US Border Patrol chief Jason Owens said the migrant crisis has become a serious “national security threat” as terrorists may be slipping across the border and smugglers “dictate” the flow into the US.
“They dictate what the flow is going to look like and we respond to it,” Owens said in an interview that aired on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday when asked if smugglers are “setting the rules of engagement.”
“We try and get out in front of it and deny them the ability to use these areas,” he went on. “But at the end of the day, there’s over 1,900 miles of border with Mexico.”
Under the Biden administration, the US has endured record levels of migrants pouring across the southern border, including thousands who claim asylum and are then released into the country.
Border Patrol has reported 1,151,448 encounters at the southern border, according to the most recent tally of numbers through the 2024 fiscal year. The prior year saw 2,475,669, according to the agency.
Owens fretted that there could be terrorists and other dangerous people slipping through.
“That number is a large number, but what’s keeping me up at night is the 140,000 known got-aways, it’s not part of that,” he said, referring to the official count. “And that’s just what we know.
“That is a national security threat. Border security is a big piece of national security and if we don’t know who is coming into our country, and we don’t know what their intent is, that is a threat,” he continued. “They’re exploiting a vulnerability that’s on our border right now.”
The border chief noted that most of the encounters are with individuals who are turning themselves in and are fleeing dire economic conditions.
“[That] doesn’t make them bad people, it’s just that they’re not being respectful of the laws that we’ve established as a country,” he said.
Still, there are dangerous people buried in that population that do pose risks to the US, Owens contended.
“There are still people that we’re finding in those groups though that have criminal backgrounds, that have been convicted sexual predators, that had been convicted gang members — a very small amount in that population, but they’re still there,” he explained.
This fiscal year alone, Owens said the US has encountered migrants “from 160 countries or more” ranging from Latin America to Africa, that he attributed to various smuggling organizations.
Border security has emerged as a hot top among voters before the Nov. 5 presidential election, as shown in a litany of polls.
President Joe Biden has sought to flip the script on Republicans by chastizing them for killing a bipartisan deal to tackle the border that came up in the Senate last month.
Owens argued that more stringent penalties against offenders could help slow the crisis.
“I’m talking about jail time. I’m talking about being removed from the country and I’m talking about being banned from being able to come back because you chose to come in the illegal way instead of the established lawful pathways that we set for you,” he said.
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