A Texas county sheriff on Newsmax Monday called the surge of migrants at the southern border a "national problem" that should be corrected by legal migration done "in the right way."
In an interview on "John Bachman Now," San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers declined to blame the migrant border surge on the looming expiration of the pandemic-era Title 42 that allowed a quick removal of migrants, though he said cessation exacerbated the problem.
"The removal of Title 42 is just going to change it from a sustained hurricane to a tsunami," he said.
"I think that it's just gonna be a national problem if all these immigrants, illegal immigrants … come across the border," he said. "I thoroughly believe in legal immigration if they would do it the right way."
Former acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan joined the interview and noted the border security crisis has been going on for the past two years. "It's not just the border states" affected, he said. "From 2011 to 2022, 261,000 illegal aliens committed over 433,000 crimes, including 800 homicides, 800 kidnappings and over 5,000 assaults. So when we say every time every state is a border state, this is exactly what we mean."
"We have over 1.5 million known 'got-aways,' and we know among those … are many, many criminals," he added.
Capers hailed the help from law enforcement agencies that have come to his area after an illegal immigrant allegedly killed five people in Cleveland, Texas.
"Two hundred fifty-plus law enforcement professionals" came to the area, he said.
"My guys were actually able to do the normal everyday routine police work that we do with the help of the federal agencies, the other counties of which there were several that jumped in, volunteered and sent people to help me and my county."
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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