Border Chief Testifies Illegal Migrants Believe Border Is ‘Open’ Under Biden

The Tucson, Arizona, sector Border Patrol chief testified Tuesday that illegal migrants are coming to the U.S. because they believe that the Biden administration made policy changes and that the border was open during a House Oversight Committee hearing.

“The thing I can tell you that goes to the spike that you’re talking about is in the Tucson sector, interviewing people post arrest, what became the most common response was that they believe that when the administration changed, the law changed and policy changed and that there was an open border,” the sector’s chief, John Modlin, testified in response to a question from Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds about the Biden administration’s policies leading to surging illegal migration.

”Chief, I’m glad you said that because ladies and gentlemen, the law did not change, Joe Biden decided not to follow the law,” Donalds responded.

The Biden administration has implemented a number of policy changes that have been followed by record surges in illegal migration. At the beginning of Biden’s tenure, his administration implemented a 100-day moratorium on deportations, scrapped a program to return illegal migrants to Mexico as they await court proceedings and limited interior immigration enforcement solely to those posing risks to national security, border security and public safety.

Fiscal year 2022 was a record breaking year for southern border crossings, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded more than 2.3 million migrant encounters. December was so the highest month on record, with more than 250,000 migrant encounters.

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