In a recent revelation, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under President Joe Biden's administration, P.J. Lechleitner, expressed his dissatisfaction with the handling of the border crisis
He criticized the administration for its delayed response, suggesting that earlier executive actions could have prevented the border situation from spiraling out of control.
According to One America News, Lechleitner, who assumed the role of acting director in July 2023 and is set to retire this week, lamented that the influx of illegal migrants had strained his agency's resources. This led to ICE personnel being reassigned to assist Customs and Border Protection (CBP), thereby compromising ICE's ability to fulfill its primary duties.
"I run the agency, execute. I enforce, but I dont know why they didnt do that earlier, Lechleitner told Fox News. I know it was in process for a long time. I would have liked to [have] seen it earlier. I think it helped a lot. It did really help our mission, but I wanted to see that earlier.
In June 2024, President Biden introduced executive border actions aimed at halting illegal immigrants at the southern border from claiming asylum if crossings exceeded a specified threshold. These measures temporarily barred the entry of non-citizens across the southern border once the average number of border encounters surpassed 2,500 per day over a week, as stated by officials.
This restriction remained in place until 14 days after the seven-day average of border encounters fell below 1,500. Officials at the time contended that this would facilitate the swift removal of individuals lacking a legal basis to stay in the United States.
Despite these measures, encounters with illegal immigrants reached an unprecedented 10.7 million under the Biden administration, as per data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Furthermore, encounters with individuals on the terror watchlist surged by a staggering 3,500% under Biden's leadership, a stark contrast to the Trump era.
Lechleitner, whose retirement is imminent, noted that the record-level of illegal immigrant crossings had resulted in resources being diverted from his department. Weve been drawn out of our core mission to help CBP. Were going to help all the time when we do that at the border, he said.
He also highlighted the strain on the Secret Service, with thousands of agents reassigned from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to assist. Lechleitner called for increased funding for the Secret Service and border control, arguing that this would enable these agencies to perform their duties more effectively and reduce the need to divert resources from ICE's primary mission.
We have almost 8 million people on the non-detained docket now that we have to go find, he continued. Its a big challenge and our people are capable.
Lechleitner also voiced his concern over the hostility faced by law enforcement and first responders, who he said were merely trying to perform their duties. He revealed that some ICE offices had already been vandalized, even before the new administration had taken office.
The new administration is not even in yet, and theres already vandalism at some of our offices, Lechleitner said. Theyre spraying abolish ICE again and all this nonsense. Were just doing our job. Its [a] vilification of public servants, first responders, and my heart goes out to the first responders who are in L.A. right now
Its preposterous that people vilify these first responders that are taking their life in their own hands here, going out and supporting the communities, and people just disregard that and they demonize us and vilify us, he continued.
In his parting words, the outgoing ICE chief urged Americans dissatisfied with the current policy to voice their concerns to their elected representatives. His comments underscore the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies in managing the border crisis and the need for timely, effective policy measures.
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