Border Patrol Morale Highest Ever, But Outdated Tech Hindering Operations: Former Agent

And more on immigration. The Department of Homeland Security says the Trump administration has achieved the lowest number of border crossings in October history. And the agency says it's the sixth straight month of no illegal immigrants being released into the country. For analysis on this is Aman Blair, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a retired US Border Patrol agent and retired Army officer. A man, we appreciate your time. I don't hear the words border crisis being used anymore. What's causing these low border crossing numbers? >> Really, it's all it is is uh enacting the rule of law at the southern border. Um we still do have a lot of crossings as you notice the numbers uh nationwide is about 30,000. So you think about that, that's about a thousand a day at our ports of entry and between ports of entry. We also still have Gods. Uh I do want to make mention that we are still working. we still don't have operational control of the border, especially in Texas. Uh the our border in Texas is about 95% uh private property. And so it's a lot more difficult for US Northcom to establish national defense areas along our southern border. So, if you look on uh DPS, our our state uh law enforcement agency's uh uh online platform on Twitter, you'll see on a daily basis that they're still uh chasing after um uh illegal aliens that have gotten past uh border patrol or the international line and they're usually like in camouflage. They're usually um in load vehicles uh getting away. So, all this stuff is still happening and now we are 100% uh much better off than we were just a few months ago. >> Thanks for that insight. Following up on you, you said that there are people getting through the border and evading detection. How is that possible? I mean, we have striker units on the border. There are very low crossings so that border patrol agents can focus on the few that are coming and then they're they're highly trained individuals. How is that possible? >> Sure. Sure. I mean to give you an example in Texas, Texas has,254 miles uh of border with Mexico and given the terrain, if you just look at the the map, you can see how the river just winds back and forth, creating a lot of problems in terms of terrain in order to understand what's coming across. Also before the Trump administration, the the billions of dollars that we spent on outdated technology to understand who, what, where, why, how, or when things are coming across is also very very difficult still to this day. We still have Vietnam era ground sensors uh at the southern border. Um and so a lot of times border patrol agents like myself, we would still have to act as if it was 1924 uh looking at sign within the road. Uh look as if you're hunting an animal. When you go hunt an animal, you you track an animal by the footprints in the sand. They still have to do that at our southern border to figure out who is still coming across because we still to this day do not have the amount of technology that is needed to have 100% domain awareness to include in the air like drones. Very interesting insight into that. Now, how back to the numbers, how do these low crossing numbers impact operations at the border in terms of worker fatigue, proper vetting, ensuring the processing is done fairly and meticulously? >> Yeah, great question. So, now this gives us the opportunity to, like you said, it allows us to spend the time uh to process the individual and try to vet them whether they do have a a credible fear claim. Look, during the B administration, we were trying to vet the Chinese nationals coming across the border. It took almost four hours uh to uh to question each Chinese national and that's when the B administration decided to change that rule to only asking Chinese nationals five questions before we release them into the United States. So now that we have such low crossings and apprehension numbers, it allows the the border agents to actually uh vet each individual person whether they do have a a credible fear claim. But the vetting process is still going through um uh its up its ups and downs. We still cannot truly vet every single illegal alien. We do not share that intelligence uh with other nations. And so that's still another process that we're trying to figure out as well. >> Understood. Six straight months of no releases. What does that mean for public security in the interior? >> That means that we can now add personnel to the interior. Look, we have been invaded. We have millions of illegal aliens now inside of our country. We have every state and non-state adversary working by proxy inside the United States, inside of every one of our communities, whether that's the Mexican cartels, whether that is the triads that are backed by CCP or the Hakani network backed by Iran. So now, as you see that we are having more border patrol agents now uh focus their efforts on the interior as US Northcom now focus its efforts on our southern border. So you're just seeing a shift in the amount of personnel and resources that we can now attack the problem inside the United States. >> Well, it's so important that this obviously be addressed. Now, give us an overview of what's happening at the border. And we've been talking about this, but let's delve deeper. Whatever aspects you find most notable, anything from officer morale, humanitarian conditions, etc. >> Yeah, officer morale is higher than ever before. I mean to the point where sometimes it's even boring for portable agents because because nothing is coming across. So now the the hard work is that we make this permanent regardless of what uh president comes in after President Trump. Um so if if it happens now, if we have another invasion now, um uh do we have the critical infrastructure in place, the resources, everything codified in law necessary so that we could stop every single incursion like we're doing so now. That is still that still needs to be uh played out. Uh so we have three years. So we still need Congress's help to codify all the executive orders that Trump's doing. Trump can't do it himself. Border Patrol can't do it himself. this uh themselves. This is a whole of society approach that must be taken to secure our border. >> We appreciate you sharing your experience with us. Almond Blair, thank you. Uh thanks for having