Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott testified on Capitol Hill that not only is the U.S.-Mexico border not secure but it is not secure because of the policies the Biden administration removed once they took charge despite immigration officials' warnings.
Scott, who served as chief of Border Patrol until he was forced to retire this year, said, "the border is clearly less secure today than it was in January of 2021."
"The reason the border is less secure is directly related to policy decisions that are being made. Border security...it’s much broader and bigger than immigration. Immigration is a subcomponent. If we can’t control who and what is in our home, we have no security," he said.
Scott noted by the time he left his position, Border Patrol agents had encountered over 150 different nationalities this fiscal year.
"Countless border security professionals briefed the transition team and briefed incoming administration personnel that if they rescinded the commonsense border initiatives that were put in place recently if they stopped building the border wall, we all predicted that there would be a mass migration. And again, the mass migration creates havoc on the border. The real issue at hand is that the border patrol agents are being distracted and being overwhelmed," he continued.
Scott further warned due to Border Patrol agents being forced off the line in order to process large numbers of people who turn themselves in, it has resulted in many miles of the southern border being left unpatrolled. He said the worst example of that happening is when the influx of mostly Haitians crossed into Del Rio, Texas. More than two hundred miles of the Del Rio Sector did not have an agent dedicated to patrolling the area.
"So what that really meant was that the smugglers were transiting that border, all that open border, at will. And what were they bringing? They were bringing the fentanyl, the cocaine, and the heroin."