Bor­der Patrol chief thrilled with Trump bor­der czar pick after ‘exhaust­ing’ Biden-era cri­sis: ‘I’m excit­ed’

EXCLUSIVE: Bor­der Patrol Chief Jason Owens says he is “excit­ed” by the prospect of incom­ing Trump bor­der czar Tom Homan lead­ing the charge of depor­ta­tions and bor­der secu­ri­ty – as he point­ed to vio­lent Venezue­lan gang Tren de Aragua as one of the top threats fac­ing the coun­try.

Owens, who took the posi­tion of chief last year, spoke to Fox News’ Griff Jenk­ins in San Anto­nio, Texas, in his first inter­view since the elec­tion. He was asked what he thought of the appoint­ment of Homan, a for­mer Bor­der Patrol agent and for­mer head of Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE).

“I’m excit­ed because Tom Homan is a broth­er Bor­der Patrol agent. He served time in this uni­form. And so I’m excit­ed to see any of our green fam­i­ly make good,” he said. “And I’m excit­ed to see what he’s going to do.” 

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“I can tell you that the inte­ri­or enforce­ment and the depor­ta­tions, what they rep­re­sent is a con­se­quence. They rep­re­sent a con­se­quence of not fol­low­ing our laws and com­ing into our coun­try the right way,” he said.

There have been ten­sions between the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and Bor­der Patrol agents over the han­dling of the cri­sis at the south­ern bor­der. The Bor­der Patrol union has been deeply crit­i­cal of the admin­is­tra­tion and backed the Trump cam­paign dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. 

Owens came into the role as chief in a year that saw record encoun­ters at the south­ern bor­der. He said “it’s been exhaust­ing” for agents to deal with the last four years at the bor­der. Num­bers have dropped sharply recent­ly due in part to a procla­ma­tion lim­it­ing asy­lum signed by Pres­i­dent Biden in June, but it is unclear if those num­bers will remain low for long. 

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Owens warned that car­tels are adjust­ing their tac­tics to get around the new chal­lenges, includ­ing increased tech­nol­o­gy, and he point­ed to fen­tanyl and the vio­lent Venezue­lan migrant gang Tren de Aragua as two of the top threats on the agency’s radar.

“It’s a very seri­ous threat for us,” he said of Tren de Aragua (TdA). “It is one of our top pri­or­i­ties, just like fen­tanyl. Tomor­row it may be some­thing else, but today it’s TdA and fen­tanyl that they rep­re­sent some of the biggest threats to our peo­ple in this coun­try.”

The gang has been linked with a num­ber of high-pro­file crimes across the U.S. and has expand­ed its pres­ence and crim­i­nal activ­i­ties into mul­ti­ple states, includ­ing Col­orado, where it has report­ed­ly tak­en over a num­ber of apart­ment build­ings. 

Owens also points to the unknowns fac­ing agents, includ­ing 250,000 got­aways at the bor­der.

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“We need to make them come to the front door. It’s that unknown, and what the intent is that scares me the most and prob­a­bly any oth­er law enforce­ment and bor­der secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­al that you’re going to ask out there. It’s why are they com­ing in, and why aren’t they using the front door? And what are they plan­ning on doing that could poten­tial­ly harm our coun­try and our peo­ple?” he said.

He not­ed that it’s hard­er to vet migrants from coun­tries where there are no diplo­mat­ic rela­tions, mean­ing it’s much hard­er to know who is com­ing into the U.S. He says that what keeps him up at night is the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fail­ure in appre­hend­ing threats com­ing into the U.S.

“What keeps me up at night is not being suc­cess­ful, know­ing that for every per­son that we miss, for every drug load that we miss, peo­ple’s lives are for­ev­er impact­ed. And in some cas­es, peo­ple can die. That’s some­thing that none of us wants to see,” he said.