The former head of the Border Patrol revealed that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris not once reached out or spoke with him about the border crisis in his two years atop the federal agency.
Raul Ortiz, who led the federal Border Patrol organization from June 2021 to June 2023, admitted in a 60 Minutes interview that the top White House officials never contacted him to learn about the extent of or solutions to the massive border problem.
“I’ve never had one conversation with the president. Or the vice president, for that matter. And so I was the chief of the Border Patrol. I commanded 21,000 people. That’s a problem,” Ortiz told the CBS News show in an episode that aired Sunday evening.
Ortiz, an agent of 32 years, added that the Biden White House had “most definitely” sent mixed messages to immigrants outside the United States.
“The cartels, the criminal organizations, that’s who’s winning in all of this. They’re sitting back, reaping all the benefits while they watch the state of Texas and Washington, D.C., go at it,” Ortiz said.
The key, according to Ortiz, was ensuring that people in the Western Hemisphere who would consider illegally immigrating into the U.S. understand the consequences.
“We need to make sure that Central America, South America, Mexico, that those regions understand that if you pay a smuggler and you cross in between the ports of entry and you do not have a legitimate claim to some sort of asylum benefit, you’re going to be sent back,” he said.
Although the Biden administration has turned away and removed approximately 4 million people from the country in three years, it has released roughly 3 million others into the U.S. That has sent a message to immigrants outside the U.S., Ortiz said.
But Ortiz was also frustrated with Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX). Abbott and the legislature in Texas have pledged $11 billion to the state’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative. Under the operation, the state has sent thousands of National Guard soldiers and state police to help with managing the border, often in high-profile stunts that lock down small sections of the border.
“The National Guardsmen, even, to some degree, the Border Patrol agents, have become pawns in this political game between the two sides,” Ortiz said.
Abbott pushed back in the interview and said the state has seen illegal crossings shift from Texas to Arizona and California as it deters illegal immigration.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had tapped Ortiz to replace then-Chief Rodney Scott in June 2021. Ortiz was promoted to the job in August 2021 from his post as deputy chief.
In March 2023, Ortiz testified before Congress that the border was not secure, undermining statements by Mayorkas, who has stated the border is secure.
“You heard the secretary. He said we have operational control. That’s the definition of operational control,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) said during the 2023 hearing and pointed to a poster board behind him that stated the legal definition of “operational control.”
“Based on the definition of the mission you have up, sir, up there, no,” Ortiz said.
“We don’t have operational control?” Green asked again.
“No, sir,” Ortiz said. “About 10 years ago, we used operational control as a measuring stick of our effectiveness along the southwest border. My new strategy is geared towards mission advantage.”
In May 2023, Ortiz said his vision for Border Patrol operations was to have intake processing of immigrants in custody run as smoothly and respectfully as the service provided at a famous fast-food restaurant.
“I want our processing facilities to be run like Chick-fil-As,” Ortiz said during remarks at the Border Security Expo in El Paso, Texas, in May 2023.
Ortiz has faced criticism from Republicans, who have alleged that the Biden administration’s changes at the border have only sped up the human smuggling and human trafficking process.
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Ortiz was selected in February 2020 by the Trump White House to be a guest at the president’s State of the Union address at the Capitol.
Ortiz joined the Border Patrol in the early 1990s and spent his early years in San Diego.