Border Patrol Chief: 5,800 'Fake Families' Discovered at the Border

WASHINGTON -- Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Mark Morgan told a Senate committee on Tuesday that 5,800 "fake families" have been discovered trying to enter the U.S. illegally this year.

"Our laws prevent us from holding people more than 20 days and because we can't get the information we're probably releasing them even sooner than that in many cases, correct?" Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) asked Morgan during a Senate Homeland Security hearing on the border crisis.

"With respect to family units, since March of this year, United States Border Patrol has been releasing family units directly so in some cases they're being released in under 48 hours into the interior of the United States," Morgan said.

Johnson replied, "Because it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try and find facilities to hold them for 20 days with this overwhelming flow so instead of border patrol turning them over to ICE for a more thorough vetting process and then ICE releasing them, border patrol is doing it directly?"

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