Former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said on “Fox & Friends” Friday that the situation at the southern border has become “very dangerous” in recent months, as President Joe Biden moves to reverse many of the immigration enforcement measures from the Trump administration.
Wolf noted that U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 11 Iranian citizens after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona Monday evening. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents encountered the group near San Luis – a city in the southwest corner of Arizona – around 6 p.m. near County 21st Street and the Salinity Canal.
ANGEL DAD RIPS BIDEN ADMIN’S NEW IMMIGRATION ORDERS: ‘I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY CAN JUSTIFY IT’
Agents determined the group had entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico. The group was arrested and taken into custody. The CBP said the group consisted of five females and six males, all from Iran.
Biden has so far stopped construction of the wall at the southern border, moved to strengthen protections for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), set up a task force to reunify migrant families separated in the U.S., and has proposed an immigration bill to give a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. His Department of Homeland Security has also moved to place a 100-day pause on deportations, but that has been blocked due to a legal challenge from Texas.
Wolf said President Obama’s then-DHS secretary said 1,000 border apprehensions per day represented a “crisis level” for authorities. He said the current rate is at 3,000 to 3,500 illegal border-crossers per day.
CHAD WOLF: “The situation on the border right now is very dangerous. CBP is facing a little over 3,000 and in some cases, 3,500 individuals coming across the border illegally every day. And if we go back to the previous DHS secretary under Obama, he said a thousand a day is a very bad day for DHS and at crisis level. We are three times that at the moment.
It’s very concerning the number of things that are occurring down there. And, again, I think it’s a direct result of some of the things that we have heard this administration do. Sending a signal to those south of the border, those wanting to cross illegally, to the cartels, the smugglers and the traffickers. Now is the time to send those individuals across the border.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The specific Iranians, we call those special interest aliens, those are individuals from countries that are of concern and so any time you see a rise in the number of those types of individuals at the southwest border, it’s also equally as concerning. What we know is that they often try to blend in to a flow that’s coming across that border every day.”
Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report
