Chase Carter
Chad Wolf reveals that almost 500,000 children were trafficked in 3 years on the southern border.
Jan Jekielek: In the last interview, the situation at the border was very different. How does that compare to now?
Chad Wolf: In the first part of 2019, we had a crisis, seeing numbers along the border start to rise.
We started doing different things, like Remain in Mexico or the migrant protection protocols and asylum agreements with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. We began removing more individuals who had no legal right to be in the United States.
The Biden administration, as of January 2021, has inherited a somewhat orderly and secure border, probably the safest in my lifetime. The administration dismantled all of this.
In the summer of 2019, we saw 40,000 to 50,000 apprehensions in a given month. Compare that today to 250,000 to 300,000 in a month.
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Mr. Jekielek: Many people in participating organizations believe that boundaries should not exist in the first place.
Mr. Wolf: It goes back to the principles on which immigration policy is based. With the Biden administration, its core principles align closely with those of the far-left Democratic Party. They believe that anyone should be able to enter the country for any reason: if they are looking for a better life, if their home country is dangerous or if they don’t like their neighbor.
If you believe in those things and create a system that way, which the Biden administration has done, then that contributes to the goal of these non-governmental organizations that help move migrants north. On the American side of the border, once released from federal government custody, these NGOs also take control.
All NGOs are not the same. Some have been around for decades, helping individuals. Some are in it for the right reasons. Some are in it for the wrong reasons, and the money flowing to them over the last three years has increased dramatically.
Once they release these individuals in Brownsville, Del Rio and El Paso, they will be out of federal custody. Then the NGOs take control and say: “Where do you want to go? We bought your ticket”, which is reimbursed by the American taxpayer.
They’re going to New York or Chicago, and there are facilities where they can go. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you fund this, the more people will come.
Mr. Jekielek: Let’s talk about child trafficking. How has this changed due to these increased numbers?
Mr. Wolf: Over the course of the Biden administration, we have approached approximately 500,000 unaccompanied children trafficked across that border. These children are not accompanied by any parent or guardian, nor by any family member. They are trafficked by cartels. They pay a fee upfront or they will have to pay it later. Unfortunately, all of these children are being abused, especially if you are a woman.
During the Trump administration, we tried to do a number of things. All of these individuals go to Health and Human Services and are then released to sponsors. We have increased verification of these sponsors. We also wanted to meet the other adults in that house to do background checks and checks.
The Biden administration canceled all of that. They said, “The easiest way to get children out of facilities is to relax vetting requirements,” which is extremely dangerous.
Mr. Jekielek: Many of the people are single men of military age, and there are also a large number of Chinese. How do you see this?
Mr. Wolf: There are families and children, but the majority remain single adults aged between 18 and 35. The number of Chinese citizens has increased so significantly that something is happening. We have never seen such a large number of Chinese crossing that border illegally.
Mr. Jekielek: If you got your old job back, what would you do?
Mr. Wolf: You won’t change this overnight. But there are things you can do, from day one, that send a signal not just to the American people, but to the cartels, the traffickers, and everyone involved, that it’s not going to be business as usual and that we’re going to get back to enforce border security law. You can restart border wall construction. That’s a force multiplier for the Border Patrol. You have to change the entire catch and release policy. You have to let the ICE officers do their job and start removing individuals.
Mr. Jekielek: There are comments on our border-related articles asking, “What is Congress doing about this?”
Mr. Wolf: There is a role for Congress, to be sure. The crisis emerged in 2021.
The Biden administration took 94 executive actions on immigration in its first 100 days and caused the crisis. Congress did not create this crisis, but the Biden administration says it is the only one who can solve it. That’s not the case.
The president and secretary of DHS have a lot of authority given to them by Congress over the years. They could implement policies that could control this crisis. They choose not to. They are passing the buck to Congress.
Mr. Jekielek: A final thought?
Mr. Wolf: This is a humanitarian crisis. Migrants are being trafficked, abused, raped and, in some cases, losing their lives, on a scale never seen before. The Biden administration’s immigration policies are the most inhumane we have ever seen.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
