BUCK: Welcome back to Clay and Buck.

Obama Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admits Biden’s border crisis is “not sustainable.”

“Most Americans want a secure border…we have to enforce border security.” pic.twitter.com/ZUPjeEYD3U

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 5, 2022

BUCK: That was former Obama administration DHS chief, Jeh Johnson. You’ve actually interviewed Jeh before. He is a smart and serious guy — a Democrat, but a smart and serious guy. And he understands that this is, what we were just talking about before with the border surge, a disaster. This is going to be something that I don’t even think the… I think the Democrat media apparatus is in such a state of frenzy right now, because they’re not used to losing on so many things at once.

They’re losing on the Parent Rights in Education Bill. They’re losing with inflation and trying to make it seem like Biden is doing a good job with the economy. They’re realizing that all the push for sanctions isn’t going to stop the war in Ukraine and putting the Ukraine flag on their Twitter avatar isn’t actually doing anything. They’re seeing all of this happening right now.

But the border in a lot of the polling that you’ll see is one of the top three issues for Republicans and also just a top issue for independents — Democrats a little bit less so — and it’s gonna get a whole lot worse. Clay, I spoke last night to a contact who’s a senior Border Patrol agent, been down there for almost 20 years, I think; border is the worst it’s ever been.

Just start with that headline. The worst it has ever been in memory, really, right now. More people illegally crossing over than they can handle. They think they have a capacity — get this, Clay — of 5,000 apprehensions along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. They can deal with that, process it with the resources they have right now at some level. They have about 8,000 currently.

So 5,000 is the absolute upper limit before they just the got-aways and they have no… He told me that the got-away number, which was about 400,000 the last six months, they estimate, but that it might actually be half the real number, Clay, because there are days where some sectors of the border there is not an agent at the border because they’re all doing processing and hospital visits.

You know what the number is they’re assuming it’s gonna be? So 5,000’s the absolute max. They’re already at 8,000 a day. They think when Title 42 goes away, 18,000 apprehensions a day is what they’re estimating they’re gonna face.

CLAY: And that might be low because, Buck, what I don’t think is being factored in in any kind of intelligent analysis is, one — to the point of that former Obama official — they’re making this choice in May when the weather is still not hot enough where people are terrified of being lost in that border nether region because it’s just so wildly hot. But already there is massive spread of… This is basically being seen as Joe Biden is opening the borders.

Everybody who wants to come all over Latin America… You haven’t seen caravans like we are going to see caravans ’cause you have a couple of years of covid that restricted how much people were gonna try to cross the border relatively speaking, and now you’ve got this brand-new policy in place, and said to be in place at the end of May. And there are a couple of things that I think are significant on top of that.

We have really competitive, fearful Democratic senators in Arizona, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Nevada that have already come out and said, “Hey,” basically, “We don’t agree with the Biden administration’s plan here to end Title 42.” And what I would just keep pointing out associated with this, Buck, is think about what the Biden administration is arguing to the American public right now.

They are saying simultaneously it’s not safe for you to get on an airplane and not be wearing a mask because covid hasn’t gone away. You gotta walk through the airport wearing a mask. Every time you get on an airplane you gotta have it on, flight attendants are gonna monitor this. It’s not safe; covid is not over. Simultaneously they are saying, “Covid is such an insignificant issue now that we can open the border and end covid protection related issues on the border.”

Well, hold on. Which is it? If American citizens can’t safely fly on airplanes without wear masks, how are you telling me that non-American citizens can safely cross the border without covid protocols needing to be in place? If anything, Buck, you would think our covid protocols would be more strict on non-American citizens than they would actually be on American citizens. We’re seeing the opposite of that. Kids, as we talked about yesterday, ages 2 to 5 in New York City are being forced to wear masks and we’re simultaneously opening the border.

BUCK: And it’s about to get worse. This is the part of it that everyone needs to get ready for and that’s what Jeh Johnson is saying. He was Obama’s DHS guy, but like I said, there are lunatic leftist Democrats and Democrats who are serious people. I think they’re wrong about some things but they’re serious people.

And they see the reality of what is happening right now in the country and the reality of what is facing their party going into the midterms. He is trying to warn them from inside the Democrat tent, “Hey, you guys, you really have to get a handle on this ’cause this is gonna get completely out of control.” So here’s the problem. They can’t get it under control because the Democrat base, the left-wing 20 to 30% of Democrats who believe in the…

You know, they’re all outraged about the “don’t say gay” bill and they think Lia Thomas is the best swimmer and they think we should have an open border and money grows on trees and there’s a whole lot of things. Cancel student debt. I see they’re calling for that now, too. The far-left progressive base will revolt if they do border security measures at the southern border.

So here’s what they’re gonna do. Border Patrol already knows this ’cause there’s no plan that they’re being involved in, which would mean catching people who are coming in illegally and turning them back expeditiously quickly. What’s gonna happen, Clay? They’re going to make the process for intake dramatically streamlined for illegals. They’re gonna move —

CLAY: Which is just going to encourage more illegals to come, right?

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: Because they’re going to… They’re already saying… We saw this right after Biden was elected. There were people showing up saying, “We know Joe Biden wants us to come.” They showed up, Buck, in Joe Biden T-shirts because that was what spread. Whether it’s a hundred percent accurate or not, that’s what spreads all throughout these networks, Mexico all the way down to Latin America. That’s what motivates these caravans. And when they show up and they are allowed to enter with relatively minimal disruption, that’s going to further fuel the idea you need to come now, the American border is open.

BUCK: This is exactly the market conditions that we started out with that Jeh Johnson the sound bite. The market conditions of illegal immigration right now, so to speak, are they are very aware of this and think about this. People have to pay thousands of dollars, which is a lot of money to everybody, it’s certainly a lot of money for, Central Americans who are trying to come in illegally and places, people from elsewhere in Latin America and around the world.

They want to get into the country. A lot of the people that are being turned away including under Title 42 authority, Clay, they’re already basically there. They’re either — there are about 30% — now, this is for the McAllen sector so sort of eastern Del Rio part of the border. I saw those stats. About 30% are actually Mexican; 70% are other-than Mexican. Think about a Mexican being turned away from illegal crossing is that then they just give it another shot the next week.

CLAY: Right. They don’t have very far to go.

BUCK: It doesn’t really matter, right? The people that are coming in and that are gaming system successfully a lot of the time there are — and these are all illegal entries — Nicaraguans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Cubans. They all have temporary protected status which does not subject them to Title 42. They actually have a federal end run in the law on that. So here’s what’s gonna happen.

To the point you made about how they’re encouraging it, the Biden administration is encouraging a massive flood of illegality and the resources they’re going to deploy to the border will be meant to hide it from the public. Bring them into the country, bring them into the U.S. interior and then distribute them elsewhere in the country as fast as possible ’cause what they don’t want, Clay, is what we saw with the, what, 15,000 Haitians all gathered together in one spot.

CLAY: The Del Rio shot.

BUCK: Lawlessness was a problem for them.

CLAY: That’s why I’m encouraging Fox News to replace the covid tracker that everybody had forever, put in the corner the illegal immigration tracker. Because if you started seeing, like your point, 10,000 people, 15,000, 18,000 people a day crossing into this country — if you could get those numbers — I think it would be eye opening to a huge portion of the American population.

BUCK: And Border Patrol is just admitting that essentially, if they get to that number, that many people, this is a manpower issue, right? You know, if they get to that number, Clay, they’re gonna be standing there saying, “Here you go, here’s a notice to appear, here’s a notice to appear.” You’re essentially gonna put all the illegal entrants, all the legal migrants on the honor system and you’re not gonna do any vetting really or anything, ’cause they won’t have the time.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: So this is an actual flood at the border that will overwhelm the system. The Biden administration knows it’s coming and they’re not gonna stop it. But the American people can stop the Biden Democrats if they wake up to what’s going on here.