Border Patrol Union Head: I Liked Parts of Border Bill, But ‘Democrats Aren’t Willing’ to Secure Border, It’s Just Abbott

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd stated that while he wishes the Senate border bill would have gone to the floor, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is the only reason why Arizona and California aren’t “underwater and inundated” and we know what works for securing the border but Democrats like Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and California Gov. Gavin Newsom “aren’t willing to do it.”

Judd said, [relevant remarks begin around 1:30] “Gov. Hobbs and Gov. Newsom, they need to look at what Texas is doing and recognize that, if it weren’t for Texas, they would still — if it wasn’t for the government of Texas, they would still be underwater and inundated. These are certain things that we can do. It proves that barriers work, it proves that walls work, it proves that infrastructure works if we are willing to actually implement those measures that we know have worked in the past. But unfortunately, we just know that Democrats aren’t willing to do it. Gov. Hobbs hasn’t stepped [up] to the plate, Gov. Newsom has not stepped [up] to the plate. It’s only been Gov. Abbott to this point. And until others follow suit, again, we’re just not going to get this under control.”

Co-host John Roberts then asked, “Was there anything in the bill that had initially been proposed that would have really done anything to stop the pull effect, to stop all of those folks from coming up to the border and trying to get across?”

Judd answered, “There was. There were several measures that would have been really, really good, such as raising the bar of the credible fear standard, which facilitates the release under normal circumstances. When you remove the judiciary out of this process, now we don’t have the backlog in the judicial system. We would have been able to detain and hold single adults, including married couples, until they’re removed. It would have allowed asylum officers to initially determine credible fear and then go to a panel of further asylum officers, then remove. There were several policy issues in that bill that would have been extremely good. There were some other things that weren’t good. I would have loved to have seen it [go] to the floor for a debate and amendment process, unfortunately, it just didn’t make it there.”

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