Large groups of migrants are crossing into the U.S. and turning themselves in to border agents at numbers never seen before, according to Sector Chiefs for the United States Border Patrol who spoke with the House Committee on Homeland Security. Transcripts from interviews with border officials between May and September were just released by the U.S. House of Representatives.
“For the majority of my career, I was chasing people that had crossed the border illegally,” Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens told the committee. “The phenomenon of having folks turn themselves in, it’s happened, but not at the levels that I have been seeing in the last couple years.”
Owens was in charge of the Del Rio Sector at the time but has since been promoted to Chief of the entire U.S. Border Patrol.
The Sector Chiefs oversee thousands of agents who patrol tens of thousands of square miles in each sector.
The transcripts were released as immigration surges. Over the weekend of Dec. 9-10, Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 20,000 migrants. On Dec. 7, agents apprehended more than 7,000.
The chiefs explained how large groups make it more difficult to patrol the border.
“So just like task saturating our agents in the field, it pulls a lot of resources to that area, especially these populations that are in very remote areas, in the heat,” Chief John Modlin from the Tucson sector told the committee.
“When that happens, that’s a massive logistical lift to begin intake and actually transport those individuals to a processing center,” Chief Owens said. “It forces us to collapse our operations, our border security operations, down even further to address what’s right there in front of us.”
“Remembering that everything is controlled by the transnational criminal organizations and the smugglers, who do you think is causing that?” Owens asked. “They are there causing those groups to cross. Why? Because they are going to take advantage of that where they can.”
The Committee is conducting an investigation into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she was guaranteed the committee will move forward with impeaching the secretary.
“Secretary Mayorkas’ non-enforcement of the immigration laws passed by Congress is simply unconscionable,” Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., said in a statement. “It is incredible to watch millions of illegal aliens turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents, knowing they will be sent on their way into the United States, almost certainly never to be removed.”
The committee hasn’t released a timeline for taking up impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas, but Greene said she was assured the committee would move toward impeaching Mayorkas in exchange for withdrawing an impeachment resolution from the House floor.
