Former acting ICE director: Ending COVID-era Title 42 will cause 'more chaos' at border

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Former ICE chief warns lifting COVID-era border policy will 'cause more chaos'

Ron Vitiello joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss the implications of ending Title 42.

A former top ICE official is sounding the alarm on the potential end of Title 42, a COVID-era border policy, warning its end could yield additional "chaos" and send a dangerous message to the rest of the world. 

WHITE HOUSE ADMITS ENDING TITLE 42 WILL BRING ‘INFLUX OF PEOPLE TO THE BORDER'

Former Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Ron Vitiello warned on "Fox & Friends First" Thursday the already-high migrant encounters are likely to spike if the policy is rescinded. 

"This is going to cause more chaos at our border," Vitiello told co-hosts Ashley Strohmier and Todd Piro. "It's going to increase what we've seen… thousands of people coming into the United States every 24 hours, families, children, people in that pipeline being exploited for human trafficking, the drug smugglers, the cartels controlling the border, versus us and our agents out there patrolling the border."

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The White House is reportedly considering an end to Title 42 in May, even as it has warned doing so will likely lead to even more migrant encounters, all while Border Patrol already grapples with a scarcity of resources to combat the surge. 

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION TO END TITLE 42 BORDER POLICY, DESPITE FEARS OF MASSIVE MIGRANT SURGE: REPORTS

"This administration has removed the tools that stopped the last major surge at the border that started in 2019 and ended in late in 2020," Vitiello said. 

"Now people know if they come to the border, it's not likely that they'll be encountered because there's not enough patrol, there's not enough agents out on the border," he continued. 

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Migrants arrive to the COVID-19 quarantine camp and testing center at Anzalduas Park in Mission, Texas. (Ashley Soriano/Fox News)

The former acting ICE chief warned the Biden administration has sent a dangerous signal around the world to anyone seeking to come to the U.S. illegally. 

Just this week, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz warned the U.S. is likely to hit one million encounters this fiscal year, as agents have already encountered migrants from 157 countries.