Border arrivals in December 2020 jumped by 80 percent above December 2019, partly because the cartels and coyotes are telling their customers Joe Biden will end the border curbs, the chief of the Customs and Border Patrol agency said Tuesday.
“We’re already seeing the negative impacts of the proposed policy changes,” acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said on January 5. The “cartels and human smugglers are spreading the perception that our borders will be open. In this case, they’re correct. They’re right — it’s not just the perception.”
Biden’s campaign promises are “not an immigration strategy — [they are] an open border strategy,” he said. “The immigrants know it, and more importantly, the human smugglers know it … I’ve been asked, What do you think is going to happen? I say it’s already happening.”
The 74,000 migrants who arrived in December “you could argue are crisis-level numbers, but the reason why it doesn’t feel like a crisis is because we have [President Donald Trump’s] authority, statutes, and policies to deal with the numbers,” he said.
The numbers will become a border crisis if Biden follows through on his campaign promise to remove Trump’s border reforms, Morgan added. “You take that ability away and that 2,500 [arrivals] a day becomes a crisis overnight. That’s what concerns us.”
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