While members of the Biden administration have long insisted that America’s southern border is secure, one federal official recently blew the whistle on that claim.
According to Fox News, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told members of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lacks “operational control” of the border.
Ortiz disagrees with decision to halt border wall construction
🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING: Border Patrol Chief Ortiz contradicts Secretary Mayorkas and admits the truth:
DHS does NOT have operational control over our southern border. pic.twitter.com/YmpVy0t6c1
— Rep. Mark Green (@RepMarkGreen) March 15, 2023
Ortiz at one point told Oklahoma Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen that he disagreed with President Joe Biden’s decision to halt construction of a border wall.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told @RepBrecheen on Wednesday that he disagreed with the Biden administration’s decision to stop building the Southern border wall that President Donald Trump had begun. pic.twitter.com/ULuVorIKHi
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) March 16, 2023
Ortiz also complained that the Border Patrol “tore down perfectly good infrastructure system in some areas that we should have just left alone.”
Border Patrol chief supporters “Remain-in-Mexico”
“I do not believe in a wall from sea to shining sea, but I do believe in infrastructure and barrier systems in concentrated areas, especially urban areas,” the official explained.
Ortiz was then asked if he favored former President Donald Trump’s “Remain-in-Mexico” rule, a policy under which those seeking asylum had to wait on the Mexican side of the border while their cases were being adjudicated.
The Border Patrol chief responded that he would support “any policy that’s going to allow us to repatriate individuals back to their home countries.”
Officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), the policy was brought to an end this past August.
DHS complains that it inherited “a dismantled immigration system”
What’s more, Ortiz defended Border Patrol agents who were falsely accused of whipping Haitian migrants in 2021, an allegation which was repeated by Biden himself.
Joe Biden has never been a friend to BP agents and never will be. He is the worst president in the history of the BP, which goes back almost 100 years. Simply the most hateful, spiteful and vindictive human being agents have ever had to work for. https://t.co/W7XnMcUZGA
— Border Patrol Union – NBPC (@BPUnion) September 24, 2022
Fox News noted that for its part, DHS said a statement that it “welcomes input from Congress, and looks forward to working with members on legislative solutions for our broken immigration system, which Congress has not reformed for more than 40 years.” It added,
Despite inheriting a dismantled immigration system and facing unprecedented migration that is affecting nations throughout the Western Hemisphere, this administration has surged resources to the border, reducing the number of encounters between ports of entry, disrupting more smuggling operations than ever before, and interdicting more drugs in the last two years than had been stopped in the five years prior.