For months, the Trump administration has said the illegal-alien invasion at the southwest border of the United States is a major crisis.
The numbers depict nothing less than a Camp-of-the-Saints–like tsunami of “migants,” many of them in “families” or traveling as “unaccompanied minors,” who have marched north and overwhelmed border agents.
The effort to control the border is close to futile if the testimony of Rodolfo Karisch, chief of the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector of Customs and Border Protection, is even remotely true.
Karisch described a border and patrol force under siege that goes well beyond the occasional caravan traveling through Mexico. Karish says the border is hit with caravan-like numbers every week.
Depite CBP’s best efforts, the border is open. And the “migrants” know it.
Testimony
In his 30 years working the border, Karisch has “never witnessed the conditions we are currently facing on the Southwest border,” he told members of the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security Committee this morning.
“This is not a manufactured crisis created by those of us who live and work in the border area.”
The border patrol, he continued, is catching “record numbers of people who purposely violate US immigration laws. We are taken advantage of by gaps in our legal framework that undermine the rule of law.”
Karisch didn’t elaborate, but he was likely speaking of the administration continuing to catch and release thousands of illegal aliens who falsely claim asylum. Ninety percent of such claims are false, and most migrants come to the United States for jobs, welfare, and other public benefits.
“Criminal organizations along the border capitalize on these issues and make tremendous profits at the expense of both migrants and the American people,” he said.
Karisch said his 277-mile section of border is but a “small fraction” of the United States, but it accounts for 38 percent of all illegal immigration across the southwest border.
“To put things in perspective,” he told the committee, “last year agents in RGV made 162,000 apprehensions. We’re already at 147,000.” He anticipated 260,000 in his sector by the close of the fiscal year.
Karisch said his agents are catching more than 1,000 people day, “the capacity of 17 commercial buses.” Last week, he said, his agents collared 1,766 illegals in a single day..
Karsich said the number will climb as the weather warms, “which will undoubtedly place both migrants and our border patrol agents at significant risk. Rescue missions will increase as a result of drawing personnel from our frontline law enforcement mission.
Thus Karisch dropped the really frightening truth bomb: “Much media attention has focused on caravans from Central America, but the fact is that RGV is receiving caravan-equivalent numbers of migrants every seven days.”
The Numbers
CBP has not released the number of illegals caught in March, but agency officials have repeatedly said it will exceed 100,000. Seventy percent will come from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Through February of this fiscal year, CPB data show, agents on the southwest border have collared 318,407 illegals, including 158,118 as families and 28,976 children. Agents apprehended 76,013 in February alone. Last year’s total through February was 187,097.
Frighteningly, Breitbart.com reported, the Department of Homeland Security has loosed 108,500 illegals upon unsuspecting Americans in the last three months. DHS released 24,000 between March 5 and March 20 alone.
“DHS is releasing more than 36,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country every single month,” the website reported. “For the year, DHS is on pace to release more than 430,000 border crossers and illegal aliens into the country.”
Another figure: Nearly two million illegal aliens have deportation orders or pending deportation orders. But they remain in the United States, with no real fear of being removed.
The report from Karisch mirrors that from CBP chieftain Kevin McAleenan a month ago, who called the situtation at the border “unsustainable.”
Two releases from CBP today demonstrate, again, the dire situation.
In the past few days, border agents have seized more than 23 pounds of cocaine, 33 pounds of marijuana, and more than two pounds of methamphetamine worth about $833,000.
On Sunday in a separate arrest, agents nailed 10 illegals near Fronton, Texas, and seized a Chevy Suburban loaded with 925 pounds of marijuana worth $725,000.
On Thursday, border agents and other authorities nailed six illegals with 20 bundles of marijuana worth about $185,000.
Total haul? $1.7 million.
CBP continued catching other criminals as well. Agents collared two gangbangers and a sex fiend in three days last week.
Image: screenshot from YouTube video
