Austin News

The social media account End Wokeness recently said that the former border patrol chief was ordered by the current administration to cover up the disaster at the border.

“Former Chief BP Agent Aaron Heitke was ordered by Biden-Harris to cover up the disaster at the border," End Wokeness wrote in a Sept. 19 social media post on X. 

Attached to the post was a video clip of former Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke testifying before a Congressional hearing on Thursday. In his testimony, Heitke detailed the significant rise in security threats at the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly in the San Diego sector. He reported that arrests of individuals with ties to terrorism surged from an average of 10 to 15 per year to over 100 in 2022, with continued increases in 2023 and 2024. Heitke criticized the Biden-Harris administration for downplaying these threats and attempting to cover up the border crisis by preventing him from disclosing arrest details.

“These are only the ones we caught,” Heitke said. “At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in size or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border.”

Heitke also highlighted the severe drug trafficking crisis, noting that the San Diego area accounts for 80 to 90 percent of national fentanyl and methamphetamine seizures. He pointed out that the price of fentanyl pills plummeted from $10 to $0.25 during his last year, indicating a rise in availability. Heitke expressed frustration over resource reallocations that led to the closure of key traffic checkpoints, which strained local communities as large numbers of illegal aliens were released. The administration's solution, involving costly flights to transport released individuals to Texas, was criticized as a temporary fix that failed to address the root causes of the border crisis.

“Each flight cost approximately $150,000. This was the administration's way to try and quiet the border-wide crisis,” Heitke said.

According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), as of Sept. 25, for the fiscal year 2024, CBP has made 146 arrests at the southwest border of individuals with records on the government's Terrorist Screening Dataset (TSDS), also known as the “watchlist.” The total number of arrests includes encounters of all nationalities as well as non-U.S. citizens at and between land border ports of entry. 

Initially established as a consolidated terrorist watchlist for known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), the TSDS has evolved over the past decade to encompass a broader range of individuals considered to be potential threats to the United States. The CBP’s 2024 fiscal year runs from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024.

Nationwide, almost 2.6 million illegal aliens have been encountered by CBP in Fiscal Year 2024, according to a CBP report. There were only 646,822 illegal alien encounters in Fiscal Year 2020 when the Biden-Harris Administration first took office.

Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed by President Joe Biden on March 24, 2021, “to lead efforts to stamp migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Since Harris’ appointment, the “surge” of illegal aliens crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly the Southwest portion of the U.S., has grown worse.