Crisis by Design: New House Homeland Security Report Details Biden-Harris’ Catastrophic Immigration Policies

FAIR Take | September 2024

Last week, the House Homeland Security Committee held a hearing to examine how the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders policies have jeopardized the public safety and national security of the United States. The Committee also published an accompanying report, entitled, “Crisis by Design,” to further detail how the administration willfully dismantled a secure border and flooded the country with inadmissible aliens.

Throughout the hearing, Members heard testimony from Patty Morin, an angel mom whose daughter, Rachel, was tragically murdered, allegedly by an illegal alien. The committee also heard from Aaron Heitke, former Chief Patrol Agent of the United States Border Patrol; San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond; and Santa Cruz County (Arizona) Sheriff David Hathaway.

In his testimony, Chief Heitke spoke about how the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders policies put massive strains on Border Patrol’s resources. Heitke stated that Border Patrol sectors quickly faced unprecedented numbers of illegal aliens crossing the border and, as a result, nearly all agents were being pulled out of the field to process them at ports of entry. Heitke revealed that several Border Patrol zones across Texas, Arizona, and California had no agent presence for weeks and months at a time. “Those who did not want to be caught could simply walk in,” he said. Heitke also said agents had no way to gauge how many aliens crossed the border undetected as “gotaways” when Border Patrol zones were left unattended and lacked information on the identity of those aliens.

The alarming number of gotaways along our southern border is also a key theme of the Homeland Security Committee’s report. With agents being pulled from the field to help process and release illegal aliens into the country, hundreds of thousands are able to take advantage of the wide-open border to sneak into the country without apprehension. According to the report, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has recorded an estimated two million known gotaways since Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, which “far exceeds the 1.29 million recorded from FY10-20 combined.” In March 2023, then-Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told the Committee that “the true number of gotaways—detected and undetected—could be as much as 20 percent higher than reported.” Because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is unable to vet and process these individuals, gotaways pose significant safety threats to Americans across the country.

The number of criminal aliens being released into the country is astounding. Since FY 2021, Border Patrol has apprehended more than 53,600 criminal aliens. However, these are just criminals that Border Patrol is able to apprehend and identify. According to the report, “[l]aw enforcement officials have noted that, ‘[h]ardened criminals often hide in smuggled migrant groups,’ seeking to take advantage of overwhelmed Border Patrol officials who may not be able to verify their identities or backgrounds.” With record amounts of these dangerous aliens being released into the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) non-detained docket now includes approximately 617,607 aliens with criminal charges or convictions.

Patty Morin personally testified to the threat posed by unvetted illegal aliens, recounting the tragic story of her daughter, Rachel, a 37-year-old mother of five who was brutally raped and murdered in 2023 while on a trail run in Harford County, Maryland. Her alleged murderer, Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, is a 23-year-old suspected gang member from El Salvador who entered the country illegally at least four times. In addition to Rachel’s murder, Martinez-Hernandez is also suspected of the sexual assault of a mother and her young daughter in California, as well as the murder of a woman in El Salvador. During her remarks, Morin argued that the Biden-Harris Administration has consistently failed to do anything to stem the tide of dangerous illegal aliens pouring over the border, and instead “they are bringing criminals into our country, they are allowing them into our smallest towns, and our people are dying.”

In addition to historic numbers of criminal aliens, the Biden-Harris Administration has ushered in record numbers of suspected terrorists and national security threats into the country. During his testimony, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond detailed his concerns about the national security threats now facing San Diego. He noted that the San Diego sector’s Border Patrol agents do not have the ability to properly vet individuals crossing due to time and resource constraints. “San Diego now accounts for 85% of all ‘Special Interest Aliens’—individuals with known ties to terrorism. And over the past year, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of 30,000 Chinese nationals enter our region,” said Desmond.

The Committee’s report further emphasizes the national security threats facing Americans across the country as a result of Biden-Harris policies. Since FY21, 388 aliens on the terrorist watchlist have been apprehended by Border Patrol, compared to just 14 between FY2017 and FY2020.

Additionally, between October 2021 and October 2023, over 70,000 SIAs potentially posing a threat to our national security have been encountered at our borders, with more than 50,000 more encountered so far in FY2024. The report notes that the uptick in terrorist threats is due to the inability of Border Patrol agents to adequately vet the record numbers of aliens entering the country, and explained that, “most of those crossing the border either come from countries with inadequate law enforcement databases, or from countries who would not share this information with federal officials even if they had it, such as China, Cuba, and Venezuela.”

The Homeland Security Committee’s comprehensive report provides Americans with a detailed record of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on the border. It not only touches on the public safety and national security threats, but also includes an analysis of funding for NGOs that support open borders. It highlights the costs of open borders – not only on taxpayers, but the human toll on children and families.  After examining reams of evidence, the report offers a searing conclusion: “Biden, Harris, and Mayorkas have launched an assault on the rule of law, and in so doing, have undermined the sovereignty, national security, and long-term wellbeing of the country they claim to serve.”