The rate of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border has skyrocketed in the months since President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, the outgoing Border Patrol chief warned.
Speaking during a call with reporters Tuesday, acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan cautioned that arrivals at the US-Mexico border were hitting new highs in the wake of Biden’s election.
“We’re already seeing the negative impacts of the proposed policy changes,” Morgan said. “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.”
“You could argue,” he continued, that the 74,000 migrant arrivals on the southern border in December account for “crisis-level numbers.”
Morgan went on to slam the incoming administration for what he called its “open-border strategy.”
Despite disapproval of Biden’s plan to roll back his predecessor’s hardline immigration policies, Morgan expressed some hope based on conversations between his team and their successors.
“We’re hoping that the dialogue is going to continue. We’re hoping that — as this administration has done — that they’re actually going to listen to the experts that are on the ground, they’re going to listen to facts, they’re going to listen to reality. And they’re going to make the necessary adjustments that we need to protect our country,” the border chief remarked.
“What I heard from the folks at CBP, the experts that participated in the briefings, has been very positive,” he continued. “They felt the questions being asked were good questions, were informed questions, were the right questions, and what I’m being told is they really felt that the briefing team were actually listening and hearing what was being discussed.”
Morgan said he also felt reassured by Biden’s recent decision not to immediately roll back President Trump’s asylum restrictions at the Mexican border.
Biden’s initial pledge to roll back his predecessor’s immigration policies within his first 100 days will be delayed in order to avoid “2 million people on our border.”
The incoming commander-in-chief said he would work with Congress to get the funding needed to put asylum judges in place to hear the backlog of cases — a process that he warned could take up to six months.
“Here’s another reason I feel confident,” Morgan said Tuesday. “They’ve already walked back what they were going to do. Mr. Biden himself said he’s not going to do what he promised on day one, because he knew that it would create a crisis — that was very good to hear, but it doesn’t alleviate the concerns that I have.”
“It’s simply kicking the crisis can down the road, there’s got to be real reform to what their ‘open border’ strategies are.”
A Biden spokesperson could not immediately be reached by The Post for comment.