SAN DIEGO, California — The US Border Patrol has more than twice as many migrants as they can hold in the San Diego area of the southern border — and immigrants there were thanking President Biden for letting them in.
The agency’s processing centers in the region are 245% capacity, as 1,812 migrants were being detained as of Friday in facilities normally meant to hold 750, according to agency data exclusively obtained by The Post.
With the influx — and the fact that migrants can only be held 72 hours — there’s been more than 125,000 migrants released onto the streets of San Diego since September.
Migrants who were exiting Border Patrol buses this week told The Post they were from a diverse array of countries — from China, India and Egypt to Jordan, Mauritania and Colombia.
“Thank you America, thank you American president,” a migrant from India said after being dropped off by Border Patrol and allowed to enter the US.
A family or migrants from China told The Post they paid $70,000 to come to the U.S. via Thailand and Turkey.
They shared that they were going to an address in Orlando, which they had written on a small piece of paper.
“We followed a route to get here shared with us in China,” one of the Chinese men said, adding that he came to visit relatives.
Others migrants who had been released from Border Patrol custody asked where they were and how to get to the airport, before volunteers escorted them to the local trolley to take them there.
With so many people coming, there’s concern among the rank-and-file Border Patrol agents that the agency is not able to properly vet everyone before releasing them into the country with court dates.
“You have to keep in mind that we only know what we have in our databases, but when they’re coming from other countries if the United States doesn’t have cooperation we don’t know what their background is in their country,” National Border Patrol Council President for the San Diego sector Manny Bayon told The Post.
In San Ysidro, which is part of the San Diego sector, border agents arrested and released an Afghan national on the terror watchlist in March 2023.
The FBI notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that he was a suspected member of the US-designated foreign terror group Hezb-e-Islami almost a year later.
“It’s affecting morale very much so because obviously we took an oath to defend the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic. There’s no consequences for anyone coming to the United States now,” Bayon said of the mass releases and the inability to properly vet them.
While San Diego experiences and uptick in crossings, traffic has slowed in other areas of the border. In Texas, Border Patrol processing facilities are under capacity as the state continues to erect more razor wire and fencing to deter illegal crossings.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond told The Post that California’s status as a sanctuary state, combined with the federal government authorizing mass releases into the community is attracting more and more migrants to cross into the area.
“People are entering illegally, we are not enforcing our laws,” Desmond said.
