A coalition of more than 200 retired border security and other homeland professionals, including former Border Patrol officials and senior leaders, has issued an open letter to the American public urging the next administration to address critical gaps in U.S. border security and immigration enforcement. Signed by former Border Patrol Chiefs Scott and R.P. Buck Brandemuehl, Chief-Retired, US Border Patrol, other notable signatories include: Thomas Homan, Director, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ;Mark Morgan, Former Acting Commissioner CBP, Former Chief, US Border Patrol; Matthew Hudak, Deputy Chief-Retired, US Border Patrol; Ronald S. Colburn, Deputy Chief-Retired, DHS/CBP, US Border Patrol among other front-line personnel.
The grassroots effort, not supported by political action committees or affiliated organizations, outlines the personal and professional concerns of those who once held frontline and strategic roles in homeland security.
The leader of the effort, Rodney Scott, was Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Scott joined the Border Patrol in 1992 and held numerous leadership positions throughout his career. His roles included Chief Patrol Agent of the El Centro Sector in California and deputy roles in the San Diego Sector. During his tenure as Chief of the Border Patrol from January 2020 to August 2021, Scott supported initiatives like President Trump’s border wall and held firm on terminology that describes border activity, refusing to adopt descriptors like “migrant” over terms like “illegal alien.”
The letter is shared in full below:
Dear America,
On November 5th you will select a new president to lead us. The single most important factor when evaluating the candidates should be ensuring the safety and security of the United States. Of the countless issues to consider, every one of them is dependent upon our national security. National security has many facets, but it does not exist without enforceable international borders. In this election, there is no need to speculate what each candidate might do. When reviewing their records you can see both candidates have very clear, but distinctly different track records.
The Biden/Harris administration enacted policies that systematically dismantled a proven 27-year bi-partisan border security strategy that prevented crime, both at the border and in towns across America, through deterrence and consequences. The appalling results were immediate and will have lasting consequences. US Customs and Border Protection, the frontline of America’s defense against cartels and Human trafficking syndicates, was forced to pull law enforcement personnel from critical enforcement duties protecting the borders to cope with over 10 million illegal aliens. This record setting illegal immigration overwhelmed every aspect of border security. Unfortunately, with the majority of our borders left unprotected, approximately two million illegal aliens and narcotics smugglers were observed but evaded apprehension, disappearing unchecked into your neighborhoods. Even more frightening are the unknown numbers that made it through in areas of the border completely unpatrolled. Additionally, millions of aliens were intentionally released into the United States with a simple paper giving them a notice to appear in court at some future date, many years from now.
Pundits and politicians on both sides of the political spectrum continue to overcomplicate border security. Border security is simply the ability, and willingness, to know and control who and what enters our homeland. Similar to our personal homes, if we cannot control who and what enters our home then we have zero real security. Our nation is no different; border security is national security.
Immigration policy is not synonymous with border security. However, immigration policy and immigration law directly affect border security. Immigration policy can enable or destroy border security. Bottom line, as we have seen in the last three and a half years, immigration policy encouraging fraud and illegal entry, decimates our nation’s ability to know and control who, or what enters our homeland. Illegal immigration also erodes our legal immigration system and forces legal immigrants to the back of the line. Families with relatives here in the United States, doctors, engineers, even legal migrant workers, are all negatively impacted by unfettered illegal aliens who were allowed to jump to the front of the line. Additionally, when illegal aliens are released in significant numbers into the US, the incentivized follow-on illegal immigration will always exceed our nation’s ability to control it. Finally, consider the fact when discussing immigration policy, if we cannot, or will not control who is allowed to enter our homeland then any policy discussion becomes irrelevant.
Furthermore, transnational criminal organizations (TCO), commonly known as cartels, control illegal immigration to strategically distract and overwhelm US law enforcement. This tactic has been very successful over the last several years, as you have seen in the news reports highlighting the terrorists, murderers, rapists, violent gangs and record levels of fentanyl that made it into the US. The TCOs have been able to operate with minimal risk of being apprehended while increasing their profits by billions of dollars, all courtesy of policies implemented by the Biden/Harris administration.
President Trump respected the experience of career border security professionals and listened to our advice. When border security experts explained to President Trump how illegal immigration empowers the cartels to control who and what enters our home, he listened and acted. The Trump administration supported policies and programs that reduced illegal immigration, instilled integrity into our legal immigration system and ensured that the US government was doing all we could to control who and what entered our homeland. The borders of the US were never more secure than they were during the Trump administration.
This same expert information, evidence, and advice was offered to the Biden/Harris administration. However, they chose to ignore the career border security experts and instead, under VP Harris’ watch, idealist political appointees with zero border security experience were empowered to implement disastrous and deadly border security policy for the United States. The devastating results have handed complete control of our border to the cartels, provided them with astronomical record profits, ballooned legal immigration backlogs, and have left millions of illegal aliens in the country.
The men and women whose signatures appear below, each an honorably retired career civil servant that specialized in border security, dedicated their careers to the protection of this great nation. Most are not interested in engaging in any political actions other than voting but realized after witnessing the unravelling of the rule of law at our borders and the horrific impacts on our local communities with heinous central and south American gang crimes, and the terrible loss of life from the fentanyl crisis that this election is too important to stand on the sidelines. Campaign ads can portray anything. We encourage every American to take a lesson from law enforcement and simply follow the evidence of the last eight years. The first four resulted in the most secure border in history and the other has resulted in significant increases in the loss of life and record illegal immigration.
Assuming you care about border security as much as we do, the choice is clear. President Trump is the only candidate that we can trust to secure our nation’s borders.