The outgoing director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, PJ Lechleitner, claims Joe Biden “absolutely” should have acted sooner to tighten security at the US and Mexico border to reduce the flow of migrants into the US, according to an interview with NBC News.
Lechleitner became the acting director of Ice in July 2023 and his departure comes ahead of Donald Trump taking office on 20 January.
In his discussion with the network, Lechleitner noted that the volume of incoming migrants to the country meant he had to shift staff to assist Customs and Border Protection, leaving the agency unable “to do our own core mission adequately”. Pointing to the US president’s executive action in June 2024, he added that he and others felt that Biden should have done something sooner.
“I think the career people in DHS would have liked that,” he said. “And all of us in DHS, quite frankly, I don’t know if anybody in DHS wouldn’t have wanted that earlier.”
The order in June temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross between lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings has been exceeded. Those seeking asylum were then held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including human trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – were excluded from the ban.
The result of the order meant that border crossings declined in the subsequent months, dropping below 54,000 in the month of September – the lowest since 2020 when Biden took office.
Earlier this year, Lechleitner told NBC News that some cities that previously were not cooperating with the agency when releasing undocumented immigrants from jail had begun doing so out of concerns for crime.
However, claims of waves of migrant crime propagated by Trump and other Republicans during the 2024 election year were unsubstantiated as most cities saw crime fall.
Lechleitner also criticized Biden who did not cite acting sooner to impose restrictions at the border as a regret in the final weeks of his administration.
“It’s unfortunate because I think we could have done more,” he added.
“We could have put more resources to it, either at CBP, for the border itself, and with Ice. And we could have went and tried to get more of these individuals in the non-detained docket,” Lechleitner continued.
“We could have detained more people, and we could have removed more people. And I think we could use more resources and support. We could have done that in the last four years.”
In fiscal year 2024, Ice deported 47,000 migrants. Leichleitner claimed the agency was understaffed and underfunded, and could not have deported more with the current resources.
He also claimed higher-ups prevented his agency from giving monthly press conferences and expressed frustrations with sanctuary cities.
Of the incoming Trump administration, Lechleitner concluded, “the American people have spoken, and hopefully, knock on wood, we’re going to get a lot more support for the workforce to do our job in a more, you know, meaningful way. But we need resources. Give us more resources. Give us more personnel, give us more support, and we can do more.”
