The former official with the U.S. Border Patrol responsible for securing almost 1,000 miles of America’s frontier has charged Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s administration with intentionally covering up the continuing migrant crisis.
Aaron Heitke, ex-San Diego Sector Chief Agent, told House Homeland Security Committee members Wednesday that the White House repeatedly attempted to “quiet the border-wide crisis” by safeguarding information from the press, concealing crossing by dangerous illegal immigrants with terror ties.
“I had to release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them,” Heitke testified. Heitke retired in the summer of 2023 and voluntarily appeared in front of the panel.
“To quiet the problem, two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas,” Heitke explained. “These flights simply brought aliens that would have been released in San Diego over Texas.”
“Each flight costs approximately $150,000. This was the administration’s way of trying to quiet the border-wide crisis,” emphasized Heitke.
Official said admin officials wanted him to move migrants “out of the sight of the media”
Heitke, elsewhere in his testimony, said administration officials requested for him to move more than 2,000 migrants apprehended between the two U.S.-Mexico border fences that span Southern California “out of the sight of the media.”
The chief agent was also blocked from discussing the alarming increase in border crossings by also-called “Special Interest Aliens,” or SIAs, who were suspected of posing concerns for national security based on their ties to terror groups or their country of origin.
Before Harris and Biden took office, Heitke said, the San Diego sector “averaged 10 to 15 SIA arrests per year,” but that increased to “over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year.”
“These are only the ones we caught,” added Heitke, with over 1.7 million known “gotaways” whose terror risks or affiliations remain unknown after having also entered the United States without being apprehended.
“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on the increase in SIAs or mention any of the arrests,” added Heitke. “The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”
The testimony came a day after The Post revealed another former border enforcement official claimed during a transcribed interview with the committee that Harris, Biden, and Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary, “intentionally” opened the U.S. border.
“I assert that Secretary Mayorkas and his subordinate political appointees have and continue to intentionally conspire to undermine the security of the American people, as well as the letter and the intent of congressionally enacted U.S. law,” said Rodney Scott, former Border Patrol chief during the January interview.
Scott said the administration was essentially telling his border agents, “Just don’t do your job,” in sharp contrast to the policies of former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
