Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd raged against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for refusing to acknowledge there is a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mayorkas refused to call the situation a crisis during a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday because he has confidence in the Border Patrol agents and his agency. He claimed a “crisis” is a “withdrawal” of a situation while the agency is putting in the effort to mitigate the surging number of migrants and fentanyl flooding into the U.S.
Merriam-Webster defines crisis as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending” and as a “situation that has reached a critical phase.”
“He might have confidence in us, and he should have confidence in us. We are gonna go out and we’re going to do our job to the best of our ability,” Judd said on “America Reports” on Monday. “We don’t have confidence in him because the policy operations and programs must come from him and they’re not. And that’s why this is gonna continue. If he’s not willing to define the problem, if he’s not willing to say ‘crisis,’ he’s not gonna be willing to come up with the solutions to allow us to get this situation under control and that’s the problem. It’s all politics, it’s all deflection. He’s not gonna do what’s right, therefore nothing is going to actually happen.”
Human smugglers enticed approximately 1,000 migrants across the border over the weekend. Judd said that this is a common occurrence by cartels who know they can use the U.S. resources “to create gaps in our coverage,” which he cited to the surge in fentanyl. (RELATED: Border Patrol President Says Biden’s Visit To Southern Border Was Nothing More Than A ‘Photo Op’)
Judd accused Mayorkas and the DHS of not allowing border agents to combat the migrant, drug and crime surges due to its existing policies, which he said are not providing the basic resources needed. He argued that the immigration policies of the Biden administration are “withdrawing” as agents overwhelmingly attempt to mitigate the issue.
“We want him [Mayorkas] to wake up. We want Biden to wake up … we want them to do what’s right for the American people,” he said.
Judd disputed Mayorkas’ claim that the border situation is worsening due to a global phenomenon, rather than a domestic situation.
That’s a lie,” he said. “That’s an absolute lie. 57,000 got away in the month of March and 163 apprehensions in the month of March and 30,000 apprehension increase in the month of February, those are crisis levels. That’s not happening around the world, that’s only happening here in the United States.”
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehended 212,266 migrants in February, a 2% increase from the 208,511 who crossed the border in January, according to the agency’s data. The number surged 58% from the same month the previous year.
Judd’s union endorsed the impeachment of Mayorkas over his handling of the migrant crisis. After several months of planning, Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs formally introduced articles of impeachment against Mayorkas in February.