Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels of Cochise County says it’s incredibly “frustrating” to watch chaos along the U.S. border with Mexico grow as President Biden’s policies begin bearing fruit.
The law enforcement official told Brian Kilmeade that issues that were “under control” during former President Trump’s tenure have quickly devolved since the start of Mr. Biden’s White House tenure.
“This administration owns this decision,” he said Friday of the Democrat’s construction stoppage at the border wall. “We had it under control. This is frustrating. It’s frustrating.”
“This is a wall we already paid for,” Mr. Kilmeade exclaimed. “Sheriff, we’ve paid for the wall to be built, along with the technology and along with the roads. Now we’re paying to move the wall, store the wall, or destroy the wall. And guess what? The illegals, according to what you’re telling us, are actually using it to get into the country. In what way?”
“It’s a product of politics within policing,” the sheriff replied. “And I’ve always said that they had no business in our business, in the business of policing what we do on this border in our communities. When President Biden rescinded the emergency order on the southwest border, it stopped resources and stopped construction on our border.”
Mr. Dannels, whose work requires eyes on 83 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, said the Biden administration has turned back the clock to pre-2019, security-wise.
“[It’s] forcing us back to 2019, when we had the largest, what I call, crime scene in the country to include the largest humanitarian situation going on,” the sheriff said.
He then noted the absence of any discussion related to how the illegal entries relate to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Nobody is talking about what’s going on at the southwest border when it comes to the health pandemic in this country,” Mr. Dannels added. “And then you look at the public safety aspect of this, it’s upsetting. It’s almost like we’re not part of this country, which is very upsetting.”
Mr. Kilmeade noted a projection of nearly 300,000 border encounters between officials and illegals by the end of the year.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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