Former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan says President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released potentially 40,000 coronavirus-positive illegal aliens into the United States.

Morgan, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said during a press call that “there’s an enormous amount of facts that this administration is willingly and knowingly releasing illegal aliens into border towns and cities with individuals actively carrying and transmitting the virus.”

Specifically, Morgan said the administration has released upwards of 170,000 border crossers and another roughly 100,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) into the U.S. since January 20.

Based on conservative estimates of reported coronavirus positivity rates among border crossers, Morgan said the Biden administration has potentially released tens of thousands of coronavirus-positive border crossers into the U.S:

At a 15 percent positive rate, being conservative, that’s more than 40,000 positive-covid cases that have been released into the United States and that is just the cases that we know about from those who have been tested. And we know that everybody being released, they’re not being tested. We know that. We’ve heard story after story.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas is directing the release of up to 80 percent of families who have illegally entered the United States … so Border Patrol apprehends a family and they’re releasing them as fast as they possibly can into local communities. [Emphasis added]

When a family is released into local communities, DHS is not testing them … so what’s DHS Secretary Mayorkas’ solution to all of this? ‘Eh, it’s up to the local communities to deal with it. It’s your issue and your problem to deal with now.’ [Emphasis added]

Morgan’s remarks come as DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday admitted that federal immigration officials have seen a spike in coronavirus-positive border crossers arriving in the U.S., though he stopped short of giving specifics as to the positivity rate and how many border crossers had been released from DHS custody only to later find out they are infected with coronavirus.

“The rate of positivity among the migrants is at or lower than the rates in our local border communities,” Mayorkas said.

In a personal anecdote, Morgan said he has seen “countless illegal immigrants flooding” airports in American border communities “with their health status unclear going to any major metropolitan city in this country” after being released by DHS.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are currently suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to ensure they can continue bussing and flying border crossers into the U.S. interior. As detailed in their lawsuit, these NGOs foot the bill for bus tickets and domestic commercial flights so that border crossers can travel throughout the U.S. interior for free.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.