Border officials make desperate pleas to Biden admin as Title 42 is set to expire
Cochise County, Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels and Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez warn of a 'hurricane' of mass illegal immigration after Title 42 ends and call for action to fix the crisis.
Law enforcement officials at the southern border are sounding the alarm on the upcoming expiration of Title 42 as officers grapple with massive groups of individuals illegally crossing into the U.S.
"When Title 42 is lifted, we're going to see a mass flow of migration that we've never seen before in years historically," Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez warned on "The Faulkner Focus" Monday.
Olivarez, joined by Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels, detailed what border officials are witnessing, including rising drug smuggling and human trafficking as the border crisis is expected to worsen in the coming days.
More than a thousand migrants awaiting entry into the United States from Juarez, Mexico. (Fox News Digital / Jon Michael Raasch)
"The distraction is going to be the fact that all the focus is going to be on these mass groups coming across our borders, and it's going to leave miles and miles of borders unpatrolled where there's no enforcement action being taken," Olivarez said.
Dannels argued America continues to see a "slippery slope" as a result of the Biden administration's refusal to secure the border and said the administration continues to push a false narrative that there is no crisis.
TEXAS BORDER PATROL FACILITY OVERWHELMED WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AS TITLE 42 EXPIRATION LOOMS
"As long as we keep ignoring it, it's only going to get worse in America," he said, emphasizing the need for politicians to engage with sheriffs, mayors, governors and troopers on the crisis.
"We have to work together. Until we do that and until we recognize the problem in Washington, D.C., where Washington says, ‘Hey, we got to do something better, acknowledge it, we can do it better, we can fix this problem.’ But right now, I don't see any hope right now," Dannels said.
Border officers in Arizona seized more than 1.5 million fentanyl pills over the course of several days, authorities said Monday. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
The Biden administration is requesting $4 billion in additional funding for the border when the authority to quickly expel migrants due to the COVID-19 pandemic ends on Dec. 21. But Olivarez argues that money will not solve the problem.
"All it's going to do is processing individuals more and get them out of the country faster, it's not going to solve the problem, it's not going to solve the situation," he said.
"We need to get support to the border from the federal government that they need. And they're not getting that. They're not being acknowledged."
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said Monday that agents are "defeated" by the White House's disregard of the crisis and called on the American people to "hold the administration accountable."
"We are defeated every single time that we go out there and put on a uniform to patrol the border," Judd said. "We just don't feel like we have the support of this administration when we're doing a job that we were never supposed to do in the first place. We are not asylum officers. We're supposed to be an enforcement agency. We're supposed to be apprehending those people that are trying to get away. We're supposed to be apprehending the bad actors. We're supposed to be seizing the drugs that are crossing the border illegally. And we just aren't able to do that."
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Officials in El Paso, Texas have declared a state of emergency as border crossings have overwhelmed law enforcement personnel.
Mayor Oscar Leeser announced the state of emergency during a press conference Saturday, saying he could no longer keep residents safe.
"I said from the beginning that I would call it when I felt that either our asylum seekers or community were not safe," Leeser said, according to KFOX14.
Fox News' Lawrence Richard contributed to this report
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