Already in the first five months of this fiscal year, the United States Border Patrol has arrested 18 from Afghanistan…79 from Pakistan and 619 from the Peoples Republic of China,” the union chief said.
“Those numbers should alarm everyone and we are seeing a similar trend from other key countries like Albania, Bangladesh and Brazil,” he continued. Judd also pointed to what he said is evidence that drug cartels “are winning.”
He said that during a visit to a station in the Del Rio Border Patrol sector in south Texas, resource-strapped agents were only able to arrest 47 percent of known border-crossers.
He said that out of 157 known entries that week, 74 were arrested, 54 evaded arrest and entered the U.S., 17 evaded arrest and returned to Mexico, and 12 were still unaccounted for. “That’s a 47 percent arrest rate,” said Judd.
“That’s not very good.” He also highlighted the gaps in border security by citing an email he received on Tuesday from a Border Patrol agent in Arizona pointing to a 10-mile stretch of the border that was unmanned for two days.
“Criminal cartels were able to go to the fence, cut a hole in the fence, drive two vehicles through that hole and escape. They were able then to put the fence back up and try to hide the cuts that were made,” Judd said.
“The scariest part of those vehicles entering the United States is we don’t know what was in those vehicles,” he explained.
And of the border-crossers who have not been apprehended, Judd said “we don’t know where they were from.”
Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis, who chairs the national security subcommittee, also asked Judd whether CBP “might be fudging” its apprehension data.
“Not only have I heard similar reports, I’ve actually seen it,” Judd said, recalling a previous stint as an intelligence officer working at a station on the southern border.
He said he received a note from a high-ranking watch commander ordering him to remove numbers from a “got-away” report.