Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told Congress first that the border was under control and then reversed himself by saying it has never been under control.
His Border Patrol chiefs suggested he got it wrong.
In closed-door testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee over the past year, the chiefs of the Border Patrol’s southwestern sectors said the border is undoubtedly not under “operational control.” One chief said the border used to be under control but that control has been squandered.
“I think we have had control of the border for many, many, many years — just not now,” Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent in California’s El Centro sector, told the committee in July, according to testimony shared exclusively with The Washington Times.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, is leading a delegation to the border as he and the White House jockey for leverage in make-or-break negotiations on a national security spending bill and Congress eyes impeachment proceedings against Mr. Mayorkas.
The question of operational control looms large. It has dogged Mr. Mayorkas for two years as he faces off with congressional Republicans.
SEE ALSO: DHS to reopen border crossings, says illegal migration dropping
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, read the law’s definition of operational control in 2022 and asked the secretary whether the U.S. had control.
“We do,” Mr. Mayorkas replied.
More recently, however, Mr. Mayorkas delivered different testimony. He said the U.S. does not have operational control and, according to the legal definition, which requires prevention of “all unlawful entries,” neither has any previous administration.
In their testimony to the Homeland Security Committee, senior Border Patrol officials from seven of the nine southwestern sectors said they do not think the U.S. has operational control.
“Not in El Paso sector,” said Chief Patrol Agent Anthony “Scott” Good.
“Under this definition, I would say we’ve never had operational control,” said Deputy Chief Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle, from Arizona’s Yuma sector.
SEE ALSO: DHS asks Supreme Court to approve cutting Texas’ razor wire border fence
Chief Bovino said he wasn’t speaking legally but strategically when he said the U.S. used to have operational control.
He said control means detecting and deterring people along the boundary line and cooperating with foreign nations to head off migrants, having capable secondary lines of defense inside the U.S., such as checkpoints, and working to reduce “pull” factors that entice migrants to jump the border.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, Tennessee Republican, said the chiefs’ testimony seriously challenges Mr. Mayorkas.
“The truth is that he has willfully and knowingly created the worst border crisis in history but has consistently tried to cover up that reality when called to account for it,” Mr. Green said.
“His claims about operational control are particularly noteworthy, given that his own former Border Patrol chief and multiple chief and deputy chief patrol agents along the southwest border have contradicted him. And at this point, who has more credibility: the operators on the ground who are living with the consequences of Secretary Mayorkas’ decisions every day or an embattled secretary desperate to salvage his reputation?” Mr. Green said.
The Washington Times has reached out to Mr. Mayorkas’ office for this report.
The chiefs testified over six months last year, delivering firsthand evaluations of the incredibly complex situation at the southern border. The relatively calm border under President Trump in 2020 has turned into the most chaotic border in history under President Biden.
The chiefs’ testimony is all the more striking because the Biden administration took office promising to listen to the experts on matters of climate change and COVID-19 yet has seemingly disregarded the experts on the border.
Among the chiefs’ revelations:
• The smuggling cartels exhibit nearly unfathomable control over what happens at the border, requiring payment from anyone who wants to cross and meting out brutal consequences to those who try to avoid paying.
“The other day, we had two people wash up to our shores, and they had no identification on them, but we’re thinking they were migrants that went down there without permission,” said Joel Martinez, chief patrol agent in the Laredo sector. “One of them had his head halfway blown off, and the other one was shot between the eyes.”
• Where Mr. Mayorkas blames the smuggling cartels for spreading “lies” to entice migrants to make the journey, the senior Border Patrol agents said a major pull factor is the catch and release of so many migrants.
“If somebody’s released, then that person that was released will get on social media and say, ‘Hey, look at me, I’ve been released.’ And then that creates a draw specifically to that area,” said Chief Good. “So if it happens in El Paso and they post that on social media, that will create a draw to El Paso, same for any other sector.”
Several chiefs said migrants share their successful tactics. In Yuma, TikTok videos showed exactly which trails to take and which border wall gaps to exploit.
In San Diego, Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said migrants would report back on how to bring children to take advantage of more lenient catch-and-release policies for families.
• The going rate for migrants in San Diego was about $8,000 to $12,000 to cross over land. Going by water, either on a boat or personal watercraft, can run up to $20,000. Those who arrive as part of groups, sometimes with as many as 300 people, can pay just $500 “because it’s quicker and easier for them to move those folks,” Chief Heitke said.
Those massive groups are not trying to evade agents. They stay put and wait for agents to converge, triage the group looking for sick or vulnerable migrants who need immediate help and then process the group. That takes agents out of the field, the chiefs said.
“So it really pulls all the resources to those areas where the give‑up groups are at,” said John Modlin, chief patrol agent in the Tucson sector, who said groups of 100 or more can be found “often multiple times a day.”
• In the Tucson sector, the Sinaloa cartel controls the traffic. Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel have control in San Diego. In Laredo, it’s the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast.
The cartels know how many agents are working and when their shifts change. Their timing depends on whether they want to distract agents with sheer numbers or sneak high-value loads through the border, Deputy Chief Caudle said.
“It’s all about a timing issue to where we’re heavily scouted every day,” he said. “Once a patrolman passes through a certain spot, especially during shift change, it is very common they will bring a vehicle in. Most of the time, it’s a pickup truck or a van or high‑capacity transport vehicle. The group will exploit one of the gaps. They’ll run and load into the vehicle as quick as possible and the vehicle just tries to beat us out of the area before we can get behind them and attempt a vehicle stop or even a vehicle immobilization technique.”
Cartels also put migrants in danger and force agents to respond and make rescues, eating up more time and creating more gaps.
“We have seen that time and time again,” said Jason Owens, chief patrol agent in the Del Rio sector. “They do that for a reason. They don’t care about the lives of the migrants. They don’t care if they live or die, only the impact that that call has so that they can do who knows what.”
That puts the Border Patrol’s skyrocketing rescue rates in a new perspective. In fiscal year 2023, the Border Patrol tallied 37,323 rescues along the southwestern border, up from roughly 5,000 per year in 2019 and 2020.
Chief Heitke said rapes of women along the journey are so common that “most of them believe it’s just part of the payment as they go.”
Excerpts of the interviews have been released periodically in the run-up to a decision about impeachment proceedings against Mr. Mayorkas.
Democrats on the committees said the interviews pulled the senior officials “away from their duty stations.”
“All nine chiefs made it clear that the men and women of the Border Patrol are working hard to fulfill its critical mission to secure the border and that the Biden-Harris administration is providing them with the support and resources to do so,” said Reps. Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrats on the Homeland Security and Oversight and Accountability committees.
“After months of interviews, it is abundantly clear that this investigation has been nothing more than a fishing expedition searching for any basis to impeach Secretary Mayorkas,” the two Democrats said at the time. “It has been a resounding failure, and Republicans have come up empty-handed.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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