GOP Congressman: Border Patrol Chief’s Testimony Shows DHS Secretary ‘Has Been Lying to Us For the Last 2 Years’
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said Friday that U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee this week shows that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has been lying to Congress for the last two years about the southern border being under control.
The congressman said he thinks the number of gotaways at the southern border is actually higher than Ortiz’s estimate of 358,000 gotaways plus 10 to 20 percent more so far this year.
“Well those are folks that don't want to be apprehended. The majority of migrants coming through they actually follow signs that takes them right to the Customs and Border Patrol agents, and they turn themselves in knowing that with all probability they’re going to be allowed in the United States,” the congressman told Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”
“There’s 1.3 million that we know of, and like the chef said, there’s another 10 or 20% - I actually think that is low. I think it’s even higher than that, that got away that don't want to be detected, and they got away. We don't know who they are. We don't know where they came from. We don't know where they are. We certainly don't know what they are doing here or what their intentions are,” he said.
Jimenez commended Ortiz for his courage for being honest about the real situation at the border.
“Even the chief and I got to give him kudos for courage, he told us that out of nine sectors that he controls the customs and border protection now have, five of them are out of control,” the congressman said.
“He has no operational control on five out of the nine sectors on our southern border, which is in direct contradiction to what Secretary Mayorkas has been telling us for two years that no this border is under control,” he said.
“The chief in charge of all those agents has said and told under oath that five of those sectors are out of control, so basically—no, not basically. The second has been lying to us for the last two years.” Jimenez said.
When asked if he wants DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas impeached, the congressman said, “Yeah, no, no, I mean this secretary is -- is a disaster. The border a disaster. You know he was appointed by President Biden.
“He should remove him, but I believe that actually he’s doing President Biden’s bidding, so I think President Biden I think is really happy what is going on at the border, because another question that I asked is you know is the president dumb or Secretary Mayorkas are they dumb. The answer was no, and I don't believe they are dumb,” he said.
“So they've been told over and over again the things they have to do to control border. They refuse to do it which means they want to do it on purpose. So this is all done on purpose. The reasons why they’re doing it on purpose? I don't know. By the way, those -- those terrorists that we know we got, they were apprehended,” Jimenez said.
“How many terrorists actually getting through that our gotaways if you are a real terrorist I don't think you really want to go, and get apprehended I think you want to get away, so whatever that number is over 89, 90, that we have apprehended, you can probably triple that on the got away side, at least,” he said.
On China, Jimenez said they are an adversary, not a competitor.
“Look our select committee says competitor, but no. They are an adversary. Look, a competitor is somebody that’s playing the same game by the same rules. China doesn't play by the same rules. They don’t follow the rules, so that’s an adversary in my estimation, and I am going to be proven right. They totally are an adversary,” he said.
“What China does is not in the best interest of the United States. We need to decouple from China as quickly as possible. We need our allies to decouple as quickly as possible. They want to devour us. I think we've woken up allies starting to wake up too about the reality of what China really is, and threat Chinese communist party poses not only to United States but to rest of the free world,” the congressman said.
Jimenez said that the House Oversight Committee with Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) will dig into why President Biden is so soft on China.
“It could be that he has interests and his family has had interests and has been paid for and paid by Chinese communist party and other nations,” he said.
More Caught Illegally Crossing Southern Border in Fiscal 2022 Than During Entire Trump Presidency
"Our top priority is to keep terrorists and their weapons from entering the United States."
So says the website of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The same webpage that makes this declaration includes a table that provides some relevant data for the fiscal years from 2017 to 2023. It lists how many individuals on the Terrorist Screening Dataset (commonly known as the terrorist watchlist) were encountered by the Border Patrol as they were trying to illegally sneak into the United States between the ports of entry on our southern border.
The Terrorist Screening Dataset, says the webpage, "originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals."
In fiscal 2017, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the Border Patrol encountered just two individuals on the terrorist watchlist trying to sneak across the southern border between the ports of entry. In fiscal 2018, it encountered six. In fiscal 2019, it encountered none; and, in fiscal 2020, it encountered three.
In fiscal 2021, the year President Joe Biden was inaugurated, there was a substantial shift in the trend. That year, the number of individuals on the terrorist watchlist that the Border Patrol encountered trying to sneak across the southern border increased fivefold to 15.
Then, in fiscal 2022, it climbed to 98. So far in fiscal 2023, which isn't even half over yet, the Border Patrol has encountered 69 individuals on the terrorist watchlist trying to sneak across our southern border between the ports of entry.
How many on the terrorist watchlist have actually succeeded in illegally crossing our southern border into the United States? There is no way to know.
What we do know is that it only took 19 foreign terrorists who had made their way into the United States to hijack four domestic flights on Sept. 11, 2001.
While the Border Patrol managed to catch 98 on the terrorist watchlist trying to illegally cross our southern border between the ports of entry last year, is it possible there were 19 the Border Patrol did not catch?
There has also been a massive upward trend in the number of aliens the Border Patrol has "apprehended" or "encountered" as they tried to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border between the ports of entry.
In the fiscal years from 2014 to 2018, the largest number of aliens the Border Patrol apprehended trying to cross the southern border between the ports of entry was 479,371 in 2014. In 2019, it rose to 851,508; but, in 2020, it fell back to 400,651.
That year, after the COVID pandemic hit, President Trump invoked Title 42 of the U.S. code to require that people who unlawfully entered the country — posing a risk of bringing COVID with them — could be immediately expelled rather than released into the United States to await proceedings in immigration court. With this rule in place, the Border Patrol started reporting the total number of illegal border crossers it stopped as those it "encountered" as opposed to those it apprehended.
"Under this order, CBP is prohibiting the entry of certain persons who potentially pose a health risk, either by virtue of being subject to previously announced travel restrictions or because they unlawfully entered the country to bypass health screening measures," said a statement from Customs and Border Patrol. "To help prevent the introduction of COVID-19 into border facilities and into the United States, persons subject to the order will not be held in congregate areas for processing and instead will immediately be expelled to their country of last transit."
Then Joe Biden was elected president.
"President Joe Biden has wasted no time making changes to the nation's immigration and border policies, many of them a 180-degree reversal of former President Donald Trump's restrictive policies," The Arizona Republic reported.
"On his first day in office, Biden signed six executive orders and issued several more directives related to immigration and border security," said the Republic. He also proposed legislation, as the Republic reported it, that would "provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants" who had arrived in the United States by Jan. 1, 2021.
The result? In fiscal 2021, the number of individuals that the Border Patrol encountered as they illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border jumped to 1,734,686. In fiscal 2022, it jumped again to 2,378,944.
From January 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, through January 2021, when Biden succeeded him in office, the Border Patrol, according to its data, encountered a total of 2,112,458 trying to illegally enter our country through the southern border.
That means the Border Patrol encountered more people trying to illegally cross the southern border in fiscal 2022, under Biden, than they did through the entirety of Trump's presidency.
On Feb. 7, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability held a hearing on the border crisis. The witnesses were Gloria Chavez, the Border Patrol's chief agent in the Rio Grande Valley Sector; and John Modlin, the chief agent in the Tucson Sector.
Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida asked them about the massive increase in illegal crossers encountered at the southern border.
"The thing I can tell you that goes to the spike that you're talking about," Modlin responded, "is that in the Tucson sector, interviewing people post-arrest, what became the most-common response was that they believed that when the administration changed that the law changed, and policy changed and that there was an open border."
"Chief, I'm glad you said that," said Donalds, "because, ladies and gentlemen, the law did not change. Joe Biden decided not to follow the law."
Exactly.
Biden’s Border Measures Have Not Stemmed Migration, Border Advocates Charge
Border encounters in the month of February prove that the Biden administration’s new border enforcement measures have not stemmed the flow of migration, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) charged.
Rather than curb the flow of illegal immigration, the Biden administration’s new “border enforcement measures” have instead rerouted migrants through legal ports of entry, FAIR charged in a press release.
The organization explained that new data from Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reveals that the total number of border encounters in February, 212,266, remained at historic high levels.
“But due to the Biden administration’s flagrant abuse of parole authority, 83,389 illegal migrants were encountered at legal ports of entry by the Office of Field Operations (OFO), instead of attempting to enter between ports of entry,” FAIR also pointed out.
Dan Stein, the president of FAIR, blasted the Biden administration, charging that they are “blatantly attempting to deceive the American public into believing they have illegal immigration under control.”
He also went on to say, “While boasting that ‘only’ 128,877 migrants were encountered by Border Patrol entering between ports of entry in February, OFO encountered 83,389 illegal aliens, and allowed many to enter the country under the administration’s expansive and illegal use of parole authority.”
FAIR also noted that the numbers were released right after the Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Raul Ortiz stated before the House Homeland Security Committee that the federal government does not have “operational control” over our southern border.
Stein also added “Even CBP’s efforts to mask the scope of illegal migration by moving 83,389 illegal entries off-the-books, does not tell the full story of the Biden administration’s disastrous border policies.”
“The number of people who elude apprehension remains high, while lethal narcotics, including fentanyl, continues to pour across the southern border, where criminal cartels maintain clear ‘mission advantage,’” he also said.
“No matter how CBP tries to spin it, the February numbers make it clear that the Biden administration is not turning the tide on illegal immigration,” Stein asserted before going on to say “as the Biden administration is set to end the use of Title 42 in May, the last remaining mechanism in place to turn back migrants at the border, the crisis is likely to get a whole lot worse.”
Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com
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