It must be humiliating for a cabinet secretary when one of his top deputies contradicts him in testimony before a congressional committee. It means the boss is clueless at best. In this case the cabinet secretary is Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, and the deputy is Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz. He told the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, which convened in McAllen, Texas, that the border is out of control.
Rep. Mark Green: Does DHS have operational control of our entire border?
Ortiz: No sir.
Rep. Green: “Chief Ortiz, does DHS have operational control of our entire border?”
— Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5) March 15, 2023
Chief Ortiz: “No, sir.” pic.twitter.com/ihIKUUbDTC
Ortiz answered very specifically, by the light of what is defined in the Secure Fence Act of 2006, after watching video of Mayorkas’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in April.
During that hearing, under a brutal interrogation by Rep. Chip Roy, the Texas Republican who has introduced legislation to stop the invasion, Mayorkas said the opposite. Roy reminded Mayorkas that the Secure Fence Act says “the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take all actions the Secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders.”
The act defines “operational control”:
[T]he prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.
Roy: Will you testify under oath right now, do we have operational control, yes or no?
Mayorkas: We do
.@chiproytx just went GOBLIN MODE on disgraced DHS Sec. Mayorkas over MASSIVE border crisispic.twitter.com/1yKWm1Yxqn
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 28, 2022
The import of Ortiz’s answer is not that the border is open. Everyone knows that. Otherwise, more border agents would not have encountered more than 4.85 million illegal aliens since Traitor Joe Biden took office.
Import is, Ortiz showed that Mayorkas lied when he claimed, in April, that DHS did have “operational control” border. But, of course, he couldn’t say Mayorkas lied when Green asked directly. Instead, Ortiz confessed that the Border Patrol no longer focuses “operational control,” but intsead on “mission advantage.” In other words, Green said, Ortiz said “the goalpost has been moved because of the mass waves of people that are coming.”
So, Ortiz didn’t just contradict his boss. He revealed that Mayorkas is not doing his job and lied about it. Forget that he is also violating the Immigration and Nationality Act, which requires the detention of illegal aliens. Moreover, Mayorkas’ actions, OK’d by Traitor Joe, are not a matter of “incompetence.” They can’t be.
For the record, Senator Joe Biden voted for the Secure Fence Act.
Ortiz he tweets the truth regularly, by the way, as he did hours after his testimony:
So far, in FY23, U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 900,590 individuals from 147 countries. The top 5 nationalities Border Patrol Agents encountered are listed below. pic.twitter.com/GqawsZjee5
— Chief Raul Ortiz (@USBPChief) March 15, 2023
