Bombshell report reveals U.S. officials bussed migrants AWAY from southern border to hide chaos
US officials turned away migrants and increased staffing during VIP visits to mask the chaos at the Southwestern border, a bombshell report claims.
The revelations came in a damning investigation into the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) handling of the migration crisis.
They also follow repeated calls by Republicans to renew a Trump-era Covid dictate that would allow the US to more easily boot illegal immigrants.
The report from a top government watchdog has called on more than 9,000 border officials to paint a bleak picture of how authorities are handling it.
The bombshell probe said U.S. border agencies can’t handle the wave of migrants ahead of the repeal of Title 42 on May 11.
The report found that morale is low among US border agents who are struggling to cope with the surge in numbers.
The government’s top supervisory watchdog warned many staff will quit or retire unless changes are made quickly
They told the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that a VIP visit to border posts would see bosses orchestrating a cover.
Top management “would transport migrants out of the facility before a visit and return them after the visit,” the report said.
A source said he was asked to weed out potential asylum seekers “and make this place fit and proper for coding.”
Border agents, speaking unofficially, also claimed senior managers would ‘demand’ more staff at work, give the impression that they are adequately staffed.
They said visitors “don’t get to see what conditions are really like” in a 65-page diatribe from OIG investigators about how DHS failed its employees.
The scathing assessment by border and immigration officials marks yet another border humiliation for Joe Biden.
The president has been repeatedly criticized by Republicans for his removal of Donald Trump’s border wall two years ago.
The OIG also said border troops are struggling to cope with the increased number of migrants sneaking into the country due to the low workforce.
The report said the situation is “unsustainable” in the fight against illegal crossings across the southwestern border.
It also warned that many officers could retire or take early retirement unless working conditions improve.
βThe workforce at the border has not grown at the same rate as the flow of migrants and traffic into the country,β officials wrote.
Researchers said there were just 16,654 border agents last year, levels that have hardly changed in three years, with 180,000 illegal border crossings per month.
The report calls these crossings “migrant encounters,” US government jargon for when asylum seekers enter illegally but are arrested or immediately expelled.
Biden irked Republicans when he scrapped his predecessor’s key anti-immigration policies on his first day in office
The Department of Homeland Security estimates 13,000 migrants could try to cross the US southwestern border once Covid emergency laws expire
But the findings said staff have been so overworked that it has led to less police enforcement at the border.
Personnel for the US border agencies are the sole responsibility of the Commander in Chief who can use executive orders to ramp up numbers.
The report said hiring has already reached “authorized levels,” but it called on the Biden administration to consider whether they were adequate.
But the Department of Homeland Security rejected the idea of ββa review, saying there was “no money” available for it.
OIG researchers, who interviewed more than 9,000 border and immigration officials, said this meant asylum seekers could more easily escape to the US.
They said there were more than 600,000 “breakaways” caught by border cameras or sensor technology last year, up from 389,000 in 2021.
They are asylum seekers who eventually escaped capture or were able to enter the US freely because there’s “no agents are available to respond.β
Officials also found that just 1,414 deportation officers on the southwestern U.S. border struggled to handle 18 cases per officer.
An estimated 13,000 people could try to make the crossing each day following the expiration of Title 42, the emergency anti-immigration laws used during the coronavirus pandemic.
The powers, taken from a nearly 80-year-old federal public health law, allowed both Donald Trump and Joe Biden to kick out migrants without hearing their cases.
It ends on May 11 because the current president has decided to end the coronavirus emergency.
Thousands of people have already gathered at the US-Mexico border hoping to make the crossing.
But a senior Biden administration official blamed Republicans in Congress for “blocking funds and reforms” to fix the US immigration system.
The White House has deployed an additional 1,500 troops to join the already 2,500 already stationed at the US-Mexico border.
House Republicans are pushing a MAGA agenda of chaos and passivity. They are playing politics when they should join the president in pursuing real solutions,” the source said.
At least 2.3 million migrants tried to enter the United States illegally through the Mexican border last year, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
That’s more than 1.7 million people in 2021 and just over 450,000 the year before, when much of the world went into lockdown during the pandemic