Two starkly different versions of the Southwest border activity have been put forward; voters must decide which is the truth. The White House insists that all is well and that the migrant influx is resolved. Customs and Border Protection Chief Raul Ortiz countered that, despite Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ assurances, the United States has lost “operational control” of its border. In immigration parlance, operational control is a key phrase that’s an essential part of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (SFA) which then-Senator Joe Biden signed.
During the Secure Fence Act of 2006’s signing ceremony, President George W. Bush acknowledged that “millions of illegal immigrants are already here” and that “the U.S. has not been in complete control of its borders for decades and, therefore, illegal immigration has been on the rise.” Among the signatories were, in addition to Biden, two other immigration expansionists, senators Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Biden said that his vote was cast primarily with the hope that a fence would impede drug trafficking.
The quandary is who to believe: the White House and its principal occupant, sitting President Joe Biden, a likely 2024 candidate for re-election, or agent Ortiz who began his CBP career in 1991, more than three decades ago. Ortiz won two Department of State Meritorious Honor Awards, and his team in one single 24-month period seized more than 200,000 pounds of narcotics and arrested more than 3,000 human smugglers and 2,000 migrants.
For its part, the White House claims that the administration has enhanced border security and enforcement, supports fair, orderly and humane immigration, improved immigration courts, kept its promises to refugees, created opportunities for Central American and Haitian immigration, and invested in what is curiously, if not incomprehensibly, described as hemispheric migration management. A White House fact sheet spelled out what it called “the historic steps [taken] to secure our border…”
Ortiz, however, presented a different picture about the ongoing border influx. At a U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, which convened in McAllen, Texas, Ortiz contradicted his boss, Mayorkas. U.S. Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), House Homeland Security Chair, asked Ortiz if DHS had operational control of the border. Ortiz’s response was a succinct and inarguable two-word “No, sir.” Ortiz added that operational control is no longer a CBP objective. In the same hearing, and answering the same question, this time from U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Mayorkas said that the border is under control.
Had Biden and Mayorkas complied with the SFA’s well-defined terms, border conditions would be, to use the term again, under operational control. Understanding operational control is essential to gain insights into the extent to which open borders evolved and the administration’s willful mismanagement that has led to the chaos.
As explained by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge, SFA’s Section 2(b) defines operational control as “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the U.S., including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.” The Immigration and Nationality Act also requires that illegal aliens be detained. Achieving operational control is a congressional mandate that DHS Secretary Mayorkas is legally required to obey; ignoring the mandate is a crime.
The hearing’s final score card reflects Mayorkas as the loser when measured against Ortiz’s truthfulness. In his testimony, Ortiz cited 1.3 million gotaways, whereabouts unknown. Agents have encountered more than 4.8 million migrants since Biden’s inauguration. At the Rio Grande Valley sector, CBP Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez noted a 920 percent increase in Chinese nationals encountered, compared to fiscal year 2022, the vast majority of whom are single adults.
As if to add an exclamation point to his testimony, just after the hearing Ortiz tweeted that to date in fiscal year 2023, CBP has apprehended 900,590 foreign nationals from 147 countries. The top five countries are Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Guatemala. A record 98 would-be border crossers were identified as FBI watch-listed terrorists.
If the Ortiz v. Mayorkas testimonies were a heavyweight boxing match to determine credibility, the CBP chief would have scored a first round, Joe Louis-style knockout. Sadly, for sovereignty-cherishing Americans, the administration and its open borders agenda are still on their feet, and the status quo will likely remain until at least 2024.
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