SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Top border officials gathered in San Diego Saturday to provide a year-end update on enforcement operations, claiming the country is experiencing the most secure border in U.S. history with record deportation numbers.
Border Czar Tom Homan and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott spoke near the Tijuana River Valley, echoing President Trump's message of unapologetically enforcing the country's immigration laws.
"The last 4 years in the Biden administration, it was an open border. Not because of mismanagement, not because of incompetence, by design," Homan said.
Homan stated that illegal border crossings have dramatically declined under the current administration.
"President Trump and this administration is saving thousands of lives every month, and that's just a stone cold fact," Homan said.
Homan oversees what he calls the "historic deportation operation," which focuses on three main goals: border security, deportations, and finding children who entered the country during the last administration.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott, former San Diego Border Patrol chief, said illegal entries have dropped to historic lows.
"We're at 92%. Identifying illegal entries 92% lower than the peaks during the Biden administration," Scott said.
Scott credits the decline to the president's policies, ending catch and release, and increasing prosecutions. He says they're prosecuting people at an "unprecedented level."
"We are prosecuting everything we can. If you assault a border patrol agent, a CBP officer, an ICE agent, we're going to prosecute you. If you lie to a Border patrol agent or any federal official, we're going to prosecute you," Scott said.
The Trump administration has stated they will prioritize removing the "worst of the worst." However, as reported recently in The New York Times, fewer than 30% of people arrested in major ICE operations have been convicted of a crime.
Homan says everybody arrested and set for deportation are in violation of federal law.
"A lot of the people we arrest that are not criminals are fugitives. They've had, they got final orders issued by a federal judge. They became a fugitive. They didn't follow the court order," Homan said.
Officials promoted their current "Home for the Holidays" campaign, a voluntary self-deportation option for people to return to their home countries via the CBP Home app. The government will pay for their flight home, plus $1,000.
Officials also say more agents are being hired and border and interior operations will continue to expand.
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