Former Acting DHS Secretary: Biden Should Take Texas Judge Up on Offer to Visit the Border

(CNSNews.com) – Former Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who serves as Center for Homeland Security and Immigration chair at America First Policy Institute, told Fox Business on Wednesday that President Joe Biden should take a Texas Democratic county judge’s offer to visit the chaos at the southern border.

As Fox News reported, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez sent a two-page letter to the president on Monday, inviting him to visit Hidalgo County before the administration “makes any substantial changes to current border policy,” namely ending Title 42 on the May 23 deadline.

“Well, I think it’s certainly something that the president should take him up on. Look, the president hasn’t been to that border in years, frankly. The vice president only went to El Paso, really didn’t see the ground zero for that border which is South Texas, and I think what the men and women of the Border Patrol, those agents out there, they want to see some leadership,” Wolf told “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”

“The secretary has only been there eight times, the secretary of dhs eight times in over 15 months so they want to see leadership there. I suspect the president’s not going because he doesn’t have good news for those agents. He’s not delivering on any policies or any deterrence that’s going to get this crisis under control,” he said.

“Instead, they just want to continue to process more and more individuals into the country as quickly as possible and I think the border patrol and those folks along the border know that’s a losing strategy,” the former acting DHS secretary said. 

Fox Business Host Dagen McDowell pointed to a Fox News poll that said only 32 percent of those polled or less than one-third, approved of Biden’s performance on immigration, while 61 percent disapprove.

“It’s a great question. I think what that poll shows you is that the American people want an orderly process along that border, and they’re not getting it from this administration, and instead, hundreds of thousands of individuals are coming across the border each and every month and released across the United States. If you lift Title 42, and you remove it, I think the American people know that that’s going to make the crisis worse at the border,” Wolf said.

“The Biden administration is not talking about any solutions. They came out with a six-point plan which just talks about processing more and more individuals into the country. So I think their solution is not being lost on the American people, and they know that it’s not really border security. It’s just simply processing more people faster and quicker,” he said.

When asked what the morale is among Border Patrol agents, Wolf said, “Well, I was just down in south Texas along that border just a couple of weeks ago where we talked to Border Patrol agents and talked to their leadership, and I will tell you the morale’s about as low as I’ve ever seen it or ever heard it inside that Border Patrol.

He said that if you take issue with the administration’s response last year to allegations that Border Patrol agents were “whipping” Haitian migrants trying to cross the southern border, “the administration from the president and vice president and even the secretary, it took them about an hour to come out and talk sternly about the Border Patrol agents, which we know is all false. 

“It took them over three days to actually acknowledge that national guardsman had lost their life or had drowned or was missing. They didn’t want to come out and talk about that, so I think it tells you where their priorities are at the end of the day, and when you talk about this disinformation governance board, look, the focus needs to be on the crisis at the border and doesn’t need to be distracted on other issues,” Wolf said.

Republicans in Congress are trying to block funding for the newly created Disinformation Governance Board within DHS, “and they should,” Wolf said.

“And I think it’s important to remember that DHS is a compilation of about eight different operating agencies from cyber security to the border patrol, and the list goes on and on and each one of those components has specific authorities to fight disinformation from foreign adversaries, and they do that under the guise of the authorities given to them by Congress,” he said.

“What DHS has done under this administration is create this board inside the secretary’s office that’s very political, that has no authorization by Congress and, therefore, has no oversight by Congress. So it should — the work of the department should remain inside the components at a nonpolitical level doing what they’ve done for the past 20 years, and I don’t understand it. I don’t see the importance or the need for this type of board which has no authority,” Wolf said.

As CNSNews.com previously reported, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas blamed the cartels with spreading disinformation that Title 42 doesn’t apply to Haitians as the reason Haitian migrants tried to cross the border, instead of knowing that the border was open.
 
“I think this is kind of the most dishonest messaging that you can have from the department. Look, individuals are crossing that border whether they’re from Haiti, Venezuela, or any other country – 125 different countries. They know the border is open because of the policies, not because of the messaging,” Wolf said.

“You can have any type of messaging that you want, but if you don’t close the border and you allow individuals to come across to be caught and then released, that is all they need to understand and know, and that’s the message that is being sent back not only to Central and South America but all over the world,” he said. 

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