The former Border Patrol official responsible for securing nearly 1,000 miles of America’s frontier has charged that the Biden-Harris administration intentionally covered up the ongoing migrant crisis.
Ex-San Diego Sector Chief Agent Aaron Heitke told members of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday that the White House repeatedly tried to “quiet the border-wide crisis” by shielding information from the press and concealing crossings by dangerous migrants with terror ties.
“I had to release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them,” testified Heitke, who retired in summer 2023 and appeared voluntarily before the panel.
“To quiet the problem, two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas,” he explained. “These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over to Texas.”
“Each flight costs approximately $150,000. This was the administration’s way of trying to quiet the border-wide crisis,” Heitke emphasized.
Elsewhere in his testimony, Heitke said administration officials asked him to move more than 2,000 migrants apprehended in between the two US-Mexico border fences spanning Southern California “out of the sight of the media.”
The chief agent also was barred from discussing the alarming spike in border crossings by so-called “Special Interest Aliens,” or SIAs, who were suspected of posing national security concerns based on their country of origin or ties to terror groups.
Before Biden and Harris took office, Heitke said, the San Diego sector “averaged 10 to 15 SIA arrests per year,” but that rose to “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 added, with more than 1.7 million known “gotaways” whose terror affiliations or risks remain unknown having also entered the US without being apprehended.
“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase on SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” he added. “The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”
The testimony came one day after The Post revealed another ex-border enforcement official claimed during a transcribed interview with the committee that Biden, Harris and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “intentionally” opened the US border.
“I assert that Secretary Mayorkas and his subordinate political appointees have and continue to intentionally conspire to undermine the security of the American people, as well as the letter and the intent of congressionally enacted US law,” former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott said during the January interview.
Scott said the administration was effectively telling his border agents, “Just don’t do your job,” in a stark contrast from the policies of both former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama.
