The situation at U.S. borders is still out-of-control despite reports that the number of illegal immigrants attempting to come to the U.S. is on the decline,
Border Patrol officials told The Washington Post.
"This notion that DHS is saying the border is more secure than ever — they don’t have any evidence of that," said Brandon Judd, a 17-year agent who is president of the National Border Patrol Council. "It’s just smoke and mirrors."
The Pew Research Center has reported that immigration flows are at a 20-year low and for the first time in more than six decades of Border Patrol data, more non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at U.S. borders in 2014 (229,000 Mexicans, 257,000 non-Mexicans).
But the Washington Times reported in April that more than 3,000 unaccompanied minors came across the Mexican border in March, the most since the peak of the 2014 crisis when tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American minors showed up at U.S. borders.
And in the first six months of this fiscal year, authorities have reported apprehending 15,647 unaccompanied minors trying to get across the border. Though that’s 40 percent fewer than the same time last year — a situation that "sparked a political crisis" — fiscal year 2015 is "shaping up to mark the second-biggest surge on record," according to the Times.
The vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, Shawn Moran, characterized U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as "inefficient and top-heavy with supervisors," and said morale continues to plunge among frustrated agents who "know there is a lot of traffic still getting through the border," according to the Post.
Agents have grown increasingly disheartened since President Barack Obama signed an executive order deferring deportations for millions of people in the country illegally, another council official, agent Chris Cabrera of Texas, told the Post.
"Border crossings are usually tied with perceived amnesty," Cabrera said. "If people believe they will get some type of relief or a free ride, the floodgates open."
Cabrera has been voicing concerns about agent morale since the 2014 surge of illegals.
But Border Patrol agents will find little sympathy with CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske.
Though he says he gets their "issues and frustrations," Kerlikowske told the Post that agents have been given ample resources to do their jobs since Washington has allocated additional funding to address the situation at the southwest border over the past decade.
"If some of these folks are so unhappy, they really need to reassess what they do and where they are," Kerlikowske said, suggesting that managing the agency is beyond agents’ pay grade.
"You don’t get to control certain things’’ he said. "I’m not the judge, jury and executioner and commissioner, and certainly at their level in the border patrol, they’re not either."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.