Former senior-ranking U.S. Border Patrol official Aaron Heitke alleged in testimony given before House lawmakers that the Biden-Harris administration purposely covered up the crisis at the southern border as millions of migrants illegally entered the United States.

Heitke, the chief patrol agent of the San Diego, California region who retired last summer, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the Biden administration forbid him from speaking with the media on certain implications of the illegal immigration crisis.