Border Patrol predicts more than one million migrant encounters in 2021

A deputy border chief in Texas is making an eye-opening prediction about the surge of migrants flooding the southern border. Texas Deputy Border Chief Raul Ortiz fully expects the number of encounters with migrants will exceed one million. He gave his prediction to reporters as he provided a tour of a migrant shelter in Donna, Texas.

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The tour provided by Ortiz was filmed and televised on cable news channels. The facility is overcrowded, the same as all the other facilities that are sheltering migrants detained at the border. We know from reports that 100,000 migrants were detained in February, so a prediction of one million migrants by the end of the year sounds like a reasonable guess. There is no end in sight to the flood of migrants at the border and the Biden administration seems incapable of handling what has happened since Open Borders Joe extended a warm welcome to those attempting to illegally cross the border. He did so with executive actions during his very first day in office.

There are currently more than 5,000 unaccompanied children in Customs and Border Protection custody and more than 11,000 in Health and Human Services custody.

Some of those minors were seen by reporters on Tuesday, when press was allowed in to view a migrant facility in Donna, Texas, which is at 1700 percent capacity — with more than 3,400 children in custody.

Eight “pods” were seen — each containing 500-600 migrants. Guidelines say there should only be 32 migrants in each pod. Donna’s temporary facility is 140,000 square feet.

Senator Cruz, by the way, is taking credit for the press being allowed limited access to facilities now. I’m ok with that. He has gotten the attention of the press with frequent statements on illegal immigration, calling on Biden to act, and he battled a Biden administration official at a facility last week as she tried to block video coverage of a visit by lawmakers. A press release from his office titled “President Biden Finally Listens To Sen. Cruz” goes through a timeline chronicling the time of an initial request for press access from Cruz until Biden allowed a pool camera access to the Donna facility. There were plenty of other lawmakers, including some Democrats, that made demands for transparency, too.

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March 16: Sens. Cruz and Cornyn announced their CODEL trip to the southern border – which ended up totaling 19 U.S. Senators – to tour federal facilities and meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local stakeholders.
March 22: Sen. Cruz demanded President Biden allow free and fair reporting on the humanitarian, national security, and public health crises at the southern border. President Biden refused despite the White House claims that they were committed to transparency.
March 24: Sen. Cruz and his colleagues held a press conference before leaving for their CODEL demanding President Biden end his ridiculous and hypocritical media blackout.
March 26: Sen. Cruz and his Senate colleagues took and released photographs and video from inside the Donna facility, offering the American people a glimpse of the heartbreaking reality of this crisis. This footage dominated television news coverage of the crisis this weekend, turning up the pressure on President Biden.
March 27: Sen. Cruz sent a second letter to President Biden demanding press access in the aftermath of his visit to the Donna facility and ahead of his trip to the Kay Baily Hutchinson Convention Center, where thousands of immigrant boys are being held.
March 29: President Biden refused press access and continued his blackout for Sen. Cruz’s visit to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.
March 30: After relentless pressure from Sen. Cruz and wall-to-wall news coverage of the photos and videos that emerged from the CODEL, President Biden allowed news media inside the Donna Customs and Border Protection facility for the first time, marking a tremendous victory for transparency and all those deeply concerned about the impacts of this worsening crisis.

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Remember the delays and denials by the Biden administration the next time they crow about being the most transparent administration ever. It’s malarkey. Biden said the quiet part out loud during his first press conference when he admitted that the press won’t be allowed in facilities until they are camera-ready.

Families are being released without being given a date to show up before an immigration judge. They aren’t even being given paper documents. The system has become a farce. Adults know that if they show up with a child, they will be allowed to stay.

Many of the migrants detained on the border are unaccompanied minors. They deliberately seek to be detained by border patrol agents. The minors know they will be taken in and cared for until other arrangements can be made for them. Biden’s administration is scrambling to open more shelters for them. A new facility was opened in San Antonio this week to house 2,100 unaccompanied minors. It’s not really a new facility, it’s the Freeman Expo Center, now called the Freeman Expo Center Emergency Intake Site (EIS). The first 500 minors were received Monday. Green Army cots awaited them.

Officials said the center will provide shelter for 13 to 17 year-old-males, providing up to 2,100 beds inside and 300 medical beds outside.

The children will receive clothing, toiletries, food and a medical screening.

Less than 24 hours later, politicians (all Democrats) toured the facility – U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Becky Clay-Flores, and San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg.

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“This may not be the Marriott Resort, but it’s clean, it’s air-conditioned, it’s climate-controlled and it’s regulated in a very good way that we separate COVID patients away from the young boys who do not have it,” Wolff said at a news conference after the tour.

Wolff said the boys, who he called “good, good kids,” were happy to see the politicians.

“I must tell you, when we talked with them, they were so excited that we would show that kind of care to them, and they just burst into applause,” Wolff said.

Of course, they applauded them. These minors have hit the jackpot. They are in the United States and will now be cared for after following instructions from their parents, coyotes, or drug cartels and crossing the border with the goal of being picked up. Mission accomplished. Now it is up to American taxpayers to foot the bill. The county commissioner taking the tour used a Democrat talking point – it’s a humanitarian issue, not a political one. Democrats and Republicans see that differently, though. Republicans don’t think it is humane to hold migrants in overcrowded facilities. The agreements in place when Biden came into office were working to ease surges to the border from Mexico and Central America.

Clay-Flores said the decision by the county to house the children is a “humanitarian issue, it’s not a political issue. It’s about supporting our children. Because if your child was in this situation, you too would want elected officials to open up and welcome their doors to them.”

She said the boys were excited to get a new pair of jeans and tennis shoes and welcomes the opportunity to play soccer in some fields prepared for them.

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They aren’t “our children”. She knows that. She just wants to play on your heartstrings to justify an open border and some really bad policy decisions from Status Quo Joe.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | December 16, 2024
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