National Border Patrol Council union chief Brandon Judd on Sunday condemned the Mexican government for turning a blind eye to a massive caravan of Central American refugees headed for the U.S. border.
In remarks to Fox & Friends Sunday, Judd responded to a BuzzFeed News report on the caravan. According to BuzzFeed, some 1,200 Central Americans, organized by volunteers who call themselves Pueblos Sin Fronteras, have crossed immigration checkpoints, military bases and police in a march toward the United States unimpeded by Mexican authorities.
"First off, you have got a Mexican government entity that is assisting these individuals that are coming up to the United States," Judd charged. "These individuals do not have passports or legal documents to be in Mexico, yet you got an agency that's helping them get to our [U.S.] border."
"Once they [the migrants] enter the country, even if we [border patrol agents] are standing at the border with our hands out saying, 'Don't enter, don't enter,' all they have to do is cross one foot into the border and we have to take them into custody. If they ask for asylum or say, 'I fear to go back to my country,' then we have to process them under 'credible fear' which allows them to be released into our country."
Judd also decried the continuing "catch-and-release" program for illegal immigrants.
"When they cross the border legally the reason that they openly do it is because they know that the catch and release program continues today," he said, asserting "they'll never see those deportation proceedings."
He said Immigration Customs Enforcement agents "process them and they'll release them with a notice to appear in which they're supposed to present themselves before an immigration judge about two years from now. But they never show up for their deportation proceedings," he said.
Judd said there was a drop in illegal entries after President Donald Trump's election — but no longer.
"The Border Patrol in 2017, we saw these huge drops and the Border Patrol agents call it the Trump Effect," he said. "Well that Trump Effect is now gone because the agencies and the Obama [administration] holdovers, they haven't followed through on his vision."
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