Fmr. ICE Senior Atty: Border Deferred Action Screening Puts ‘National Security at Risk’

John Gihon, former Senior Attorney for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said that a new directive from DHS ordering the Border Patrol to ask illegal immigrants about their deferred action eligibility “puts our border security and national security at risk” on Friday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.

“This new directive from DHS has the potential to have a negative and detrimental effect on both our border security and therefore our foreign national security. It looks like an utter waste of time. These agents who are at the border are our first line of defense against terrorists, drug traffickers, and weapons smugglers. Every minute that they spend screening someone for deferred action eligibility is another minute they can’t spend doing their jobs, protecting our border, and keeping it safe” he stated.

Gihon continued that “to ask Border Patrol officers who have just caught someone who has illegally entered the United States and has committed one or more federal felonies, to ask them to screen this person for eligibility is unreasonable. Because so few of these people who have just entered the United States illegally could possibly be eligible for this sort of benefit and this sort of deferred action, that it’s unreasonable, and it’s a waste of resources and a waste of time.”

He concluded, “at the border, where we have to have the boots on the ground, we have to have these agents, who risk their lives every day keeping us safe, they cannot waste their time screening people for benefits when 99.9% of them are not going to be eligible. It puts our border security and national security at risk”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett