Former Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Mark Morgan says President Joe Biden’s border policies are emboldening cartels and smugglers to bring children to the border and “it’s almost too late” to avert a crisis.
“Bill, it’s almost too late … because this administration has absolutely dismantled and destroyed every effective policy that had reduced the flow,” Mark Morgan told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”
“Like you said this time last year, it is over 100% increase in minors alone [at the border],” he continued. “If you want to talk about cruelty, look … this country right now, Bill, is actually encouraging and facilitating and incentivizing moms and dads in countries in the western hemisphere to hand their kids over to cartels and smuggling organizations to make the dangerous trek during the middle of the global pandemic to illegally enter this country.”
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Biden’s immigration reforms could create a spike of migrants from Central America, according to one expert’s analysis in January, and some unaccompanied children are not being sent back across the border. (RELATED: ‘People Will Die. People Will Be Raped’: Former Acting ICE Chief Says Biden Has Declared America A ‘Sanctuary Jurisdiction’)
Morgan insisted the the U.S. must stop inviting illegal immigration. He encouraged state governors and attorneys general to “challenge these actions in court” because that is “the only way” to try to slow down or reverse the situation at the border.
Morgan, who was head of the U.S. Border Patrol under the Obama administration, said border security is “not a right or left thing” and noted that under Obama’s tenure it was considered “a bad day” when 1,000 illegal immigrants got across the border undetected.
“If you go back to 2019 the same Democrats … said it was a crisis and right now the numbers we’re seeing are exceeding the numbers we were experiencing back in 2019. It was a crisis then, it’s a crisis now … But how they phrase it depends on which side of the aisle you stand on right now. But the American people deserve better.” (RELATED: ‘Why Should Non-Citizens Be Treated Better?’ Texas AG Blasts Biden Decision to Vaccinate Illegals)
Nicaraguan immigrants wait on a U.S.-Mexico border bridge for entry into the United States on Feb. 22, 2021 in Matamoros, Mexico. U.S. immigration authorities have begun allowing some asylum seekers with active cases into the U.S. in a reversal of the Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration policy. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
The Biden administration is using a private detention facility from the Trump era to gather migrant children. The Department of Homeland Security would not say whether conditions in that camp will be any different than they were under the previous administration, according to previous reporting by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Under Biden’s non-deportation rules, immigrants can’t be deported if they get a DUI or commit fraud, tax crimes or assault, Fox News reported.
Biden’s eight-year-path-to-citizenship plan would allow all illegal immigrants living in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, 2021 to achieve temporary legal status in five years and to apply for citizenship after an additional three years.