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Well, new federal numbers released late this afternoon show detentions and arrests at America's Southern border hit an all-time high in 2021.
According to data that's out today from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more than 1.7 million migrants were detained at the border in the 2021 fiscal year.Sixty percent of those were expelled under the public health policy known as Title 42.
About a quarter of cases were repeat crossings.Those numbers come as Human Rights Watch released internal DHS files of more than 160 reports of alleged misconduct and abuse of asylum seekers by DHS officers.These included claims of molestation and physical and verbal abuse.
For more on all of this, I'm joined by Gil Kerlikowske.He served as commissioner of us Customs and Border Protection under President Obama. And, before that, he was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.Gil Kerlikowske, great to have you back on the "News Hour." I wonder if you could -- let's start with this Human Rights Watch report.And I should indicate this is not Human Rights Watch reporting.These are internal documents they got of complaints that were made of this awful behavior by DHS agents against them.What do you make of that?
A couple of things.One, you have to understand that it wasn't really until 2014 that Customs and Border Protection actually got their own robust internal affairs.That had been outsourced.And so you need accountability, you need investigations, and you need to be able to do discipline.And that is still an ongoing issue. But the number of complaints is certainly concerning.You have to remember, too, that Border Patrol has over 20,000 agents.They have had literally, during the time that those numbers came forward, millions of encounters with people crossing the border illegally.Some are just families.Some are willing, more than willing to surrender immediately. But there are other people that aren't quite as willing to surrender.
I hear everything that you're saying, but is -- the critics would argue that this tells us something about the culture with -- inside those agencies. What do you make of that?
So I think there's another side to the culture of that agency.And I got to see it firsthand in the summer of 2014, with 68,000 unaccompanied children being handled by the Border Patrol.I saw them bringing in T-shirts and clothing from their own kids at home.I saw them microwaving burritos, all without the support of other parts of the U.S. government. So, you know, there is certainly that.Remember, too, that the Border Patrol is one of the most the is one of the most diverse, particularly with Hispanic officers, in the country. So there is probably only about one degree of separation. So I think that these complaints are serious.They need to be investigated thoroughly and discipline, where appropriate, needs to be taken.
OK, so let's turn to this seeming record number of people coming across the border from a large range of countries. Why do you believe this is occurring?
Because the critics of the Biden administration argue that it is this administration's policies and this administration's more sort of open-ended and warm-hearted language that has invited this large number of people to come. Well, I think, as the nominee for Customs and Border Protection said at his hearing the other day, the law needs to be enforced, but it needs to be enforced humanely. And, frankly, during the last four years under the Trump administration, I think that there was not the attention being paid to enforcing the law humanely, and I think that that is beginning to change, if that's as a result of President Biden and his seemed openness to people coming into the country.But, again, the law is still the law.
