BUCK: Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection during the Trump administration is with us now. He’s a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. Mark, thanks for being with us.

MORGAN: Great, thanks for having us.

BUCK: So, you’re getting record numbers, even for the Biden administration, meaning the highest number I think yet on record for illegal crossings was this past April. May is expected, I believe, to be even higher than that. So, that would be the all-time record for Biden, and certainly a multi-decade long record for illegal crossing into the United States over the U.S.-Mexico border. Are we just going to head into the most lawless summer on our southern border? Is that your expectation?

MORGAN: Yeah, and let’s keep this in mind. And we just got done completing the largest lawless fiscal year, we had last year. You talk about the May numbers being the highest for May that we’ve ever seen. Actually, it’s the highest monthly toll on record. Well, the month before that was the highest month, the month before that was the highest month, right? Like you said, when the May numbers come out, we’re going to set another record. We’re setting all kinds of different records. You mentioned gotaways real quick. So because of a wide-open border under this administration, over 750,000 gotaways.

Think about that. That’s 750,000 illegal aliens have broken in on our southwest border. Why? Because in some areas, 80% of the Border Patrol resources are pulled off the front line, pulled off the national security mission, and they’re relegated to be a federal travel agency for the illegal immigrants, and that leaves large areas of border wide open. We literally ended operation control, with respect to large areas of border over to the cartels.

CLAY: Mark, we have these monster caravans that will probably be so hard, that it will be impossible for even the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post crew, to even ignore them. What is there we can do to break up these caravans? What do you anticipate happening, when they actually reach our border?

MORGAN: Oh, they’ll be broke up. That’s a good question. But it won’t be broken up by design. But what happens with the cartel? The cartels get to a certain point within Mexico that the cartels and smugglers determine, then they will start breaking up the caravan and smuggling them across points on the southwest border that the cartels and smugglers choose. But here’s what’s very disturbing with the latest caravan. We literally go back three and a half years in time with respect to what Mexico is doing. You’ve seen the caravans. Mexico is literally, like they were 3-1/2 years ago, standing there.

They were actually providing a corridor for them to come. They were now given these humanitarian work visas, which actually means, that the migrants going through Mexico, they’re lawfully in Mexico. They’re not going to stay in Mexico. That’s not their goal. Their goal is to break into the southwest border, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And just real quick, to put it into perspective though, even if this caravan gets up to 15,000 the largest that we’ve seen, that they’re talking about, think about this. Every two days on the southwest border. The Border Patrol apprehends the equivalent of a 15,000-person caravan every two days on the southwest border.

CLAY: Speaking with Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of customs and border protection under the Trump administration. You can read the latest work he’s doing for the Heritage Foundation on the border at TheBidenBorderCrisis.com. Mark, to that end, what is the Biden DHS doing about all of this? There was a lot more attention in recent weeks on the border because of the prospect of Title 42 ending, the CDC authority that allows…

I think we should know, only some companies get people turned away under Title 42. Northern Triangle countries and Mexico. If you come from elsewhere in the world, my understanding from the Border Patrol folks is, you don’t actually get expelled under Title 42 usually. What are the Biden folks doing about the situation of the numbers they have right now? Is there anything that we can point to that suggests they are hoping those numbers come down?

MORGAN: No. No. No. Look, first of all, your explanation of Title 42, is exactly right. Look, they haven’t been applying Title 42, with unaccompanied minors since day one. They did a carve-out. And over 85, sometimes 90% of families, regardless of where you’re coming from, they’re not applying Title 42. Title 42, since the Biden administration took over has really only been applied to single adults. And as I said, you’re absolutely spot-on. Even single adults, they’re not applying that to. They call it CBM: Colombia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

If you’re single adults from those countries, they’re letting those in as well with Title 42 in place. And think about this. Title 42 has been in place during this entire Biden administration. And we’re already in the middle of the worst catastrophic crisis that we see in our lifetime. I keep saying, whether Title 42 goes to state, we’re already in the middle of a catastrophe. Once it goes, I keep saying it’s going to be like the Hindenberg crashing into the Titanic. But we’re already in the Titanic sinking.

And the last one on this list to address your last question, look, this administration, what are they doing? You know, America has talked about a six-pillar plan? All this plan is is just to throw more money, more resources to get faster and more efficient at releasing illegal aliens into the United States. There’s nothing there, that will effectively secure our border and stem the flow of illegal immigration. This is by design and by intent.

CLAY: So I just want to hit the hypocrisy here that’s still staggering to me and not getting much discussion. In order to come to the United States, even if you’re a citizen, you have to have a negative covid test, if you have left the country. So for people out there listening to us right now, if one of I say went down to Cancun or we went to Cabo, or something like that, in order to fly back in, you would have to have a negative test even as a United States citizen.

Everybody coming across the border, hundreds of thousands of whom we’re letting into the country, we don’t require them to have any covid shots, and we don’t even require they believe at this point, mostly test them. And also, by the way, we got baby formula for them there. Even though, you can’t find them in your own communities. This is kind of wild, isn’t it, even from your perspective?

MORGAN: It is. Look, this is a great aspect of hypocrisy. But this is one element of a multitude of layers of hypocrisy. You’ve got it spot-on. It gets even worse than that. So, the DOJ right now, is actively fighting to keep mask mandates, right, for Americans in this country. Meanwhile, the same DOJ, Biden, Title 42, which let me, real quick, tell you what that means. Family… Right? So a family of five or six, illegally breaks into our country and demands to Border Patrol, “Hurry up and release us anywhere we want to go in the United States — and, oh, by the way, our entire family has covid.” What that means, once Title 42 goes away, the border will have no choice to say, “Oh, you all have covid. Come on in. No problem.”

CLAY: What happens, if you think, if this continues on. It feels like there was a time when Democrats… I remember on the Obama administration, for example. There was criticism of Obama for allowing too many deportations. Now they’ve changed the definition of deportations. They’ve played some games with it. But they’re at least trying to convince the American people, we’re not encouraging illegal immigration, the massive and systematic violation of U.S. federal lay when it comes to our southern federal border. I don’t even see how the Biden administration can pretend at this point. So where does this go?

MORGAN: Yeah. This is a good question. Look, I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ve served under six administrations, both Republican and Democrat. So I can draw no other conclusion than that they see a perceived political benefit, why they’re doing it. Why would they continue it? They’re doubling, tripling down, on encouraging, incentivizing illegal immigration. And here’s the message that they’re intensely hiding from the American people: As illegal immigration skyrockets up to unprecedented levels we have. our ability effectively to secure our border goes down.

Look, it’s common sense. Border patrol agents are pulled off their national security agents — again, as I said — to be federal travel agencies hands and operates control over the cartels. They exploit that every single day. So this is about border security. I mean, drugs are pouring into this country, from the southwest corner, every single day. You guys talked about it. The leading cause of death, 18 to 45, is fentanyl. Over 100,000 of a 12-month period in this country, and where does 95% of fentanyl come from? Southwest border!

Every single day, we talked about 750,000 gotaways. Look, there are murderers and rapists and pedophiles and gang members among that 750,000, and we haven’t even talked about the national security vulnerability. Forty-two illegal aliens caught on the FBI terrorist-screening database. A couple weeks ago, a suspected terrorist was released, and the FBI thwarted a terrorist attack to kill former president Bush, and they were going to bring in additional terrorists over the open the Southwest border! How is this a right or left thing? Why is this not an American thing to secure our borders? The Biden administration is not doing it.

BUCK: You can check out the latest on the border at TheBidenBorderCrisis.com. Mark Morgan, appreciate you being with us, sir.

MORGAN: Gents, thanks for having me.