PHOENIX — A 10-mile stretch of the Arizona border with Mexico was left unmanned for two days, allowing criminal cartel members to cut a hole in the fence, drive two vehicles into the U.S. and escape, according to the head of the national Border Patrol union.
Brandon Judd, president of the 16,500-member National Border Patrol Council, told Congress that surveillance cameras spotted the two vehicles inside the U.S.
Agents who investigated found tracks indicating the vehicles had entered through the hole.
The cartel members put the fence back up and tried to hide the cuts they made, Judd said.
"The scariest part of those vehicles entering into the United States is we don’t know what was in those vehicles. We have no idea," Judd testified Wednesday during a House hearing in Washington, D.C..
The hearing was examining border security and potential threats from transnational criminal organizations and terrorists.
Dan Hetlage, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, could not confirm the incident.
In a written statement, he said, the Border Patrol "uses technology, infrastructure and agents to secure the nation’s land borders, day and night, 365 days a year. We take this mission extremely seriously, and we’re constantly examining our operations to achieve the mission with which we’ve been entrusted.”
Judd described the incident as evidence to counter claims by President Obama's administration that the border is more secure than it has been in years.
The union chief has been critical of Obama's immigration and border security policies, which he claims is responsible for a rise in arrests of foreign nationals from countries other than Mexico.
"The Obama administration and (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) Commissioner (Gil) Kerlikowske have repeatedly told the American public that the border is more secure today than it’s ever been," Judd said. "As a Border Patrol agent, I will tell you the exact opposite."
Judd said the stretch of border in Arizona was left unmanned because the Border Patrol doesn't have enough agents. He said the incident was confirmed in management reports but he did not specify the exact location of the incident. Arizona's border with Mexico is 372.5 miles long.
In the first five months of this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the Border Patrol has arrested 18 people from Afghanistan and 79 from Pakistan, compared with five from Afghanistan and 57 from Pakistan the previous fiscal year, Judd also said at the hearing.
"Those numbers should alarm everyone," Judd testified. "And we are seeing a similar trend from other countries like Albania, Bangladesh and Brazil."
