The National Border Patrol Council (NBPC) and Pinal County Sheriff joined forces to denounce the Obama Administration and accused the White House of handcuffing the efforts of law enforcement in regards to the enforcement of immigration law.
“This administration has handcuffed the Border Patrol,” Babeu said, according to a Tweet from the NBPC.
Sheriff Babeu and the NBPC held a press conference in southern Arizona to make the charges against the White House and officials with the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday morning. The NBPC is the official union for Border Patrol agents and has been instrumental in getting out the truth about the administration’s policies.
National Border Patrol Labor Council President Brandon Judd told reporters, “We are either going to be a specialized law enforcement agency dedicated to enforcing our nation’s immigration laws or a political arm of the administration.”
He reinforced the evidence that the Obama Administration has been bypassing Congress by taking illegal executive actions and forcing Border Patrol agents to not do their job of enforcing the law along the border. 3News in Phoenix reported that Judd said “the president is bypassing Congress by legislating through policy. These policies in essence are granting amnesty to thousands, if not millions, of persons who enter the country illegally.”
Sheriff Babeu told reporters the administration has politicized the enforcement of immigration laws. He said that high-traffic smuggling roust are understaffed intentionally and blamed the Obama Administration. The NBPC official agreed with his assessment.
The Arizona border sheriff released nubers on Tuesday showing the traffic of illegal immigrants in the first four months of this fiscal year is up by 25 percent. He said there’s been a 102 percent increase in unaccompanied juveniles.
These numbers were previously reported by Breitbart Texas late last month when officials with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service (CBP) released a report documenting the increase in the numbers of crossings of unaccompanied children (UAC) and incomplete family units. The agency released the report late on a Friday afternoon to avoid heavy media coverage.
Babeu accused the CBP commissioner and the administration of failed leadership and said they are failing to enforce the law.
Judd was more specific in his remarks and said, that “Commissioner K,” CBP Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, had “raised the white flag of surrender by declaring a ‘new normal.’” He continued saying, “The Border Patrol is built to enforce the law. But administration appointees aren’t built that way.”
The NBPC president reiterated his previous statements that illegal immigrants from terrorist nations continue to cross the U.S. southern border.
Judd went on to accuse the president, stating Obama had, “manipulated the data, had agents assigned to low traffic areas and attempted to quiet dissent by calling those who question his approach as misinformed without offering an evidence to support these allegations.”
Sheriff Babeu summed it up in his conclusion, “What we see from this administration is an actual reduction at a time we should be providing more support to secure our border.”
Note: This article has been updated.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and is a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.