ascertain who is coming across and what risks they pose.
Oliver said the impact on border communities is startling as well.
“This massive flow really immediately affects local communities throughout the United States in terms of burdens on taxpayers, which we're already experiencing, in terms of schools, in terms of health care, also just breakdown in social cohesion,” he said. “Also, it's lawlessness. And when we have a breakdown and a lack of enforcement of the laws on the books, on a massive level like we're seeing, it really undercuts our core American institutions and our society.”
Treviño asked what ordinary Americans could do. Scott said it’s a matter of keeping the issue alive.
“I think a lot of this is to have an adult conversation," he said. “If you start the conversation on the far right or the far left, you shut a lot of people down. I am asking people to talk to their neighbors, get more involved, learn a little bit more, but approach it as border security, just like your home. It's not unreasonable to want to know or to control who and what enters your home. And then we can save the immigration discussion for second.”
Scott said it’s important to stress that what comes across the border doesn’t remain there. It spreads across the country, including into states where fentanyl deaths and other misery are on the rise.
Plus, Scott says, the 2022 midterm election will be crucial.
“And the American people will have a say this November at the ballot box, electing new officials who will support border security,” he said.
Oliver had high praise for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the state government for making border security a priority.
“I just want to point out that our governor in Texas has really stepped up to the plate in terms of filling that gap,” he said. “And our Department of Public Safety in Texas filling that gap, catching a lot of migrants who would have been got away. And there have been hundreds of thousands of gateways."
Scott was more pessimistic.
“Unfortunately, I don't see a lot changing over the next few years. I do believe that you have a great opportunity in 2022,” he said. “But the president, that’s not going to change, and I don't think they're going to change their position.
“It's the same thing at a national level,” he added. “Reframing that conversation can kind of help reframe this entire conversation because we're talking about our kids’ future here. It’s not just a today issue.”