The leader of the U.S. Border Patrol, Jason Owens, stated that smugglers of migrants are exploiting weaknesses at the southern border and the emphasis that U.S. officials put on dealing with humanitarian problems that come up.
During an interview on CBS News's “Face the Nation” on Sunday, Owens mentioned that smugglers are the ones who are really in control of what happens at the southern border, and that the officials react to them.
“Then we try and get out in front of it and deny them the ability to use these areas, especially ones that we think are going to be dangerous for us and for the migrants,” Owens continued. “But at the end of the day, there’s over 1,900 miles of border with Mexico.”
He said it is not feasible, even with 20,000 border patrol agents, to staff everywhere along the southern border at once.
Their strategy is to send groups across, knowing that we are going to help them from a humanitarian perspective and make sure that they are safe. And while we are busy doing this, what are they doing a couple miles down the road?”
Owens mentioned that the thing that worries him the most about security at the southern border is the number of people who are actively trying to avoid law enforcement and are not caught right away.
He said that border security is a big part of national security, and that if we don't know who is entering our country and what they intend to do, it's a threat.
Owens said that he wishes migrants coming to the U.S. at the southern border would choose to come in the right way and not break the law, but he also believes that most of them are good people. However, he is still worried about the small number of migrants with criminal records that they have found in larger groups.
“Most of the folks that we’re encountering that are turning themselves in, you know, they’re coming across because they’re either fleeing terrible conditions, or they’re economic migrants looking for a better way of life. It doesn’t make them bad people, it’s just that they’re not being respectful of the laws that we’ve established as a country and they’re actually putting people in this country in harm’s way because they’re pulling the border security apparatus off of task,” Owens said.
