Biden-Harris admin. tried to hide spike in terror-tied immigrants crossing border, ex-official says
A former U.S. Border Patrol chief accused the Biden-Harris administration of attempting to conceal an increase in the number of illegal immigrants with terrorist ties who have entered the United States to persuade the public that there is no threat at the border.
Aaron Heitke was the chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol's San Diego sector before retiring last summer. During a Wednesday U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security hearing, Heitke said that the administration did not allow him to share certain details about the border situation.
"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," he said. "I was told to move them out of the sight of the media."
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Heitke said that "significant interest aliens" are migrants "with significant ties to terrorism." He said that the San Diego sector arrested an average of 10 to 15 SIAs per year during the previous administration.
"Once word was out the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught," he said.
"At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border."
After President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he ended a Trump-era policy that required migrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico during immigration proceedings. The administration has also faced criticism for cutting immigration detention capacity, resulting in the release of thousands of immigrants as a result.
Heitke said one strategy for discouraging people from entering the U.S. illegally involves returning them to their country of origin. During the first three years of the Biden administration, however, the former Border Patrol official said that fewer illegal immigrants were being returned.
"For the first time in my 25 years in 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," Heitke said. "The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released."
Heitke testified that he had to release illegal immigrants "by the hundreds each day," noting that the communities in the U.S. they were sent to were not equipped to support them.
In response to the crisis, Heitke said the federal government paid for two flights a week to take those released in San Diego over to Texas, spending $150,000 on each flight.
"This was the administration's way to try and quiet the border-wide crisis," Heitke said.
According to a report prepared by the House Judiciary Committee and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement earlier this year, the administration has allowed over 5 million illegal immigrants to remain in the United States. The immigrants include people who applied from abroad to be entered into parole programs and those who illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
After the Biden administration stopped flying migrants to Texas, Heitke said that he received multiple phone calls from the California governor's office, mayors and hospital administrators asking the agency to keep injured illegal migrants in custody. Heitke said this was because they wanted to see if the federal government could pay the medical bills.
The retired official acknowledged that the administration had asked Mexico for help in slowing down the number of illegal immigrants entering the country, but he questioned why it took so long for them to take this action.
"The problems we are facing at the border have solutions," Heitke said. "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."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
