Large groups of migrants are crossing into the U.S. and turning themselves in to border agents at numbers never seen before. That’s what Sector Chiefs for the United States Border Patrol told the House Oversight Committee they are seeing on the ground.
Transcripts from the interviews with the border officials last spring and summer were just released by the US House.
Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens who was from the Del Rio Sector and is now Chief for the entire Border Patrol told the committee:
“For the majority of my career, I was chasing people that had crossed the border illegally. The phenomenon of having folks turn themselves in, it’s happened, but not at the levels that I have been seeing in the last couple years.”
The Sector Chiefs oversee thousands of agents who patrol tens of thousands of square miles in each sector.
The transcripts were released as immigration surges. The weekend of December 9-10, Border Patrol Agents apprehended more than 20,000 migrants, on December 7, agents apprehended more than 7,000. Numbers like that have been happening frequently over the last month.
Chief John Modlin from the Tucson sector said: “So just like task saturating our agents in the field, it pulls a lot of resources to that area, especially these populations that are in very remote areas, in the heat that they’re in out there.”
Chief Owens stated: “When that happens, that’s a massive logistical lift to begin intake and actually transport those individuals to a processing center. It forces us to collapse our operations, our border security operations, down even further to address what’s right there in front of us.”
“Remembering that everything is controlled by the transnational criminal organizations and the smugglers, who do you think is causing that? They are there causing those groups to cross. Why? Because they are going to take advantage of that where they can.”
The Committee is conducting an investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was guaranteed the committee will move forward with impeaching the secretary.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green said in a statement: “Secretary Mayorkas’ non-enforcement of the immigration laws passed by Congress is simply unconscionable. It is incredible to watch millions of illegal aliens turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents, knowing they will be sent on their way into the United States, almost certainly never to be removed.”
The committee hasn’t released a timeline for taking up impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, but Greene said she was assured they would in exchange for withdrawing an impeachment resolution from the House floor. Straight from DC, I’m Ray Bogan.