Former chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s border policy is the reason for the migrant chaos at the border with Mexico even after he was briefed by the Trump administration on the dangers of an open borders message.
Wolf also said Biden is focused on how many illegal aliens can be brought into the country as opposed to enforcing federal immigration law:
“The administration is treating this as though it’s a capacity issue and not an illegal behavior issue, and that’s a fundamental difference,” Wolf said in the interview with National Public Radio (NPR). “It’s – if we throw enough resources or people or money at it, we can address a capacity issue. Well, if you do it that way, you’re only encouraging more and more to come.”
“CBP would, in a sense, warn them, hey, if you remove this, this is the consequence for that, and we will see a significant uptick,” Wolf said.
Wolf also pushed back against Biden and his administration claiming the problem they face is because Trump left a “broken” immigration system.
The NPR reporter set the table by discrediting Wolf because he was acting DHS secretary and was never confirmed by the Senate, and that his appointment even faced a legal challenge.
Then the reporter was asked about what Wolf was saying now about Biden’s immigration policies:
“Well, I mean, there is no question that the Trump administration had a different approach, but Wolf says the Biden team should have been better prepared,” [NPR’s] Franco Ordonez said. “He says he and his staff briefed the Biden team and warned them that the numbers were increasing, starting back in September and October.”
“Wolf told me that he gave leaders in the transition team an unvarnished view of the challenges and how they were tackling them and warned them about undoing measures that they had put in place following the last crisis in 2019,” Ordonez said.
“And we were telling them, this is what you will do,” Wolf said in the NPR report.
“If you take down this, there’s no capacity in Border Patrol stations,” Wolf said. “There’s no capacity at HHS stations, you know, HHS facilities. You will begin to have a backup, and then there’s the consequences to that.”
Wolf was referring to Trump policies that made the border more secure and dried up the flow of migrants trying to come into the United States, including the Remain in Mexico agreement between Mexico and the U.S. that kept asylum seekers south of the border while their cases were litigated.
Trump also deported unaccompanied alien children (UAC) and forged asylum agreements with countries in Central America.
Wolf also told NPR that Trump’s immigration policies not only worked but included a record number of approved asylum cases:
“Not surprisingly, [Wolf] took offense to the administration’s claims that Trump handed over a broken system,” Ordonez said. “He said the Trump administration in the first few years granted more asylum requests than previous administrations. And as for the border, Wolf emphasized the numbers likely would have increased anyway because they were already rising. But he argued the Biden administration’s approach inflated the challenge.”
NPR, which reported negatively about former President Donald Trump on a daily basis and even in this post-Trump report, had Biden’s back.
“I mean, the Biden officials describe this as a moral imperative,” Ordonez said. “These policies that Wolf is advocating for and Biden ended were quite controversial, as you noted, and included reports of abuse and misuse.”
“But the Biden administration has also been under growing pressure to address the number of migrants arriving at the border,” Ordonez said.
“The challenge is they are trying to make a more – is sending a message that they have a more humane approach but, also, tell the rest of the region not to come,” Ordonez said. “And some feel that those message conflict, though the White House disagrees.”
Ordonez repeated the White House’s narrative that they have been clear about the border being closed and have even paid for ads in Central American countries warning people not to come.
When asked what Biden is doing to end the border crisis Ordonez continued with the White House narrative, which strongly mirrors Barack Obama immigration policies.
“Well, a key thing they’re doing is trying to move children out of jail-like border facilities,” Ordonez said. “Unaccompanied children are arriving faster than they can find them beds in more appropriate shelters. They are trying to find them more space.”
Ordonez also said Biden, like Obama, wants to “tackle the root causes” of why people are fleeing their homeland to come to the U.S.
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com
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