Ex-border chief: Biden intentionally 'handed over our southern border to the cartels'

Former Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Mark Morgan blasted the Biden administration on Wednesday for intentionally creating a crisis along the southern border while trying to pretend it is nonexistent.

The Biden administration is "ignoring" the border crisis," Morgan told "Just the News, Not Noise" cohosts John Solomon and Amanda Head.

"They're pretending it doesn't exist," Morgan said, adding: "But the American people aren't buying it, I think the polls reflect it."

President Biden has "completely trashed" the Remain in Mexico policy, said Morgan, referring to the Trump administration policy that had asylum seekers wait on the Mexican side of the U.S. southern border while their cases were adjudicated.

In August, the Supreme Court declined to stay a lower court order that the Biden administration restart the Remain in Mexico policy.

Biden is "just giving lip service" to the policy, Morgan said. The administration is "just absolutely defying the court order right now," he continued. "Give you an example: In the month of December, while 178,000 illegal aliens broken into our country — in one month, in 30 days — in that same 30-day period, the Biden administration enrolled about 260 migrants in the Remain in Mexico program.

"It's having no effect, they're not taking it seriously. And let's keep in mind, the [Homeland Security] secretary [Alejandro Mayorkas] — as he's doing his just-shut-up-and-take-it tour to the agents out there — he's been very clear that he's also actively trying to end the program."

The morale of Border Patrol agents is "devastated," Morgan reported.

"The reason why they still get up, put that badge on their chest, is because they are heroes, and they're doing it to try to do everything they can to still safeguard this country," he said. "But look, make no mistake, they feel now that they're nothing more than a travel agency — Uber drivers, a taxi cab service ...

"And the reality is, it's true. This administration has intentionally and willfully turned over, handed over our southern border to the cartels. And they've taken away every one of the vast set of tools, authorities that they had under President Trump to do their job, to secure a border and safeguard the country."

Meanwhile, Morgan noted, the FBI's counterterrorism mission has "been made exponentially more difficult because of the open border policy of this administration."

Border Patrol "has apprehended illegal aliens from 150 different countries — including, China, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Russia, the list goes on and on," he said. "They absolutely have expanded our national security vulnerability directly due to their open border policy."

As a stopgap, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is using his state's Department of Public Safety and National Guard to execute Operation Lone Star, which has "apprehended over 100,000 illegal aliens, thousands of guns, tens of thousands of pounds of narcotics that would have made their way to every town, city, and state," Morgan explained.

"It's been effective, but it's just not enough," he lamented. "We still have crisis-level numbers at our border."

Morgan was asked about Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's argument that the border crisis meets the definition of an invasion and states are constitutionally empowered to defend themselves.

"I think it's a compelling argument, I think it's one that states need to look at," he replied. "I know legal scholars would disagree, but it's time we have this discussion to do what this administration fails to do."

Brnovich's legal opinion is "challenging, because there's not a lot of precedent related to what an invasion actually means," Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Thursday.

"And whether it would be defined as what's going on on the southern border, I certainly agree with the purpose of that because ... the state should legally be able to protect their own borders if the federal government's going to pass laws and then abdicate that responsibility," because "whether it fits the definition of what some precedent said, it effectively is an invasion of our state with crime, with cartels, with drugs, people dying from more COVID and drug overdoses."