Aaron Heitke, Chief Patrol Agent (Retired), United States Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection gives testimony during the House Committee on Homeland Security hearing entitled, “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security.”
Transcript
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members, thank you for this opportunity. The only true consequence we have to slow down and discourage people from coming to the United States illegally is sending them back to their country of origin.
Throughout the first three plus years of this administration, I saw a steady decrease in countries we could send people back to. For the first time in my 25 years and under five different administrations, whether through neglect or on purpose, I saw a large-scale lapse in our ability to return people to their country of origin.
The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released. The current administration, however, from day one, made a point of decreasing the amount of detention space available nationwide. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s funding for detention space has steadily been cut and private detention eliminated.
The fact that so many illegal aliens were being released into the United States spread worldwide very quickly. As this happened the numbers the Border Patrol encountered illegally crossing the border increased exponentially.
The impacts to me and my agents were significant. Sectors were ordered to take in and process all the illegal aliens encountered on the border. The Border Patrol saw groups of hundreds and thousands coming into the United States and turning themselves in. These numbers pulled 80-90%, sometimes 100% of the agents on duty away from the border. Border Patrol zones across Texas, Arizona and California had no agent presence for weeks and months at a time. Those who did not want to be caught could simply walk in. We have no idea who and what entered our country over this time. Throughout 2022 and 2023 I sent agents to Texas and Arizona to count gotaways. Those sectors could not even put enough agents in the field to see what they had missed.
Simultaneously, in San Diego we had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens. These are aliens with significant ties to terrorism. Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10-15 SIAs per year. Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year. These are only the ones we caught. At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIA’s or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.
Fentanyl is another issue. The San Diego area sees between 80-90% of the methamphetamine and fentanyl seizures annually for our entire country. With little enforcement at the border these drugs were coming through in mass. During my last year in San Diego the price for a single fentanyl pill, for example, went from $10 to twenty-five cents.
To make matters worse, during 2022 and 2023 I had to shut down the San Diego traffic checkpoints, which are critical for drug interdiction, because resources had been diverted to the process and release mission.
The large numbers also had and still have a negative impact on the San Diego community. I had to release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who couldn’t support them. To quiet the problem two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas. These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over to Texas. Each flight cost approximately $150,000. This was the administration’s way of trying to quiet the border-wide crisis. Once these flights stopped and releases continued, California saw the true economic impact. I received calls from the governor’s office, local mayors, and hospital administrators asking if we could keep injured aliens in our custody so the federal government would pay the bills. Through pressure from the administration, my headquarters became more interested in the fiction being portrayed in the media and not at all concerned with reality. Each time we asked for help in dealing with a new issue it fell on deaf ears. At times in San Diego, we had 2,000 or more aliens sitting in between the fences asking to turn themselves in. I was told to move them out of sight of the media.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents are continually forgotten and neglected by the media and this administration. These agents deal with death, women and children that have been raped, abused, trafficked, bought and sold, families that have spent months in terrible conditions, sickness, and despair. If you look at the dramatic rise in the number of suicides within the Border Patrol it is directly correlated with the migrant surge. The agents have been pushed beyond their limit and this has greatly impacted their physical and mental health. While current numbers of aliens crossing our border are lower in comparison to recent months and years, there is a reason for this. After nearly four years this administration finally started to ask Mexico for help in slowing down traffic through their country. This and other actions make a difference but why has it taken so long? All of these tactics were being used before this administration took office, but this administration stopped or greatly lmited them. I am also concerned they will not be maintained.’
The problems we are facing at the border have solutions. These solutions can be quite simple and cost far less than the mess currently occupying so much time and money. The return to a policy of enforcing the law and returning illegal aliens to their home countries is required.
