Former senior-ranking U.S. Border Patrol official Aaron Heitke alleged in testimony given before House lawmakers that the Biden-Harris administration purposely covered up the crisis at the southern border as millions of migrants illegally entered the United States.
Heitke, the chief patrol agent of the San Diego , California region who retired last summer, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the Biden administration forbid him from speaking with the media on certain implications of the illegal immigration crisis.
"Each time we asked for help in dealing with a new issue, it fell on deaf ears. At times in San Diego, we had 2,000 or more aliens sitting in between the fences asking to turn themselves in," said Heitke.
"I was told to move them out of the sight of the media," Heitke said.
Heitke listed several instances in which he believed the Biden-Harris administration purposely tried to conceal the severity of the situation from the public.
When the Biden administration took office in January 2021 amid the pandemic, it halted deportations and ended an agreement that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico rather than be released into the United States.
As more illegal immigrants began crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021, Heitke said fewer illegal immigrants were being returned to their home country.
"For the first time in my 25 years in under five different administrations, whether through neglect or on purpose, I saw a large-scale lapse in our ability to return people to their country of origin," said Heitke. "The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released."
Immigration detention was less feasible because of cuts the Biden-Harris administration has made to immigration detention space through the years, allowing for fewer migrants to be housed.
"I had to release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them. To quiet the problem, two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas. These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over to Texas," said Heitke, who added that each flight cost the government $150,000.
"This was the administration's way to try and quiet the border-wide crisis," said Heitke.
Illegal immigrants who entered the country under President Joe Biden have overwhelmingly been released into the country. At last count earlier this summer, federal data indicated that more than 5.3 million illegal immigrants intercepted at the southern border had been allowed to remain in the U.S. of the more than 9 million apprehended at that time.
Under no former administration, even two-term presidents, had this many millions of people been apprehended. Heitke alleged that word got out from migrants who were released, prompting more people to come through in 2022 and 2023.
The Biden-Harris administration stopped flying migrants from California to Texas as Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) pushed back and blamed the Biden administration for not doing more to deter would-be illegal immigrants from coming to the country.
Heitke said he was inundated with calls from the California governor's office, mayors in the region, and hospital administrators who asked him why migrants were being released en masse directly onto the street now that the flights to Texas had silently been halted.
"Border Patrol saw groups of hundreds and thousands coming into the United States and turning themselves in. These numbers pulled 80, 90, sometimes 100% of the agents on duty away from the border," Heitke said. "Border Patrol zones across Texas , Arizona, and California had no agent presence for weeks and months at a time. Those who did not want to be caught could simply walk in."
In San Diego, Heitke said his agents were intercepting migrants from unusual countries that the U.S. government formally labels as "Special Interest Aliens," given their association to a nation with a terrorism or national security concern.
During the Trump administration , San Diego agents apprehended 10 to 15 Special Interest Aliens per year. That figure imploded to more than 100 in 2022 and higher in 2023, Heitke testified.
"At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase on SIAs or mention any of the arrests," said Heitke. "The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border."
Heitke said the Biden-Harris administration had recently pressured Mexico to stop more migrants from making it to the U.S., but questioned why the pressure campaign had only been unleashed now, not years ago.
Heitke gave the Washington Examiner a personal tour by land and sea of the Southern California region in 2020, where he explained that the addition of dozens of miles of border wall that was funded during the Obama and Trump administrations had stopped illegal immigration and pushed smugglers to move migrants and drugs by boat and through underground tunnels.
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In addition, human smugglers have also moved people over the land border by going farther away from the coast, up into the mountains, where the wall ends.
Border Patrol's overseeing agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on Heitke's testimony.
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