Border Patrol chiefs confirm walls work: 'If the door is open, it's typically utilized'

U.S. Customs and Border Protection sector chiefs revealed that border walls do in fact stem the flow of illegal migration and allow for a greater chance to arrest border-crossers.

After the Biden administration said it would use remaining funds from the Trump presidency to construct 20 miles of border wall in Texas, the president said that he does not believe border walls work.

"The border wall — the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get to them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn't. They wouldn't," Biden claimed.

As part of a House investigation into the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, oversight committees interviewed Border Patrol sector chiefs and asked them if walls are useful in reducing illegal immigration.

"Any kind of infrastructure, and we'll talk about the barrier right now as an example, used in the right way in the right location is a force multiplier. There are other areas where I would prefer other types of force multipliers. But a physical barrier generally for us is most helpful in areas where we have what we call short vanishing points," said former Del Rio Sector Chief Jason Owens, according to Townhall.

"And that is where an individual can approach, cross the border, and disappear quickly. That physical barrier extends the amount of time that I and my team have to respond to and interdict, and it increases the certainty of arrest," Owens, who is now chief of Border Patrol, added.

A border wall system "slows down the people as they come across, and so we have more time to respond and actually make an apprehension," explained then-Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke of the San Diego Sector. "It's more difficult to cross through the barriers, and so they move to other areas where the barrier isn't where we can focus resources. Part of the barriers as well is all-weather roads, so we have better and faster access to those areas."

Yuma Sector Deputy Chief Dustin Caudle described 14 gaps that are "exploited almost daily."

"If all of the gaps were completely filled, we would be able to, again, be able to move manpower and resources and assets much more easily than just having a known vulnerability. If the door is open, it's typically utilized," he stated.

Additionally, Chief Gregory Bovino from the El Centro Sector in California oversees 60 miles of border wall and would seemingly like to see more.

"When I started in the El Centro Sector in 1996, there was no border wall. In many of those areas now, where there is border wall, we see very little vehicular incursions across the desert between the ports of entry, and a decrease in pedestrian crossings at the border, especially where the 33 foot wall exists," Bovino noted.

After experiencing the border with and without a wall, Bovino concluded that a wall "gives the agents a tool and an advantage when working with the border."

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