CBP, Border Patrol agents from the McAllen station horse patrol unit on patrol on horseback in South Texas. (Donna Burton, Wikimedia Commons)
Border Patrol agents battling the unprecedented surge of illegal immigration that is on the verge of becoming exponentially worse with the expiration of a key Trump policy “feel defeated” after more than one year under President Biden’s leadership.
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told a Just the News podcast on Tuesday that he has “never seen morale any lower” than it is now.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has warned that agents will “likely face an increase in encounters” after the White House ends Title 42, the Trump policy that gives border agents the authority to immediately turn away migrants from nations experiencing an outbreak of a communicable disease such as COVID-19. Some 1 million have been barred from entering the country through the policy.
Judd explained to the “Just the News – Not Noise” podcast that before Biden, the meetings agents have before their shifts typically were filled with “a lot of camaraderie, a lot of talking, a lot of joking.”
But now “nobody’s talking.”
“Heads are down. We feel defeated. We just know that we’re not able to do the job that is necessary to protect the American public,” Judd said.
The defund-the-police movement and the Biden open-border policies “are giving us the least amount of border security than we’ve ever seen,” he said.
“We just don’t feel like we’re accomplishing anything. We go home and we feel defeated every day.”
To put the situation in perspective, agents on the southwest border had more than 160,000 encounters in February 2022 compared to fewer than 37,000 in February 2020.
Judd said the apprehension of 3,000 illegal immigrants a day stretches resources “nearly to the limits,” while 5,000 amounts to a “crisis.”
But soon agents may face 8,000 illegal immigrants daily, and they will be “overwhelmed across the entire southwest border.”
“Large stretches of border are just completely left open,” including a 250-mile stretch, while agents focus on apprehensions, he said.
He warned that if Title 42 ends as planned on May 23, the “cartels are going to control our borders.”
“This allows the cartels to cross whatever products they want, whether that’s fentanyl that’s killing so many of our U.S. citizens or criminal aliens,” Judd said. “It’s a very dangerous situation that we’re seeing right now.”
‘Impeachable’ offense
A DHS draft document issued last month warned that the pre-pandemic practice of processing immigrants who cross the border illegally through the normal asylum process would “seriously strain” border resources, leading to a humanitarian crisis.
DHS officials expressed concern in the document about “historically and unseasonably high” numbers of immigrants crossing the border without authorization.
Intelligence officials have said that as many as 170,000 people are waiting to apply for asylum.
On Sunday, former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller said Biden’s handling of immigration is a “completely impeachable” offense.
Stephen Miller, who now leads a nonprofit he founded, America First Legal, told the Fox News Channel’s “Life, Liberty & Levin” that Biden has “rubbished and trashed,” the nation’s immigration system.
“What this president has done is he has turned Congress into a mere suggestion box,” Miller told host Mark Levin. “The entire Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs who can enter our country, how you apply for a visa, what rules you have to comply with, where you have to apply from – that entire system has been rubbished and trashed by this president as though he were an emperor.
“And so, it is completely impeachable,” Miller said.