Border patrol officers would be fired if they attempted to enforce all immigration laws, a union official told lawmakers Thursday while discussing the Department of Homeland Security’s “catch-and-release” policies.
“They’ll be terminated,” Brandon Judd, a spokesman for the border patrol union, told Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing. “Absolutely, if they do not comply with the policies that are given.” He said that he didn’t know of anyone being fired because “our agents comply with the policies that we’re given” from DHS.
Judd’s testimony is similar to that of other border agent representatives who have said the Obama administration has relaxed the rules on how to handle border apprehensions, which have led some to charge that the administration is violating the law.
Judd made the comment while testifying about an ongoing surge of unaccompanied children at the southern border. After an easing of the border tensions that were seen in 2014, the number of children crossing the border has been increasing again over the last few months, and the parties are split on how to handle the problem.
Democrats see the children as refugees claiming legal asylum, while Republicans believe a significant number are illegal immigrants and are merely posing as refugees.
The lawmakers heard stories of drug cartels raping and murdering families who consequently fled to Texas, but they also heard of those same cartels advertising in Central American countries that immigrants who arrived in the United States would be allowed to stay. The Obama administration last year tried to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants by making it clear to Central American countries that the U.S. will not take in people who make it to the U.S.
Judd suggested that the issue may be clouded by one of the new policies. “Right now, the border patrol has actually told us that we can no longer ask them that question, ‘why are they coming’ anymore, can’t even ask that question,” he said. “We still do, but we’re being told that you can’t even ask why they’re coming.”
