Border Agents: DHS Has ‘No Intention’ of Deporting Illegals

A top Homeland Security official told Border Patrol agents the Obama administration has “no intention of deporting” many of the illegal immigrants caught trying to sneak into the country, ordering instead that they be released so they don’t clog up the courts, a leading advocate for agents testified to Congress.

Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, said the orders are a new “catch and release” policy, which he said “amounts to amnesty” because it means many illegal immigrants are never asked to leave the country.

It also suggests the Border Patrol is being ordered to break President Obama’s own enforcement priorities, which say new illegal immigrants — defined as those who came after Dec. 31, 2013 — are priorities for deportation, and are supposed to be arrested and processed.

Mr. Judd said they took their case directly to Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who told them not to bother.

“Deputy Secretary Mayorkas told us that the Border Patrol needs to focus its resources towards the worst of the worst. He said that by prioritizing those we choose to deport, we will help alleviate the burden on an already overburdened court system,” Mr. Judd recalled.

Mr. Judd, in the written testimony released Monday, said agents have also been ordered not to interview the illegal immigrant children still streaming across the southwest border.

“This is verbal direction from direct supervisors and not a written policy. Agents are being told not to ask why minors are crossing,” he wrote.

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