The Biden administration has produced an unprecedented crisis on America’s southern border.
Last week, I led another Congressional delegation to the southern border. This was my third time in the Rio Grande Valley this year alone.
The situation, implausibly, is actually worse than the last time I was there just a few months back. The number of people surrendering to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents is higher. In one portion of the Donna Processing Facility, for instance, the area was overcrowded by hundreds of people.
On the banks of the Rio Grande is a well-worn path that leads from the river on the U.S. side to a large outdoor facility set up to process more than one thousand individuals every day. It is set up under an elevated highway. Signs along the road direct illegal aliens towards the temporary outdoor processing site.
Single adult males are taken elsewhere for processing or immediate removal, but family units and unaccompanied minors are briefly interviewed and then bussed to another location where a non-governmental organization (NGO) will receive the ostensible families and children.
Many thanks are due to the Customs and Border Patrol agents who are working tirelessly care for and process these people. They are encountering COVID-19 and other communicable diseases brought into the United States by the illegal aliens flooding our border. At the time of our visit, 31 agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector had recently tested positive for the virus.
Border Patrol does not perform COVID testing prior to transferring the illegal aliens to the NGOs. Aliens exhibiting symptoms of the virus are taken by CBP to a hospital for testing while the rest may receive a rapid test from the NGO receiving them. Aliens with a positive test are housed in a hotel. The alien is free to leave the hotel and the care of the NGO at any time without permission from the NGO or CBP. Any time.
The number of individuals intercepted by CBP agents was at a record level for the fifth straight month. Last month, almost 190,000 people were encountered trying to illegally enter our country. Tens of thousands were released into the United States. Many were criminals. Many had COVID. The Biden-Harris administration made no changes to protect U.S. citizens.
I was informed by CBP agents of numerous tragic stories involving families and children. One little girl, believed to be seven years old, had a very common story.
This little girl was found on the northern banks of the Rio Grande. The CBP agent took care of her immediate needs and asked where she was going. “Detroit,” she replied.
“Why Detroit?”
“That’s where my mother is.”
The mother had placed her child in the hands of a ruthless, inhumane human trafficker. In the meantime, somehow the girl’s mother had illegally entered the United States and settled in Detroit. Her phone number was written in the child’s clothing and the mother was called.
Yes, CBP acts as the logistics division for the cartels. Biden’s border policies are perpetuating human trafficking.
If a U.S. citizen placed their child in the hands of such a criminal organization in the United States, that child would be removed from the parent’s custody and the parent would likely face criminal charges.
But the Biden administration set a separate parenting standard for illegal aliens, serving as the final leg of the trafficking effort and reuniting children who have been voluntarily placed in imminent harm with the same parents who jeopardized their own children.
This is just one more inhumane consequence of the Biden-Harris border policies.
Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) has represented Arizona in the United States House of Representatives since 2017.