Border Patrol union leader says ongoing surge is historic in scope

PHOENIX – The leader of the U.S. Border Patrol agents’ union said Monday that the ongoing increase in activity at the U.S.-Mexico border does not by any means reflect a typical seasonal surge.

“Our numbers are rising to at a rate that we’ve never seen before in the history of the Border Patrol,” Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Arizona’s Morning News.

Last week, President Joe Biden said the number of migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border increases every winter because the weather conditions are more favorable and that “nothing has changed.”

“It happens every single, solitary year,” Biden said Thursday during his first press conference since he took office two months earlier.

Judd said Biden didn’t accurately portray the current situation.

“We do see surges; that does happen. There are cyclical surges,” Judd said.

“But we’ve never seen a surge like this. We’ve never seen day-to-day increases like what we’re seeing right now, week-to-week, month-to-month.”

Biden said the Trump administration eliminated funding and other support for the immigration system, rendering it unable to handle the flow of migrants coming in.

“What we’re doing now is attempting to rebuild — rebuild the system that can accommodate the — what is happening today,” he said.

Judd said it’s not clear what the Biden administration’s border plan is and questioned whether there even is one.

“I don’t believe that there is a plan,” Judd said. “Otherwise the president would talk about it.”

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