The office of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday disputed allegations from U.S. Border Patrol that he illegally crossed into the U.S. from Mexico away from a formal point of entry, and said his back-and-forth between the U.S. and Mexico was approved by a Border Patrol official.
The most senior Border Patrol official in the El Paso Sector, Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Hull, wrote a letter to New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill on June 25 that said de Blasio had chosen to enter Mexico without inspection, then illegally entered back into the U.S. on foot in an attempt to see a border detention facility.
De Blasio was at the border with other mayors from across the country to visit the El Paso Border Patrol Sector in western Texas on June 21 to see unaccompanied alien children who had been separated from their parents as a result of the Justice Department’s “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal entrants.
But de Blasio’s press secretary, Eric Phillips, said the “top border official at the port” — not Hull — “approved our request and monitored our crossing both ways, at official points of entry.” He also said de Blasio didn’t cross back into the U.S. on foot, and instead was in a car when he crossed into Mexico and crossed back into the U.S. at the Marcelino Serna Port of Entry, formerly known as the Tornillo.
“[H]e [de Blasio] went over with the approval and under the direct supervision of the top border official at the port of entry. He had his passport and crossed at legal entry points both ways,” Phillips wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner.
Hull’s letter, which has only been reported on but not released, runs contrary to de Blasio’s statement. The letter said a Border Patrol agent observed a group on foot on the Rio Grande River flood plain enter the U.S. away from a formal point of entry from Mexico.
The group was reportedly taking pictures of the facility, and were denied entry to the facility. According to Hull’s letter, an agent asked asked if the group if they had a border official with them and a NYPD inspector in the group said they did not.
The agent then asked how they got to the U.S., and “they pointed to Mexico,” the Associated Press wrote in a report citing the letter. The letter said agent also asked the group to stop, but Phillips said that was not the case.
“He never told the group to hold. He told the group where the border line was, and they left and crossed back through the same point they came in, in conjunction and with the approval of border agents, in a car,” Phillips said.
The group was told to wait for a supervisor to arrive, but instead departed and went back into Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector declined to comment.
