Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) Joseph Cuffari says President Joe Biden has agents at the United States-Mexico border primarily focused on “providing care and welfare services” to border crossers and illegal aliens whom they plan to release into the nation’s interior.
During a hearing before a House Oversight subcommittee this week, Cuffari was asked about the role that Biden’s DHS has agents playing at the southern border amid record-setting levels of illegal immigration.
“It’s concerning that agents are not performing their primary law enforcement roles,” Rep. Clary Higgins (R-LA) said. “America is largely under the impression that we’re moving border agents down [to the border] to enhance law enforcement. Is that the role that these agents are primarily performing, Mr. Cuffari?”
Cuffari responded, suggesting that Biden’s DHS has agents largely working to carry out the administration’s catch and release network that includes a parole pipeline as well as the CBP One mobile app. The network has helped free millions into the U.S. interior.
“The role that they were hired to do, and the performance of their duties is to do law enforcement — at least for the Border Patrol and the criminal investigators deployed there,” Cuffari said, later elaborating:
They’re doing some law enforcement but they’re also providing care and welfare services to the detained and those individuals who they’re processing. [Emphasis added]
Cuffari’s report, released last month, interviewed agents deployed to the border who said they are being taken off law enforcement duties to fulfill the administration’s catch and release priorities.
“Nearly half of the CBP personnel who completed our survey indicated that from their perspective they were required to take on responsibilities outside their normal duties at their work location,” the report states:
Twenty percent said they felt unable to perform their primary law enforcement duties of securing the border. “One of our duties is the detention and processing of non-citizen migrants, which is what almost all of our manpower is being delegated to do,” one Border Patrol agent states. “This does prevent us from doing the other part of the duties/responsibilities we were hired for, which is deterring or apprehending individuals that have made an illegal entry into the United States.” [Emphasis added]
In addition, more than half of ICE survey respondents indicated that they had been required to take on responsibilities outside of their normal or traditional duties. One deportation officer explained how ICE went from tracking down and arresting criminals to handing out paperwork. Similarly, a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent said that HSI has gone from investigating to providing security at processing facilities. [Emphasis added]
From February 2021 to mid-April 2023, Biden has welcomed about five million border crossers and illegal aliens to the U.S. — millions of whom were released directly into American communities by DHS.
Analysis published in April projects that more than two million border crossers and illegal aliens are expected to be encountered along the border this year. This projection does not include illegal aliens who successfully cross the border, undetected by agents.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.