Border chief to Congress: No words to describe 'what's going on' at the southern bord
Border chief to Congress: No words to describe 'what's going on' at the southern border
Last year set records for border incidents, rep says.
By Just the News staff
Updated: February 7, 2023 - 3:46pm
Hours before President Joe Biden was to try to assure Americans he has a handle on border security, his top enforcement officers described Tuesday to Congress a crisis so uncontrolled that it escaped definition as it fuels fentanyl deaths across America.
"We went from what I would describe as 'unprecedented' to a point where I don't have the correct adjective to describe what's going on," Border Chiefy John Modlin testified to the House Oversight and Accountability committee.
At Tuesday's hearing, committee chair Kentucky Rep. James Comer slammed the Biden administration's border policies, declaring that the White House has allowed the border to descend into unmanageable and at times deadly chaos.
Multiple border patrol chiefs were called to testify at the hearing meant to address the border crisis that has slammed the southern U.S. states for the past several years, ushering in levels of illegal immigration and drug trafficking that have rocked much of the southwest for months on end.
Modlin described a border rife with record levels of illegal crossing and smuggling incidents, an issue he said has sharply escalated in recent years.
"Fiscal year 18, 19, 20, Tucson Sector had about 60,000 apprehensions," Modlin said. "[In] 21, 190,000 apprehensions." The next year, he said, that number was 250,000.
"In Tucson the vast majority of encounters are single adult males attempting to avoid detection," Modlin told the committee.
"The smuggling organizations to our south are very well organized and resourceful," he continued. "They employ various tactics to use thousands of migrants across the border."
"Many are previously deported felons who know they are inadmissible to the United States," he added.
Gloria Chavez, the chief patrol agent of the Rio Grande Valley sector, echoed Modlin's observation that a huge portion of encounters are of "single adults."
"Agents continue to face the most egregious of illicit trends," Chavez said, "such as criminal migrants, gang members, hard narcotics, firearms," and numerous other dangerous factors.
Chavez said that illegal smuggling organizations have turned to the use of drones in order to scope out smuggling pathways and law enforcement locations.
Compared to the U.S. Border Patrol, these organizations "have 17 times the number of drones, twice the amount of flight hours, and unlimited funding to grow their operations," Chavez said.
Asked by Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett if she thought the lack of a wall at the border made entry into the U.S. legal, Chavez said: "Well I think it would be easier to walk in an open desert with no barrier."
Democrats at the hearing at times appeared to be attempting damage control regarding the grim situation at the border. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin at one point claimed at one point that "the flow of fentanyl into [the] country," which has reached record levels, was largely being found at ports of entry and with "American citizens, not foreign nationals."
A border patrol agent, on the other hand, told the Center Square on Tuesday that "illegal aliens are carrying narcotics in their back packs or duffel bags."
"The cartel is going to choose the easiest and least secure route depending on the size of the load," the agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "Do you think that’s going to be at a port of entry or in-between?”
Comer, the chair of the committee since last month, said at the hearing that "conditions at the border are dangerous, chaotic and inhumane."
"Fiscal Year 2022 set records for the number of arrests for illegal border crossers, the number of migrants who died making the journey, the number of dangerous narcotics seized, and even the number of suspected terrorists arrested trying to illegally cross the southern border," he said further.
"[O]ver half a million people have evaded apprehension entirely," he added, claiming that the "national security risks" associated with the border "are extremely high."
The hearing was earlier the source of a showdown between Comer and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the latter of whom attempted to block several of the chiefs from testifying.
Mayorkas relented after Comer threatened to use "compulsory process" to force the chiefs to appear.
https://justthenews.com/government/o...us-chaotic-and
