U.S. Border Patrol agents are letting nearly 1,000 illegal aliens cross the border every day unpursued because they are focused on tending to the overwhelming number of unaccompanied minors and migrant families flooding holding centers, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told the Washington Post on Friday.
Instead of focusing on the surging number of “got aways” crossing the border without being apprehended or tracked, border patrol agents are preoccupied tending to the record number of migrants in custody due to President Joe Biden’s refusal to send some illegal aliens back to their home country.
In March alone, approximately 160,000 illegal aliens including more than 18,000 unaccompanied teens and kids came under the care of border patrol agents manning overcrowded facilities. Even in February, Border Patrol Deputy Chief Raul Ortiz recently admitted that the “agency had recorded 1,000 got aways on a single day, describing that as an unusual event.”
“But since then, the figure has become a new normal,” the Washington Post noted.
This development in the border crisis poses a new complication for Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris, who was recently tasked with addressing the “root causes” of the humanitarian crisis. Despite her new position, Harris has yet to hold a press conference about the problems surfacing at the U.S.-Mexico border and simply laughed when reporters asked her if she had plans to visit it anytime soon.
The Biden administration recently issued an unofficial gag order to cut off the press from accessing data held by federal officials about the total number of illegal immigrants that had crossed.
This news also follows reports that Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley have begun releasing illegal aliens from custody without issuing a return court date due to limited space in already-overwhelmed holding facilities.
While the Biden administration and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claim the southern border “is secure and not open” and deny that there is a crisis, agencies and nongovernmental organizations are struggling to shelter the influx of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border in a safe and timely manner, many of whom are being held in crowded detention beyond the time allotted by law.
