In a scathing revelation before Congress, former San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke accused the Biden-Harris administration of covering up a sharp rise in encounters with suspected terrorists at the U.S.-Mexico border.
During a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing titled “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security,” Heitke said he was muzzled from releasing critical information on the number of Special Interest Aliens (SIAs) — individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism — apprehended in California.
“I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”
According to Heitke, arrests of individuals with terror ties skyrocketed under President Joe Biden’s watch. The former Border Patrol chief revealed that before 2021, his sector had apprehended between 10 to 15 SIAs annually. By 2022, that number had shot up to over 100, with even more recorded in 2023.
“Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught,” Heitke warned, ABC3340 reports.
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The bombshell testimony raises serious questions about national security, as Heitke further claimed the Biden administration allowed some illegal border crossers to settle in local communities ill-equipped to handle the influx. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who also testified, slammed the administration for offloading the costs of transporting these individuals onto local taxpayers.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., chairman of the subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, didn’t mince words during the hearing, calling the current situation a “self-inflicted border crisis” and a “threat to the homeland from within the homeland,” Just the News reports.
“By ending effective Trump-era policies and programs that protected us, the Biden-Harris administration has intentionally left us vulnerable to potential attacks from terrorists and criminals who are freely moving around our communities,” Higgins said.
The testimony paints a damning picture of the administration’s border policies, which critics argue have left the U.S. exposed to dangerous threats. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, has been in the spotlight for its handling of the escalating crisis. CBP Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, however, defended the administration’s actions in a recent interview, saying the changes were designed to address a years-long backlog in asylum hearings.
“As the backlog has grown and grown, their, essentially, trial date, if you will — the date on which they will make their ultimate merits claim — is set years and years away. That was the status quo,” he said.
But as the number of terror-linked arrests continues to climb, many are questioning whether the administration’s open-border policies have put the country at risk.
“These are not just undocumented migrants seeking a better life,” Heitke testified. “These are individuals with ties to terrorist organizations. And we’re not catching all of them.”
With border apprehensions on the rise and the stakes higher than ever, the Biden administration faces mounting pressure to restore security and transparency at the southern border before it’s too late.