National Border Patrol Council Vice President Chris Cabrera told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham Monday that illegal immigrants are crossing the US-Mexico border at a much higher rate in 2015 than in years past.
Well it seems that — well it doesn’t seem that. It’s actually happening. We are unseasonably getting more than we’ve ever gotten at this time of the year. Usually at this time of the year, it slows down, drops off to nearly a trickle, but we’re still very busy down here. People are coming in faster than we can keep track of, people turning themselves in and some people are still getting away… They come in large numbers — you know 40, 50, 60, 70 at a time just looking to turn themselves in… They’re attacking these loopholes, they’re exploiting them and they’re doing a good job because people are coming in, and they’re getting walked out the door that same day — sometimes with an ankle bracelet sometimes not — and they head off to whatever part of the country they desire, and we’ll never see them again… Last year, we saw a lot of women traveling with children, this year it seems to be more men traveling with children. You can’t really be too certain who is related to who, and we’re going off the honor-system. The scary thing is it’s a smuggler’s paradise… It’s a very porous border, and it’s very hard for us to protect this entire stretch. We’re getting overrun by people exploiting this loophole… It’s a recipe for disaster.
The “loopholes” Cabrera alludes to are the Obama Administration’s “deferred action” protocols, directing CBP officials not to deport apprehended aliens.
Back in October, Cabrera testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and stated that “catch-and-release 2.0” is the driving force behind this recent influx of illegal immigrants.
At the time, Cabrera guaranteed that if illegal immigrants “knew that if they were caught they would be detained, adjudicated and repatriated to their home country … the numbers would fall dramatically.”
Cabrera’s comments stand in stark contrast to statements made by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, who earlier this year echoed the president by calling the border “much more secure than in times past.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, has estimated that the United States’ illegal immigration population has decreased by roughly 1 million in the past year.