Biden Officials Being Used Against Him in Battle With DeSantis

Florida prosecutors are relying on testimony from President Joe Biden's own border officials to make their case against the administration's immigration policies.

This week, the battle over the border between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Biden made its court debut as the governor's administration argued that the White House is neglecting immigration policies by releasing rather than detaining migrants at the southern border.

To prove their point, prosecutors cross-examined U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who rose to the top post in August 2021—several months after migrants began crossing into the U.S. in unprecedented numbers.

On Tuesday, Ortiz agreed that there are consequences that can deter migrant flows, with one of those consequences being expedited removal. Questioned by Florida prosecutors about whether the number of migrants would increase without such consequences, Ortiz responded, "That's an assumption, yes."

He then confirmed that under the Biden administration, there were reduced consequences for migrants, which he said "had an impact on the flows that we were experiencing."

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Ortiz, whose career spans more than 30 years, oversees domestic border security operations, including the U.S.-Mexico border, and leads over 20,000 border patrol agents.

Just last week, Ortiz said officials in South Florida have seen a 400 percent increase in migrant encounters this fiscal year compared to the same period last year.

During the trial, Ortiz testified that under the immigration policies of the Trump administration, there were "migrants that made the decision not to travel to the U.S."

Governors of Republican-led states, like DeSantis, have seized on the surge in numbers and created a political vulnerability for the Biden administration. It has forced Biden to take a number of recent actions to address the issue, including taking his first visit as president to the southern border.

In the lawsuit, DeSantis is alleging that the Biden administration allowed thousands of migrants into the country by ignoring policies to detain them. The governor is arguing that the DHS' failure to do so has threatened public safety and put a strain on states that have experienced an influx of migrants.

However, attorneys for the Biden administration have argued that the surge has been a problem for decades, and that those numbers haven't be exacerbated by new policies.

Ortiz's testimony corroborated that the growing numbers have been an ongoing issue for authorities. He told prosecutors he wouldn't characterize the changes as a "new border surge" but noted that his agents have been "busy for a while."

"I felt like since 2014 we have steadily increased the levels of encounters that we've seen across the southwest border," Ortiz said.