Fmr. Border Patrol Chief: We Still Have ‘Tremendous Operational Gaps’ in Some Parts of Border

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” recently retired Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz responded to a question on if the border is secure by stating that while there are more agents out in the field since the expiration of Title 42, and agents have been tasked with less processing work since the policy expired, “we’ve still got tremendous operational gaps in certain areas.”

Fox News National Correspondent Griff Jenkins asked, “[A]s you look back on this and you look at the state of the border, is it secure now? What is the state of our border? We see people trying to scuba dive across.”

Ortiz answered, “Yeah, and we’ve still got tremendous operational gaps in certain areas. You think about what’s happening in south Texas, specifically Eagle Pass and Del Rio…and then out in California and Arizona, we still have, I think, cartels and smuggling organizations that are continuing to push traffic across that border. So, we do have more agents out in the field, they’re doing less processing now than they were prior to May 11, and that means that we’re able to respond with our agents, our partners to get to some of this illicit activity that’s happening out there.”

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