Heitke, who was appointed Chief Patrol Agent for the San Diego Sector in 2020, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee, stating that border authorities “had no idea who and what entered our country” throughout 2022 and 2023. He recounted how he dispatched agents to Texas and Arizona to track "gotaways" — migrants who evade Border Patrol custody. However, Heitke said, those areas lacked sufficient resources to even identify the individuals who had slipped through. “Simultaneously, in San Diego, we had an exponential increase in significant interest aliens (SIAs). These are aliens with significant ties to terrorism,” he said. “Prior to this administration, the San Diego sector averaged 10 to 15 arrests per year. Once word was out the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, well over that in 2023, and even more than that registered this year. These are only the ones we caught,” Heitke told lawmakers. “At the time I was told I could not release any information on this increase in size or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border,” he said.During a Congressional hearing this week, former Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke revealed that the Biden administration had instructed him not to disclose the number of suspected terrorists encountered at the U.S. southern border.
🚨WOW! Former Border Patrol Chief Aaron Heitke testifies before Congress that he was ordered by the Biden-Harris admin to cover up the number of terrorists arrested at the border.
"I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIAs or mention any of the… pic.twitter.com/wQowZHBM7N
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 19, 2024
Illegal migration has surged under the Biden administration, with nationwide border encounters surpassing 10.1 million — a 200 percent increase from the four years of the Trump administration — according to an August report from the House Homeland Security Committee.
That figure does not include the estimated two million "gotaways" since fiscal year 2021, the report noted.
Heitke added that that crisis has had a negative impact on San Diego, as law enforcement has to “release illegal aliens by the hundreds each day into communities who could not support them.”
In order to “quiet the problem,” he added, “ two flights a week were provided from San Diego to Texas,” at a cost of roughly $150,000 per flight.
