WASHINGTON—Tom Homan, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director, and Mark Morgan, former acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner and Heritage visiting fellow, released the following statements Thursday in response to President Joe Biden’s dishonest and misleading speech about the border crisis and the role the president and his administration have played in causing and continuing it:  

Homan: “I’ve served this country under numerous presidents and attorneys general, and Joe Biden is the first president in my lifetime to ever come into office and intentionally unsecure the border. And don’t think for a second that he didn’t do so purposefully and with total understanding of what would happen if he ended the Trump-era policies that brought illegal immigration to a 40-year low. His speech today was just another attempt to shift blame and lie his way out of a crisis of his own making. 

“The truth is that Biden signed more than 90 executive orders undoing what the previous administration had done to secure the border and reduce illegal immigration. The truth is that apprehensions by CBP began to skyrocket only after he took office—the numbers are publicly available for all to see. The truth is that more than 1 million got-aways have entered this country without being caught since he came into power, a historic number that includes tens of thousands of criminals, gang members, and potential terrorists. Terrorists will most likely now not buy a plane ticket or get a visa like the 9/11 terrorists, because now there are serious vetting procedures in place. They will instead simply cross our southern border the same way the got-aways have. President Biden's reckless actions have created the biggest national security failure since 9/11. 

“Joe Biden’s been president for two years. He needs to stop lying, man up, and take responsibility for the damage and destruction he has caused. He’s had two years to see that his policies have failed, but instead of learning his lesson and changing course, all he can do is throw mud at his political opponents—a classic D.C. Swamp move by a man who has been a creature of Washington his whole adult life. Our country, and especially the men and women of CBP, ICE, and our other immigration enforcement agencies, deserve far better.” 

Morgan: “It’s an objective fact Joe Biden took the most secure border in our lifetime, and handed it over to the cartels through his network of open-border policies. The catastrophic border security crisis we’ve all endured for the past two years is an intentional, self-inflicted crisis of his own making. The numbers are indisputable.   

“His continued attempts to deflect responsibility for the disastrous and deadly crisis are just as dishonest as the non-sensical ‘solutions’ he put forward in this speech today. Rather than be honest with the American people and set forth a strategy to reverse course to defend our nation’s borders, he doubled-down on his failed open-border policies.   

“It is laughable to think that mass amnesty, as proposed in his plan he referenced today, and large-scale, expansive use of parole will do anything but pour gasoline on the flames. In less than 24 months, our nation has been forced to address more than 6 million total encounters and got-aways, while Biden told us he had “more important things” to deal with. With a stroke of a pen, Biden has gutted the network of tools, authorities, and polices we had in place to effectively secure our borders and protect the American people from a vast and complex set of threats facing our nation. He has forsaken his constitutional responsibilities, the rule of law, and the safety and national security of our nation in a transparent bid to secure perceived political benefits. 

“Congress needs to finally, for once, do its job and act to secure our border. That means starting by impeaching Secretary Mayorkas, the chief architect of this crisis. It means meaningful oversight and investigation of Biden, Mayorkas, and the NGOs facilitating this crisis. And, most importantly, it means passing measures that end the crisis, secure the border, and reduce illegal immigration. We’ve already done the hard part for them.  The time for complaining is over. It’s time for action.”