RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS — While the Biden administration focuses its time and resources attacking the state of Texas for its work to take up the duty of enforcing the U.S.-Mexico border abdicated by the federal government, the crisis continues to worsen. December saw another new record for the number of illegal immigrants encountered by border agents at more than 300,000, and the alarming number of illegal immigrants whose identities are flagged in terror databases continues to be a risk our country can't afford.
While Biden's border crisis has been worsening since his first day in office, fixing it wouldn't take much time according to National Border Patrol Council Vice President Chris Cabrera who sees firsthand, every day, how open-border policies enacted by Biden have created a massive draw for illegal immigrants from around the world.
"In 2005, they were gaming the system," Cabrera explains of how the system has been abused for years. "When we would go to do the deportation process we would say 'Do you want to return to your country without charges or do you want to see a judge?' Everybody would say 'We want to go back to our country, no charges,'" he recounts as we drive from Mission to McAllen. "Well, then they started saying 'You know what, we want to see a judge.'" That meant border agents had to lock them up until they appeared in front of a judge. "Then so many people came we didn't have any more bed space, so then that's when catch-and-release started," Cabrera recalls.
When Cabrera and other Border Patrol agents were allowed to act as immigration judges under the "expedited removal" policy, they were empowered to — as long as certain parameters were met — make the decision and say, "You know what, you're going back."
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Once Cabrera and his colleagues could use expedited removal, the result was swift. "The Brazilians that were coming stopped the first day," he tells me. Within the three or four days it took for people in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras "to get the memo, it just dried up overnight."
Such policies clearly worked to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, but that was then.
"Now, it's a different thing because they don't want to designate us as asylum officers," says Cabrera of the Biden administration. "Why? Because it would be effective. They don't want us doing that," he states. And, rather than having federal asylum officers surged to the border to address the record-setting influx of illegal immigrants, Cabrera says the Biden admin says it "can't do that either."
"Who knows," says Cabrera of where the asylum officers are. "They're like the Loch Ness Monster — we've heard of him but we've never seen him," he quips. What's more, asylum officers can't (or won't) utilize video conferencing technology to handle cases remotely.
The consequence of Biden refusing to allow expedited removal by border agents or sending asylum officers to the site of the crisis means "we're going to wait five years, seven years" to "even start the process of vetting" illegal immigrants "as opposed to putting that on the front end" and "sending people back immediately if they do not qualify or they have no chance of qualifying," explains Cabrera. "If you started with mandatory detention [and] mandatory removal, it will stop tomorrow," he emphasizes. "But they don't want to get it done."
Such a lack of interest in stopping or at least slowing the flow of illegal immigrants into the country on the part of the Biden administration, Cabrera says, is illustrated by its attacks on Texas. "If you look at how the State of Texas is saying 'Hey, if the federal government's not going to enforce these laws we will" only to have the Biden administration say 'Well, if you enforce them we're going to sue you,'" it's a ludicrous situation. "It's like suing a guy who broke your rib giving you the Heimlich maneuver," notes Cabrera. "He's willing to help you and you're going to turn around and sue him. It doesn't make any sense and that's what we're dealing with.
Cabrera's policy suggestions match what House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul told me while I was embedded with his bipartisan congressional delegation along the border. McCaul recalled how the first bill he introduced after getting elected was one to end catch-and-release of illegal immigrants — something that succeeded under Trump but became the norm again under Biden. McCaul said that the U.S. "can either build more detention space, or we can change the policy." The latter, he told me "won't cost anything."
As the Biden admin escalates its attacks on Texas and sets new records for illegal immigrant crossings, I embedded with a bipartisan congressional delegation visiting the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the U.S-Mexico border.
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) January 23, 2024
Here's what we saw. pic.twitter.com/zs5bRKDFhR
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