The Cipher Brief tapped expert Michael J. Fisher, former Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol and member of the Senior Executive Service to talk about the actual threats to national security and whether Mexico is doing enough to help.
Fisher: I think Mexico, under the threat of tariffs, has responded though Mexico has always had a challenge in sustaining this type of deployment.
They took similar action towards the end of 2014. We saw the illegal entrant numbers dropping considerably in 2015 and in 2016, and then they rose again. Oftentimes Mexico will send their military to their northern border. A lot of that is to start working against the cartels and the criminal networks that operate in and around those border areas, and then also to alleviate crime in those areas. It’s interesting to note that one of the other challenges Mexico is facing now with the migrants that are being returned from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, is that those who have claimed asylum are being returned to Mexico to await their court appearance for their asylum cases in the United States. So, we’re now seeing some reporting on large groups of people from Central America waiting in places like Juarez and Tijuana, and Mexico's challenge is to be able to deal with those populations. So I think part of a military presence or a law enforcement presence in those areas and some of their other state and local and non-governmental organization (NGO) equivalents in Mexico are trying to help and manage that situation, but that's something I think that we should keep an eye on.
With respect to the troops along the southern border with Guatemala, again that’s a shorter border to manage, but without adequate resources to stop people from coming across, that small border's going to be very difficult for them to manage. I've noticed where they’ve considered checkpoints to be able to alleviate the ingress from Southern Mexico into Central and Northern Mexico and doing checkpoint stops and trying to verify people's status to either remain or pass through Mexico, to include the railway stations, which as you know often times is the mechanism by which Central Americans ride from Southern Mexico through and in through Central Mexico. So, it's a good step. We've talked before about Mexico and our shared border. They’ve signed documents with the United States pledging their mutual support on border issues and facing tariffs up to 25% if they did not comply, I think was an administrative move that got their attention. We still have a 45-day period to see to what extent, if any, their actions have reduced the flow into the United States, so I think that's another area to keep an eye on.
The Cipher Brief: It sounds like you’re keeping a hopeful watch for the long-term but based on what we've talked about in the past, you have at least a little bit of optimism that Mexico is taking this more seriously than they have in the past?
Fisher: That's correct, and it goes back to something that you've heard me say again and again and that is unless the paradigm shifts, and that paradigm being until the cost exceeds the benefit, those people will keep coming. If you can layer in costs throughout their journey, imagine somebody paying a smuggler $10,000, $15,000 and they only get into Southern Mexico and are either turned around and deported back to Central America. That sends a big signal for those groups that are thinking about coming into the United States first having to go through that gauntlet with a new Mexican enforcement presence that wasn't there six months ago. I think that's one way the cost could exceed the benefit.
The Cipher Brief: President Trump recently halted some deportations at the last minute, and I know that's another area that you've talked a lot about. What are your thoughts on that?
Fisher: It just goes to trying to stop the flow. People are looking at the actions the administration is taking, and they're playing Monday morning quarterback, but I will tell you that many factors still remain in terms of the legal loopholes. So, without legislative changes that are required to slow this crisis down, the only thing the administration is able to do now is enforce the law as written which includes effectively removing people who have prior orders of deportation. In my opinion there is no reason why anybody should be upset by the fact that these people have had due process. There's a large population of individuals who have been ordered removed in absentia, in other words they have not shown up for their immigration hearings, they have gone through the judicial process, an immigration judge has heard their case and has made the legal determination that they do not have standing or they don't have the right to pass through or remain in the United States, and under the law the judge has ordered them to be removed or deported. So now it's just a matter of affecting that judge's order because like I said, often times these people are not showing up to their hearings, and so that falls to immigration and customs enforcement for their teams to try to locate these individuals and deport them back to their country of origin as the law requires. And that too, is a piece of enforcement which over the decades has drawn little attention simply because of the number of individuals who have been ordered deported, and the limited resources that ICE has to have their fugitive teams try and look for these people to affect the deportation order.
Michael J. Fisher, Former Chief, U.S. Border Patrol
"It's a matter of prioritization, it's a matter of political will, and it seems that in the current environment, not having any legislative relief in sight, the administration is exercising within the law the enforcement protocols and the enforcement steps that are necessary to try to increase the cost and reduce the benefit of illegally coming into the United States hoping to stay and not be affected by other enforcement actions."
The Cipher Brief: Help us understand what's going on with the issue around the children. We had a group of lawyers show up at these facilities, and in some instances it was reported that they interviewed the children and got certain answers that then the customs and border protection, the U.S. government, frankly disagrees with. Help us understand what's going on with the children.
Fisher: With respect to the children, again that's something that's relatively new in terms of what's happening on the ground. I'm not going to speculate, and I would actually suggest others don't at this point either because I've seen this happen before in very emotional political environments, especially when it has to do with children, and I completely understand the emotion. I'm a father, and as a border patrol agent, I've dealt with those vulnerable populations, children either accompanied or unaccompanied, and it's not a really good situation whatsoever.
However, I don't know how many times that Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan has testified about this. I know I testified a couple of months ago with respect to the conditions and the overcrowding and the fact that CBP as an agency, between the ports of entry, at the border patrol stations and the office of field operations at the ports of entry were never designed to hold people for any long periods of time, plain and simple. The facilities just never existed to do that, and when you have a system that relies on health and human services, for instance, going back to the children, and you overwhelm that system, it's going to breakdown. And nobody should be surprised.
It's an untenable situation, and it has been an untenable situation that we have been faced with for much too long. And for months and months, Congress has failed to provide the adequate resources, the funding, so that CBP is able to move these kids from the border environment to a better situation for them. I don't know the circumstances specifically regarding the facility in Texas, but I can probably tell you that anybody who has kids will not be satisfied - nor should they be satisfied – with the conditions. But the role of the border patrol agent isn’t to build better longer-term facilities. That's not their mission. The mission is to be able to fill in the gaps to reduce the flow and provide the requisite resourcing now and the emergency supplemental to alleviate the clog in the system which is right now just completely overwhelmed.
The Cipher Brief: What about the goal of 100% operational control of the border? We haven't talked about that in a while. Do you think we're getting closer?
Fisher: I think we're getting closer, but it's going to take a while because right now the focus is on the influx of all these people. If you look at achieving operational control of the border, you have to be able to measure effectiveness. How many people in total attempted to cross, and of that number, how many people either got away or returned back, or how many were arrested? And that as a percentage really made sense during the time where drug smuggling organizations and human traffickers and people were trying to evade the border patrol. So, there was a measure of that.
When you look at what's happening now and you're seeing that the vast majority of people are not trying to get away but instead are just trying to cross illegally and then sit down and wait or look for the border patrol agents to turn themselves in. In that type of situation, the border is, as some would argue, under more control because you actually know how many people are coming in because they're not trying to evade capture. The challenge is because of that situation and the overwhelming numbers of those individuals who are turning themselves in, the cartels are using that as a distraction because in some of those locations along the border in South Texas and other places in El Paso and Yuma, the drug trafficking organizations are moving people in large numbers knowing full well that between 50-60% of that work force would otherwise be patrolling the border to secure the border, but instead are processing or taking care of family units and children and are not on the border patrol line.
Michael J. Fisher, Former Chief, U.S. Border Patrol
"When you look at controlling the border, although these people are turning themselves in, the amount of narcotics and other illegal contraband coming into this country right now during this period of challenge for CBP, those numbers are actually going up, and when you take a look at the end of September, probably early, mid-October when CBP publishes their narcotics seizures, my prediction is going to be that those narcotics seizures in a lot of those locations at and between the ports of entry are going to increase, and it's because of the exploitation of these cartels who really are the only organizations that profit during times of chaos, and they count on that by the way."
The Cipher Brief: What haven't I asked you today that is important for folks to understand in the current context of what's going on at the border?
Fisher: People tend to focus on one episode, and I know that you have been following this long enough to know that it's the layered approach that is most effective in terms of trying to stem the flow. You mentioned the U.S. government's work in places like Guatemala. In terms of trying to help them from an economic stability standpoint, while trying to put procedures in place for those individuals to make a legitimate asylum claim in their country of origin are important. It's safer. They don't have to pay smugglers. They don't have to be exploited along the routes, and if they in fact do have a legitimate claim, they can make that claim via state department representatives and others who can help in those locations, so they don't have to find themselves going through the desert.
So you're looking at government to government efforts to be able to increase economic viability and stability in those countries and trying to help them increase job opportunities, reduce unemployment, to have those people want to stay in their countries as opposed to going somewhere else because often times the majority of people who are coming here, regardless of their credible care claims, are really coming for two primary reasons. One, family reunification, and two equally important is economic opportunities that they can't find or don't find within their home country. So that's the first layer, government to government.
The other is the sustainability or the degree to which Mexico can sustain their humanitarian and law enforcement and military efforts to help stem the tide into the United States. And then third, equally important is going to be these “pull” factors, the policies and the loopholes that need to be closed because the other two things can’t happen if you don't close those loopholes. People are going to continue to come.
The Cipher Brief: Mike, this is such a complex issue. We appreciate your weighing in.
Read also, The Real National Security Challenges at the Border, only in The Cipher Brief
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