El Paso, Texas  (October 7, 2021) – The historic surge of illegal immigration at the U.S. border has overwhelmed the U.S. Border Patrol, the agency charged with detecting and preventing illegal traffic between ports of entry.

In this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, Mark Krikorian, the Center’s executive director and host of the podcast, discusses this with border security expert Dr. Victor Manjarrez Jr.

Manjarrez, a former Border Patrol sector chief who served for over 20 years in key operational roles, now teaches and researches topics related to border security and law enforcement generally at the University of Texas El Paso, where he heads the Center for Law and Human Behavior. Manjarrez attributes the flow of migrants crossing the U.S. southern border, including the recent crisis at Del Rio, to the present administration’s policy of non-enforcement and the unclear messaging, which, in his opinion, poses a national security threat. 

Manjarrez and Krikorian discuss the different aspects of border security, the functionality of barriers, and operational challenges faced by Border Patrol, including the bigger picture of the structuring of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which the Border Patrol is a part.

In the closing commentary, Krikorian recounts his trip to the Border Patrol Museum in El Paso and reflects on the sacrifices asked of Border Patrol agents.