Former border chief claims cartels are exploiting US government app for illegal immigrants.
A former border security leader says the CBP One app has been taken over by cartels and smugglers to streamline their process of moving people and products into the United States.
The Center for Immigration Studies on Aug. 23 conducted a panel discussion focused on the legality, impact, and myths surrounding the CBP One app.
Panel participant Mark Morgan, former Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), who is also a Visiting Fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center of the Heritage Foundation, joined Andrew Arthur, a Resident Fellow in Law and Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, who is a former Immigration Judge, Counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, and Acting Chief of the INS National Security Law Division.
“Let me be clear: what we’re experiencing now is the worst unmitigated self-inflicted border security crisis that we’ve experienced in our lifetime,” Mr. Morgan said.
When asked point blank whether drug cartels and human smugglers from Mexico were “benefiting” and “still making money” off the app, Mr. Morgan didn’t mince words, saying that the cartels have an “incredible ability” to change their “tactics, techniques and procedures,” and that the groups have “literally taken over the app.”
“This is one of the areas I get really frustrated because I learned a long time ago that the intentional omission of a material fact is the same thing as a lie,” Mr. Morgan said of how the app is being presented. “And that’s what this administration is reporting to the American people …”
App Use by Cartels
According to the former CBP chief, cartels have only gotten stronger and better monetized over the last 40 years by running not just drugs, but illegal aliens through the southwest border. He asserted that has become particularly true over the last 30 months during the Biden administration.
Mr. Morgan said that while the users of the CBP One app are supposed to use it while in Mexico to set an appointment at a point of entry, the cartels have reportedly “overcome” the app, and they can get someone from anywhere to put in their application and then move someone to the appropriate point to get through the border via an asylum claim and into the United States.
“It’s equivalent to the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory ticket,” Mr. Morgan said. ”As long as [migrants] have that appointment, [Officials are] just stepping aside, letting them come on in.
“The overwhelming majority of migrants coming to our border claiming asylum are false claims … the data proves that there are economic migrants,” Mr. Morgan said.
The former CBP official went so far as to say that the Biden administration, and particularly Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, are lying to the American people and that the recently released border reports do not accurately reflect the true extent of illegal immigration.
“What this administration is doing knowingly and with intent, they’re allowing our laws to continue to be exploited and letting them come through the front door as they look the other way, and then they’re calling it a legal pathway,” Mr. Morgan said. “It’s a perversion and violation of the law.”
App Use for Parole
Both panelists spoke about the use of the CBP One app by those who hope to be paroled into the United States, explaining that anyone who was born in Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, or Venezuela can apply for parole in the United States.
“That itself is a circumvention of the law,” Mr. Morgan said of the program. According to the former CBP official, that program was meant to be used “on a case-by-case” basis with a “specific purpose for a specific public benefit or humanitarian purpose. Being born in a country does not satisfy that lawful requirement.”
Mr. Arthur cited an NBC News report from February of this year, which stated that 588,000 people had been paroled into the United States up to that point, and they’re part of a “gigantic queue of people who were simply going to get the sheet of paper” that would allow them to enter the country.
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