Former CBP Commissioner: Biden creating 'catastrophic' post-pandemic border crisis

Warning that President Biden's executive orders on immigration are creating what will be a "catastrophic" border crisis after the COVID-19 pandemic passes, former acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Mark Morgan is urging states to take the lead in containing the fallout.

In 2019, "because of the loopholes and the broken immigration system," CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "had to release 500,000 illegal immigrants into the country," Morgan told the John Solomon Reports podcast. In 2020, by contrast, "that number for CBP is less than 1,000," he said.

Morgan fears that the number of illegal immigrants entering the country could spike to 3,500 per day under Biden, should his administration curb the authority currently being exercised by the CDC under Title 42 to suspend entries into the U.S. from countries rife with a communicable disease.

"It will be catastrophic," Morgan said. "Our system will be overwhelmed, our facilities will be maxed out. And who's going to be in the middle of that? Border Patrol. Who's going to be on the end of everybody blaming them and coming after them? It's going to be United States Border Patrol and CBP as a whole. And it's absolutely unconscionable. It's absolutely preventable."

Morgan said that under Biden the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has failed to use Title 42 authority to prevent unaccompanied minors from crossing the border.

"Open border advocates," Morgan said, "could say 'Hey, look, DHS, you have the authority to use Title 42 in the middle of a global pandemic when it comes to unaccompanied minors, but you chose not to. So if it's not an issue for the minors, then why is it an issue for adults?' They're actually handing them more fuel to go and challenge Title 42."

The Biden administration "is becoming an active participant in encouraging, incentivizing, and facilitating illegal migration," Morgan said.

"With a stroke of a pen, within two hours of taking office," he added, Biden "made our borders less secure, our country less safe, and has endangered the men and women on the frontlines of our borders protecting our nation, and he's continuing to double down on it."

The Biden administration knows that "politically, they can't get rid of ICE," Morgan continued. "But he's basically systematically taken all their enforcement authorities away."

To preempt or contain the coming border crisis, Morgan urged going to "your state legislator, your governor, your AG" to encourage them to enforce border security, citing as an example of effective state action Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's lawsuit that prevented the Biden administration from ceasing deportations.

"States are gonna have to step up and pass their own legislation to be able to address this," Morgan said. "The problem is, it's a resource issue, you know, even a state like the great state of Texas, they don't have the resources."