(RepublicanDaily.org) – In August last year, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had this to say about President Joe Biden’s supposed action towards securing the border: “The president has done more to secure the border… than anyone else.” But the former Border Patrol chief – who retired only last year – said that he never talked to and was never approached by Biden during the two years that he headed the U.S.’ primary border security agency.
Raul Ortiz, who served as chief of the Border Police during the current administration until his retirement in May last year, said that the neither President Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris ever spoke to him.
Speaking to Cecilia Vega on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Ortiz said that part of the problem at the border was the lack of communication, particularly with Harris, who was appointed as the Biden administration’s border czar.
“I’ve never had one conversation with the president or vice president,” he told Vega.
Vega then asked Ortiz if he felt that the government was sending mixed signals to migrants, he answered in the affirmative.
“Yes, most definitely,” he said.
The former border patrol chief said that the U.S. government needs to send a clearer message to those are seeking to migrate to the country – that anyone who pays someone to smuggle them into the U.S. or does not possess a “legitimate claim to some sort of asylum benefit” will be deported.
While Ortiz has his issues with the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis, he also criticized the legal tussle between the state government of Texas and the federal government on who has jurisdiction on a number of areas right beside the border.
Against orders from federal agencies, Texas law enforcement is fighting for the right to install and keep a razor wire fence along the Rio Grande. Meanwhile, the state’s legislature passed a law that would empower state agents to deport migrants who are caught or suspected of entering the U.S. illegally.
Ortiz said that he believes that the back-and-forth between the Republican-leaning Texas state government and the Democratic and Biden-led federal government does not benefit the country at all.
“The cartels, the criminal organizations,” Ortiz said, are “sitting back reaping all the benefits” while “Texas and Washington D.C. go at it.”
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