director ron vitiello. should we shut the border now? that's the debate.at's an overreaction, the other side says do it now. what do you say? >> well, we should certainly do better as it relates to the policy of encouraging people to bring their children or families to the border. we know that terrorists, cartels are going to exploit all our weakness. so we can put policies back in place, congress could write laws and legislate the migrant protection program, or we could do something to stop this crush of humanity that we're seeing on television each and every day at the border, well over a billion apprehensions that we passed in june, and no end in sight. more people coming from more places all over the globe on top of the pandemic, on top of, you know, the disaster that's ongoing in afghanistan. elizabeth: yeah. security officials, some of them say, yes, shut it down now. this feels like 1998 again when the clinton administration was apprised of the fact that al-qaeda was going to move against us, and they were warning, there was the earlier, the first w

director, ron vitiello.rtation of migrants on buses osar cars, even -- or cars, even airplanes inside our state. but now the biden justice department is suing texas saying this violates the supremacy clause of the constitution that the federal government has the rights here. where do you come down on in this. >> i appreciate the fact that texas, the governor, the attorney general, others in the state are pushing back against these reckless policies that have driven this surge of humanity at the southwest border. for right now we're the only world superpower, and look at those images of those people under the bridge. you know, the border on top of that bridge is closed down to commerce that's nonessential. so all the communities on the border that survive on tax revenue from people coming over from mexico across that bridge to shop in those communities and restaurants and retail shops, those folks are being crushed by the lockdown in the economy, and the border's still closed, yet they have thousands of peopl

here to talk about it is former acting ice director ron vitiello.rants end up getting transferred to ice custody. what happens next? >> thanks for having me on. it depends on what situation they're in. if they are young children without their families they will have a brief stay with border patrol and on to hhs custody to a shelter and placed in the united states. families with older children can be expelled currently under title 42 to mexico. families with young children are being released in record numbers. you have seen the images. your audience has seen images. the most powerful country in the world in 2021 and we can't develop policies to keep this surge of humanity from coming to our borders every day. the border patrol is overwhelmed. you heard about capacity numbers. i feel bad for my former colleagues in border patrol. they know solutions exist. we don't have the political will in congress or administration to fix the problem. those individual border patrol agents and now ice assistance left to pick up the pieces and terrible conditions. >>

ron vitiello, retired acting i.c.e. director, former chief of the border patrol. group that is already taxed dealing with the thousands of migrants already surging there now. and now going through these afghans, what do you think? >> i'm disappointed that we knew that we were going to pull out of afghanistan. we knew that when they changed the policies at the u.s.-mexico border we would have a surge in activity, that we would need to do things in the united states to prepare for those changes in policy. yet again, here we are, where we did not make those plans, we did not give that augmentation to the border patrol. we were, obviously we're not prepared to see what's going on on the ground, both overseas and in the united states. and so we have to be concerned, you know, the men and women of dhs, those are professionals. they will make due with the situation that they have and they're going to do everything they can to keep us safe. border patrol agents protecting that border but they're really up against it. we've seen this surge, 212,000 encounters last month. pr

border principal chief deputy commissioner former acting ice director ron vitiello reaction to supremeri have taken this case on. and trying to force this administration to to go back to policies in effect helped prevent end and prevent surges adborder like we're seeing no i i am grateful that those states and their attorneys general for taking this on. it is a -- important to realize the protection protocols didn't exist before 2019, they were signed with members a diplomatic agreement we are not fully implemented until here in of that year 2019 after threat of terrorists or closing border if you will, so a full implementation brought us to unprecedented lows in activity at the border a program that works was working until january 21st now courts have ruled that it needs to be reinstated they didn't rule on merits they rules on validation administrative procedures act they haven't looked at law in and of itself said executive order not going to end it remain to be seen how going to be taken up in the broader sense by the court. maria: just incredible to see the pictures that we're wat