Amid partisan squabbling over Vice President Kamala Harris’s unofficial moniker of ”border czar” on the national political stage, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) toured the U.S.–Mexico border July 25 in San Diego County to draw attention to the border crisis.
“We have an absolute catastrophe on the border, and it was engineered by the Biden-Harris administration,” Mr. Johnson said at a press conference after a whirlwind tour to the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Imperial Beach and a known illegal crossing site also in San Ysidro, south of San Diego.
A few illegal immigrants who had crossed over the primary border wall and were waiting for Border Patrol agents to bus them to a processing facility watched as Mr. Johnson delivered his remarks.
The San Diego area, the lawmaker said, is the “epicenter” for illegal immigration nationwide.
“It’s gotten so bad here, in fact, with the volume that are coming across here that the Biden-Harris administration is now flying illegal aliens from California to Texas for processing, as if Texas didn’t already have enough problems of its own,” Mr. Johnson said.
With news of “yet another” caravan of would-be illegal immigrants headed to the southern border, Mr. Johnson said, “of course, they want to come in before the election because they believe that there may be a good chance that if President Trump wins … this won’t be tolerated any longer.”
A few weeks ago, the House passed the SAVE Act, which Mr. Johnson said is “common sense” legislation that would simply require states to require proof of citizenship before someone can register to vote.
“The problem is right now that under existing federal law, the states are prohibited from confirming or even requesting proof of citizenship,” he said.
When individuals claiming asylum arrive in communities across the United States, Mr. Johnson said “administration officials are encouraging them to go to their local welfare office” to sign up for public benefits.
“Well, here’s the problem,” he said. “Because of the motor voter registration laws in the early 1990s, if someone goes to the local office to sign up for public benefits, they’re also handed a short form that says, ‘Do you want to register to vote?’”
All illegal immigrants have to do to participate in elections is “check a little box” claiming they’re U.S. citizens and that they wish to register to vote, Mr. Johnson said.
“Only Americans should decide American elections, pure and simple,” he said. “All across the country. The American people are insisting upon that, but Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress simply don’t care and the border czar and San Francisco radical Kamala Harris bears the responsibility for this disaster.”
Migrants who cross the border illegally are processed by Border Patrol agents and turned over to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) before they’re “shipped around the country by planes, trains, and automobiles funded by the American taxpayers,” Mr. Johnson said.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who represents San Diego in his district, said “open-border policies have hurt San Diego,” which was once but is no longer the safest large city in America.
“We are having a problem and crime and homelessness much of it caused by uncontrolled borders,” Mr. Issa said at the press conference.
Jon Anfinsen, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council union, said at the press conference that President Biden’s executive order is being touted as a success because it shows the number of illegal immigrant encounters has decreased.
“But that’s not the whole story,” Mr. Anfinsen said.
Since the order was issued, fewer migrants are being encountered by Border Patrol because instead of crossing illegally, asylum seekers are now primarily showing up at ports of entry and airports, so much so that customs officers in June encountered more asylum seekers than the Border Patrol did,” Mr. Anfinsen said during the press conference.
“This isn’t just a Border Patrol issue; Now it’s all of Customs and Border Protection,” he said.
Fewer asylum seekers crossing between the ports of entry allow some Border Patrol agents to get back in the field instead of being stuck indoors processing, Mr. Anfinsen said.
Border Patrol agents are in a precarious position “stuck between their desire to do the job that they were trained to do, and the White House’s policies that prevent them from doing that job.” he said.
“While I’m glad that some agents are back in the field actually doing their job, far too many are still handcuffed by the White House’s policies,” he said.
There are still hundreds of known gotaways disappearing into the country every day, and since the executive order went into effect, “we’re seeing an average of about 2,500 gotaways every week,” he said.
Manny Bayon, a Border Patrol union spokesman in San Diego, told The Epoch Times there is a high percentage of Chinese nationals entering the country compared to other countries.
As of July 25, there were 5,285 illegal immigrants in Border Patrol custody, including 1,253 in the San Diego area alone.
Of those in San Diego, 243 are from China, 185 from Colombia, 140 from Mexico, 79 from Egypt, 64 from Jordan, and fewer than 40 each from El Salvador, Guatemala, India, India, Georgia, Turkey, Brazil, and Iran, according to Border Patrol sources who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
On his tour, which lasted about an hour and was closed to news media preceding the press conference, Mr. Johnson saw a demonstration of a drug detection dog searching vehicles for narcotics and an X-ray machine that also scans vehicles for illicit drugs, Mr. Bayon said.
The Speaker of the House was “amazed at the technology” and “overwhelmed” at the San Ysidro Port of Entry between San Diego and Tijuana—the busiest border crossing in the world—by the number of vehicles coming into the United States from Mexico, especially knowing that any one of them could potentially be carrying fentanyl and other narcotics, Mr. Bayon said.
Mr. Johnson was also taken to a spot overlooking the ocean to talk with Border Patrol agents about maritime drug smuggling and illegal immigrants landing on California beaches by boat, he said.
He was also shown where sewage from Tijuana is polluting Imperial Beach and other areas along the Tijuana River in San Diego and witnessed the stench, Mr. Bayon said.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “Not only is it affecting people who live close to the border in Imperial Beach, but it’s also affecting the Pacific Ocean.”
The Border Patrol union is also concerned about Ms. Harris ascending to the presidency because of her track record, he said.
“She has done nothing to secure the border,” Mr. Bayon said.
Network of NGOs
When asked how a Republican government would deal with the vast network of NGOs that have received grants to provide temporary shelter and transportation to illegal immigrants, Mr. Issa told The Epoch Times the number of NGOs and the amount of taxpayer money will decrease as illegal immigration decreases.“The industry that feeds off of immigrants coming to this country will go down proportionately with lowering the number. If we dropped the number from 2 million a year to 100,000 a year, we will drop it by that amount,” Mr. Issa said.
The buildup of NGOs and their lobby power really stems from the “massive” number of illegal immigrants being released into the United States, he said.
Chinese Nationals
The Department of Homeland Security announced July 2 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 116 Chinese nationals back to China in the first large-scale removal flight since 2018.When asked how the United States prevents Chinese nationals with suspicious backgrounds from entering the country, Mr. Issa told NTD, an Epoch Times sister media outlet, “it’s impossible.”
“China doesn’t cooperate with the backgrounds on these individuals. The reality is that 100 is a drop in the bucket,” he said.
Mr. Issa said that most Chinese nationals travel without visas to other countries before reaching the United States.
“People flew from China, normally to Turkey, which requires a visa. They had no visa. They then flew to Mexico which requires a visa. They had no visa,” he said.
A Trump administration, he said, would “hold those countries accountable to enforce their own laws, so that those individuals never get here.”
Border Czar
On July 25, the House passed a resolution “strongly condemning” the Biden administration and the vice president for failing to secure the border as Ms. Harris launches her campaign for the presidential nomination preceding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month. The resolution, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), passed 219–196 with six Democrats voting yes.In March 2021, President Biden tapped Ms. Harris to be “border czar,” a largely diplomatic role focused on dealing with the “root causes” of illegal migration to the United States.
This week, some political pundits have said she was never officially named “border czar.”
The vice president did not respond to a request for comment, nor did her campaign staff before publication deadline.
