Mark Morgan’s Message for Republicans on the Border

CLAY: We’re joined now by Mark Morgan, former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. We’re down in Texas this week. There’s been a ton of attention on the decision of Governor Greg Abbott to bus migrants illegally entering into the country to New York, to D.C. and to Chicago, and the resulting inability of those cities to handle what is a relatively small migrant influx.

And so, we want to make sure we talked about the situation on the border before we left Texas. Mark Morgan, I know it’s bad. I probably know that you’re going to say it’s worse than it’s ever been. What is going to happen as we go forward throughout the fall and into the winter and prepare for 2023 based on what you’re seeing right now?

MORGAN: Look, you’re right. You took the words out of my mouth. And I’d go back to 2019, 2020 when the campaign was really gearing up. And as Biden was saying, going to do open the border, And I remember, I was still the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. And I said, if he did, he’s going to turn our southwest border into a catastrophic crisis.

Even then I did not anticipate that it would be as bad as it is. And that’s saying a lot. And right now, look, the first 19 months, 5 million illegal aliens have been apprehended at our southwest border in 19 months — 5 million. Four million have been apprehended and a million have gotten away.

And there’s no end in sight, even in the summer when usually the numbers will start to go down because of the heat, et cetera. Nope, it hasn’t. Every single norm has been blown out of the water and right now there’s no end in sight.

BUCK: What can you tell us, Mark, about what’s going on with interior enforcement as well? We often talk about — you just gave that number, which everyone needs to know — 5 million people have come into America illegally on Biden’s watch.

It looks like the — for the fiscal year which ends this September 30th, just in a few weeks — it will be around 2 million arrests alone at the Southern border. That doesn’t include got-aways. The people coming into the country illegally, do we have some sense of what percentage of them are able to stay? Is Biden doing deportations at the lowest level we’ve seen in decades? What do you know about it?

MORGAN: That’s another good question, both of those, one of the got-aways and the releases. Let’s look at this. So far, this fiscal year, if you take all encounters, not just Border Patrol, it’s important that we also take into consideration those encountering at the ports of entry, that otherwise would be inadmissible and not allowed in the country are being allowed into the country.

If you take all those encounters, this fiscal year so far, we’re already about 2.4 million total encounters, and again under his administration, a million got-aways. If you take a look at that, on average, and now it’s even getting higher, they’re releasing into the United States more than half of those that they’re actually encountering.

If you think about that, by the end of this fiscal year, let’s say it’s around 2.5 million, they’ve intentionally released over one and a half, close to 1.2, one and a half million illegal aliens, plus the 1 million got-aways. So, just this fiscal year alone you’re looking at anywhere between 2.2 to 2.5 million illegal aliens have been released or gotten away are now in the United States.

CLAY: Are you surprised how quickly Washington, DC, New York City and Chicago, particularly their mayors who have been arguing in favor of a not-very-aggressive immigration policy — they’ve been trying to argue that we’re sanctuary cities, how few actual numbers of illegal immigrants being bused to their city has basically caused their entire apparatus to collapse?

MORGAN: I am, I’m completely surprised. From the beginning, when Governor Abbott started doing this, a lot of people called it a political stunt, it was ridiculous. I was not one of them. I said, look, this is important because at a minimum what it’s going to do is keep what’s happening at our border in discussion.

And that’s exactly what’s happened. What I did anticipate is these mayors in Chicago, New York, D.C. to lose their minds. It was so hypocritical here. I know we’ve talked about this, but think about it. They’re all sanctuary cities. In fact, New York City has some of the most prolific sanctuary city laws in the country.

That acts as a beacon to the entire world to illegally enter and make their way to New York City. But they don’t say anything about that. In addition to that, since day one, the Biden administration has been sending illegal aliens to New York City, to D.C. and to Chicago every day in the middle of the night for the past 19 months.

They don’t say anything about that. It’s not until Abbott does this in broad daylight and advertises it. Now all of a sudden, it’s a catastrophic crisis, call in the National Guard and they blame Abbott instead of blaming President Biden for the open borders. It’s hypocrisy in politics.

CLAY: We’re speaking to Mark Morgan. He was acting commissioner for Customs and Border Protection. Mark, the midterms are coming up. What do you think people should know, not just along the border, but across the country, about the decisions that the Biden administration and the Biden Democrats have made that have led to the situation that we’re talking about?

Five million people coming into the country illegally. Unprecedented amount of Fentanyl and other narcotics that are poisoning people in record numbers coming across the Southern border. What are the specific policy decisions that the Biden White House and many Democrats have gone along with that have brought things to this point?

MORGAN: I’ll add to that, a lot of Republicans have remained in the shadows as well.

BUCK: Absolutely true, by the way, go ahead.

MORGAN: And let’s not forget, under President Trump, he had the White House, the House and the Senate for two years, and the Republicans failed to pass a single piece of meaningful legislation that would have stopped about 85 percent of what was going on. It’s very important for the voters to keep that in mind, and let’s not forget that.

And what you described I couldn’t agree more with you. This is about policy and law. Look, nothing changed as far as resources and technology and no, quote, root causes change. The only thing that changed was policy. And a couple of significant ones, we talked about before, Remain in Mexico.

That was a policy. It was significant because it got at the root cause that took away the incentive for families to illegally enter because they were released in the United States, no questions asked. Remain in Mexico stopped that catch-and-release immediately. What did we see? We predicted it. We called it. We saw an 85 percent reduction in illegal immigration.

We also have unprecedented cooperation with Mexico. We signed asylum cooperation agreements with all three northern triangle countries. This administration got rid of all that. You mentioned the interior enforcement. Under Secretary Mayorkas’ policy has basically dismantled ICE. He’s absolutely made it impossible for (indiscernible) their job with respect to interior enforcement, as our numbers are skyrocketed, unprecedented numbers, the most we’ve seen in our lifetime.

ICE has also had the fewest deportations. They’ve actually released the first year 14,000 criminal aliens back into the country. So, what it’s going to take, it’s going to take Republicans to get in there, to have the political courage, strength and will to do the right thing, but I’ve got to be honest, gentlemen, I’m not sure they have it.

CLAY: What’s the impact going to be, in your mind? We’re talking to Mark Morgan, Former Acting Commissioner Customs Border Protection, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. We talked about the fact D.C., New York and Chicago can’t handle the limited influx that they’re seeing of these migrants being bussed there by Greg Abbott.

Certainly, down on the border people are furious over the power and strength and might of the cartels and how much money they’re making off this. How much more powerful has this border policy made the cartels, and how much money are they making off of all the illegal immigration?

MORGAN: So, that’s a good question. And really, we can’t even understand it. I can tell you, their power, strength and influence has exponentially increased. Look, you don’t have to be a border security expert, you just have to be honest, set your politics aside and just look at the truth.

Look, when you have exponentially increased one of their most profitable criminal schemes, and that is human smuggling by four, 500 percent, you’re putting billions of dollars back in the pockets of these cartels. This is a multibillion-dollar industry annually for the cartels, and that’s just the smuggling.

And then let’s go ahead and let’s talk about the drugs. Look, when they make more money from the smuggling, they put it into their drug operations. I mean, look, I’ve said a long time ago, the cartels, they could go to Harvard and teach a business class in business resiliency, flexibility; they are absolutely incredible.

And they’ve just gotten stronger. Their influence has increased and their ability to continue to invade this country with a host of threats continue. You mentioned drugs. I mean, this is unbelievable. I don’t understand why this is a right or left thing.

We know 107,000 Americans died from drug overdose in ’22. The leading cause of death between 18- and 45-year-olds is fentanyl. And we know that 95 percent of fentanyl comes from our southwest border. This is ridiculous. I don’t understand why we’re not securing the borders and how this became a political issue.

BUCK: Some people want an open border, as you know, Mark, but they don’t say it out loud. Thanks for being with us Mark Morgan, appreciate you.

MORGAN: You bet, thanks, gentlemen.