Head of Border Patrol union slams Biden’s ‘self serving’ trip to southern border: ‘Too little, too late’

President Biden’s upcoming trip to the US-Mexico border is “too little, too late,” the head of the Border Patrol union said Monday, arguing that the visit is primarily aimed at improving optics ahead of the November election. 

“Everything that he does is too little, too late,” Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, said during an appearance on Fox News. 

“He had three years to do what he needed to do to secure the border. He had three years to put policies in place,” the union chief continued. “Now we’re only eight months from an election and now it looks like he’s interested, and he’s only interested in it because it’s self-serving and he wants to save himself.” 

“But the truth of the matter is, yes, he could stop this flow tomorrow.” 

Judd argued that Biden, 81, could substantially reduce the record number of migrants that have been overwhelming cities across the country if he were to reach an agreement with Mexico to reimplement the so-called “remain in Mexico” policy, which would force migrants seeking asylum to wait for their US immigration court hearings south of the border. 

However, Biden is reluctant to do that because it would be unappealing to his staunchest supporters, according to the union boss.  

“He doesn’t want to do that – that goes against his base of support,” Judd said. “If you look at the base of support, and even though he’s underwater in the polling, there are still 30% of the public that thinks that he’s doing the right thing on border security.”

“That is his base. Those people vote, and he doesn’t want to go against them. So he wants to throw his hands in the air and blame Congress rather than implementing the proper policy, which he has the authority to do right now.” 

Biden on Thursday  “will travel to Brownsville, Texas, to meet with US Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders,” a White House official said of the scheduled trip, the president’s first to the border since last January. 

“He will discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” the official added.

“He will reiterate his calls for Congressional Republicans to stop playing politics and to provide the funding needed for additional U.S. Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, fentanyl detection technology and more.”

The trip comes as the president reportedly considers whether to use executive powers to beef up asylum standards and turn away migrants seeking to enter the US between ports of entry. 

Judd said that based on his multiple interactions with impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, it is unlikely that the administration will drastically change course on addressing the crisis on the southern border. 

“He just wasn’t interested in implementing anything,” Judd said of his conversations with Mayorkas, who leads the department that oversees Border Patrol agents. 

“There’s a number of things that this administration can do. I spoke directly with Mayorkas about this. He refused to listen to any of it. And Biden will refuse to listen to it tomorrow.”

The National Border Patrol Council represents about 18,000 Border Patrol agents and support personnel, maintaining a 90% membership rate among eligible agents. 

Under Biden, more than 7 million migrants have been encountered by Border Patrol agents along the southern border, CBP data shows, including 961,537 in the current fiscal year.