The former chief of the U.S. Border Patrol said during an interview on Sunday that he did not have a single conversation with either President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris during his two years in office.
Raul Ortiz, who served as Border Patrol Chief from 2021 to 2023, sat for an interview with 60 Minutes and said that he “never had one conversation with the president or the vice president.”
“I was the chief of the Border Patrol; I commanded 21,000 people. That’s a problem,” he said, addressing the lack of communication with federal authorities.
Ortiz also criticized the Biden administration for the message being conveyed to unlawful migrants attempting to enter the U.S., saying that the government has “most definitely” sent mixed signals to those attempting to cross.
“We need to make sure that Central America, South America, Mexico, that those regions understand that if you pay a smuggler and you cross in between the ports of entry and you do not have a legitimate claim to some sort of asylum benefit, you’re gonna be sent back,” he explained, per the New York Post.
Since Biden became president in 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported 7,332,800 encounters with unlawful migrants along the southern border.
Similarly, the House Homeland Security Committee has reported that more than 1.7 million “got-aways” have entered the country since FY 2021.
This ongoing crisis has led Texas officials to take multiple steps to reduce the number of unlawful crossings, but the state has become wrapped up in lawsuits with the federal government over some of these initiatives.
Currently, the state is involved in lawsuits regarding a new state bill making unlawful entry a crime, a floating barrier in the Rio Grande, and concertina wire placed along the border to deter crossings.
In the most recent development in these cases, a federal appeals court ruled that the border security bill can be enacted pending the federal government’s appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Ortiz addressed the ongoing legal battles between the federal government and the Lone Star State, saying they must find a way to work together because the agents working the border “have become pawns in this political game between the two sides.”
“The cartels, the criminal organizations, that’s who’s winning in all of this,” he explained during the 60 Minutes interview. “They’re sitting back reaping all the benefits while they watch the state of Texas and Washington D.C. go at it.”
