Former border patrol chief during the Obama administration, Mark Morgan, on Wednesday said on Hill.TV on that it is “absolutely false” to say that walls do not work along the border.
“There’s so much false information that’s being provided out there, and they’re misleading the American people, so I’m just trying to do my best,” Morgan told hosts Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball in an appearance on “Rising.”
He was asked to specify what false information he has seen spread in the immigration debate.
“One of the best ones is walls are ineffective,” he said. “2006, the bipartisan Secure Fence Act. 2013, the Senate passes a bipartisan immigration bill with $8 billion dollars included in a fence, and just last year, there was money for fencing and barriers,” he continued.
Morgan said Yuma, Ariz., is an example of a city that has seen illegal immigration drop as a result of a border barrier.
“They build 23 miles of a physical barrier, and then they added additional technology and personnel. Illegal immigration went from a 150,000 to 15,000 overnight, and there’s countless examples of that,” he said.
While the barrier in Yuma has prevented a number of migrants from entering the U.S., the Arizona Republic reported last month that 376 migrants, the largest group ever recorded in Yuma, crossed the border by tunneling under the border fence.
President Trump on Tuesday said that he was not happy with a government funding agreement reached by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, which includes $1.375 billion deal for border barriers.
The amount is far less than Trump’s requested $5.7 billion for a border wall.
Trump has not yet said whether he would sign the agreement but seemed to be moving in that direction and has repeatedly said he may declare a national emergency to get the funding he thinks is necessary.
— Julia Manchester
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