Border Patrol union boss: Drop in apprehensions 'nothing short of miraculous'
Border Patrol union boss: Drop in apprehensions 'nothing short of miraculous'
07/17/17 01:46 PM EDT
The large drop in apprehensions of people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is "nothing short of miraculous," National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said on Monday.
"If you look at the rhetoric that President Trump has given, it has caused a number of illegal border crossings to go down," Judd told C-SPAN. "We have never seen such a drop that we currently have."
Border apprehensions — long seen as the best measure of illegal border crossing attempts — have fallen more than 50 percent this year, compared to 2016.
The Department of Homeland Security has consistently reported plummeting figures of southwest border apprehensions since Trump assumed office in January.Reported apprehensions remained on a downward trend until June, when border officials registered a slight uptick from May, contrary to seasonal trends that usually show a descent in June.
Yearly overall numbers were so low already that even with the slight rise, there were 53 percent fewer border apprehensions in June 2017 than in the same period last year.
Judd, whose nonpartisan organization endorsed Trump for president in 2016, also said on Monday that he supports the $1.6 billion in funding the administration requested for a wall along the southern border.
He said Trump's signature campaign issue is necessary in many parts of the border, but not all.
Trump had earlier said the wall would have to be uninterrupted and cover all 2,000 miles of border with Mexico, but in an apparent reversal, said last week that only 700 to 900 miles of border wall are needed.
http://thehill.com/latino/342364-bor...-of-miraculous
Miraculous’ Drop In Illegal Immigration Under Trump, Border Agent Says
Posted By Hollis Poch On 5:02 PM 07/17/2017
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said that agents have seen a “miraculous” drop in the number of migrants seeking to cross the border illegally thanks to President Donald Trump.
The significant reduction of illegal border crossings from Mexico to the United States is unprecedented, Judd told C-SPAN on Monday. Judd is the head of a union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents
“What we’ve seen is nothing short of miraculous,” he said. “If you look at the rhetoric that President Trump has given, it’s caused the number of illegal border crossers to go down, something that we’ve never seen in history at the Border Patrol.”
“We’ve never seen such a drop that we currently have.”
In June, the U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection reported a 53 percent decrease in the number of apprehensions and inadmissible persons along the Southwest border compared to last year. It says the drop in apprehensions has a correlation with those attempting to cross illegally.
Judd attributes this success to the Trump administration’s enforcement of the laws.
“We’ve got a set of laws on the books that say ‘If you cross the border illegally, or if you commit this crime, these are the consequences that have been established,” Judd said. “And the Trump administration said that ‘we are going to follow through on those consequences,’ something we didn’t see in the last four years in the last administration.”
“If you look at what we experienced in 2014, we saw something we had never seen in my 20-year career,” the council president said regarding the surge of Central American migrants that occurred under President Obama.
Judd said that those who crossed the boarder would willingly give themselves up to the police, knowing that they would be released and given a court date. However, Judd noted that 80 percent of those individuals never showed up the court.
Obama claimed he wants to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows, Judd said, when in fact they were actually going into the shadows.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/17/mi...-says/?print=1
