Overwhelmed Agents at the Border: ‘This Administration Doesn’t Care’

Del Rio, Texas — I’m currently sitting next to a group of Texas National Guardsmen, watching as Border Patrol drives away with a van full of asylum seekers. There was one family unit, composed of a mother, father, and young son and two single men. All of them flew to Mexico from Colombia and made the trek — by foot, bus, and car, they told me — to the Rio Grande near Del Rio. The family unit had their passports and papers. The two men had nothing, not even a backpack.

Referring to the two men, a Border Patrol officer told me: “These guys are all ‘cleaned up,’ they don’t have their documents . . . it’s a huge red flag. That means the cartel, bad guys, cleaned them up.”

He joked and said I should ask the two men why they don’t have their documents: “Maybe they’ll talk to you, they don’t talk to us.”

As he loaded the two groups into the van he turned to me and said that after 25 years as an agent, “this is the worst I’ve ever seen it . . . this administration doesn’t care.”

“Even Obama had some idea that there’s a law-enforcement element to this, but these people just don’t care at all.”

During my week in Del Rio, Border Patrol has been especially tight-lipped. I’ve been told they’re on a gag order of sorts. But I’ve also been told by other law-enforcement agents and residents that Border Patrol is both overwhelmed and extremely frustrated by the situation.

Yesterday, a Texas Trooper told me that Border Patrol agents “want to work.” At the moment, they’re not doing their normal job: “Their upper management doesn’t want them to . . . They got them changing diapers.”

The border is being flooded with asylum seekers hoping to make the most of Biden’s “open-door” policy. This means that Border Patrol is tied up with processing thousands of daily asylum claims. Meanwhile, the rest of the border remains understaffed and porous, allowing a more criminal contingency to sneak and smuggle into the country. This is leading to higher rates of crime and smuggling in Texas border towns. Uvalde, which is just over 60 miles from the border, experiences many “bailouts,” or high-speed chases of smuggler vehicles. As a result, Uvalde schools were locked down 48 times just last year. Ranchers are also suffering, with smugglers’ groups damaging their fencing, breaking water lines, leaving trash on their land, and stealing from their homes.

With the Biden administration planning to lift Title 42 in May, law enforcement is hunkering down for what I’ve been told will be a “disaster.” Already, Border Patrol deals with over 7,000 encounters a day. The Department of Homeland Security is preparing for scenarios of up to 18,000. Democrats and Republicans alike have criticized the president for his lack of a plan for a post–Title 42 border.

As the Border Patrol officer closed the doors to his van, I asked if the Biden administration had a plan for after May. He laughed and said: “Not that they’ve told us.”