washingtonexaminer —
The surge of illegal immigrants has hit a near two-year high driven by indications that the Biden administration is opening the border wider than it was under former President Barack Obama, according to new border figures.
What’s more, indications are that it will jump even further once the administration unveils its full immigration agenda aimed at overturning former President Donald Trump’s border closing that cut daily captures and returns to a recent 1,100 a day.
Former acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan told Secrets that the data he has seen show that the daily average of illegal crossers is 3,000 and that “the day before, they reached 3,500 in a single day.”
He added that border agents are also apprehending 300 unaccompanied minors daily.
Morgan, who is now with the Heritage Foundation, said, “We haven’t seen numbers like that since the height in 2019.” And, he said, that was just for a few months.
“That’s like multiple large caravans every single day” trying to cross the border, said Morgan.
Just seeing 1,000 illegal border crossers apprehended daily was enough to scare former Obama Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said in 2019 that “if it was under 1,000 apprehensions the day before, that was a relatively good number, and if it was above 1,000, it was a relatively bad number, and I was gonna be in a bad mood the whole day.”
The president has issued several executive orders on immigration that Morgan said have signaled that the border is open. And while the Trump-era policy of turning migrants away to wait in Mexico is still in force, border agencies have received the message that it is essentially killed.
McAllen, Texas, Mayor Jim Darling on Tuesday told Border Report, for example, that the Obama-era policy of “catch and release” is back and that illegal immigrants crossing with children are being paroled into the United States.
Morgan and his Trump-era allies at the Department of Homeland Security warned Biden transition officials that broadcasting an abrupt end to tough immigration measures would result in the surge.
“We told them what would happen. They ignored the experts; they ignored the science completely when it came to border security,” said Morgan.
He also told us that experienced agents on the border are very concerned about the likely spring surge of illegal immigrants.
“I was talking to a Border Patrol leader, a guy that has been doing this for several decades, you know, kind of a tough guy. And he looked at me and said, ‘Commissioner, I got to tell you. I’m scared at what’s coming.’”
