‘National Security Crisis’: Former ICE Director Says Border Guards Too Busy With Migrant Kids To Stop Drug Smugglers

The former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director said Friday that the border has become “a national security crisis” as border patrol agents were too busy with migrant children to stop drug smugglers.

Thomas Homan, who had just returned from a trip to the Southern border, told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” that he spoke to a number of border security agents about the surge in migrant children arriving and how it was affecting their work. (RELATED : ‘People Will Die. People Will Be Raped’: Former Acting ICE Chief Says Biden Has Declared America A ‘Sanctuary Jurisdiction’)

“‘What’s so frustrating Mr. Homan, we know that we will have … foot traffic, camera traffic of drug smugglers that we can’t respond to while we’re taking care of these children,” Homan recalled one saying.

The former ICE director said the criminal cartels “are taking advantage of this humanitarian crisis.” Homan also said the cartels target parts of the border by dropping off “200 family groups to one area” and then moving drugs across other sections of the border that are unprotected.

“The criminal cartels control the drug cartels. They [say] go here and get this this time and this place so while all the border patrol personnel are tied up, they’re going to run their drugs — and they’re bad folks, MS-13 — to unguarded portions.”

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Sunday that President Joe Biden’s policies subjected kids to “horrific abuse” at the border as they were crammed into holding facilities. (RELATED: ‘We Should Be Stopping This’: Mark Morgan Says Biden Border Policy Is Empowering Cartels, Border Smuggling)

DONNA, TEXAS - MARCH 30: Young children are housed inside a pod at the Department of Homeland Security holding facility run by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) on March 30, 2021 in Donna, Texas. The Donna location is the main detention center for unaccompanied children coming across the U.S. border in the Rio Grande Valley. The children are housed by the hundreds in eight pods that are about 3,200 square feet in size. Many of the pods had more than 500 children in them. The youngest of the unaccompanied minors are kept separate from the rest of the detainees. The Biden administration has just allowed journalists inside its main detention facility at the border for migrant children. It is an overcrowded tent structure where more than 4,000 kids and families are kept in pods, with the youngest kept in a large play pen with mats on the floor for sleeping. (Photo by Dario Lopez-Mills - Pool/Getty Images)

Young children are housed inside a pod at the Department of Homeland Security holding facility run by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) on March 30, 2021 in Donna, Texas. (Photo by Dario Lopez-Mills – Pool/Getty Images)

On March 21, Biden suggested his administration could bring back the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.

Former President Donald Trump has made it known through an aide that he was considering a trip to the Southern border to assess the situation.