Departing ICE Director: Biden Too Late on Border

President Joe Biden "absolutely" should have moved faster to tighten security at the U.S. border, according to outgoing acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director P.J. Lechleitner.

Lechleitner also told NBC News that the "career people" at the Department of Homeland Security believe Biden should have acted sooner, the network reported Thursday.

"All of us in DHS, quite frankly, I don't know if anybody in DHS wouldn't have wanted that earlier," he said.

Part of the issue was that ICE was "unable to do our own core mission adequately" because staff members were needed to help Customs and Border Protection, Lechlietner said.

Last February, a bipartisan agreement was presented in the Senate for a $118 billion package that included provisions to reduce the record-high crossings at the southern border while tightening the nation's asylum system. It had also included aid the Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, which Republicans had said they would support if it included new immigration restrictions.

But just four days after it was presented, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Republican conference rejected his pitch to support the agreement, which had been reached by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz.

Biden in June used executive action to restrict people who had crossed the border illegally from being able to claim asylum, and by September, illegal border crossings fell to 54,000.

This was the lowest since he took office in 2021 and put the totals in line with the numbers recorded during President-elect Donald Trump's numbers during his first term in 2019.

The migrant numbers are continuing to fall, as 46,000 crossed illegally in November.

Meanwhile, Lechleitner said he was not surprised that Biden didn't mention the lack of action at the border when speaking about his regrets during an interview with USA Today.

"It's unfortunate because I think we could have done more,” Lechleitner said. "We could have put more resources to it, either at CBP, for the border itself, and with ICE, and we could have gone and tried to get more of these individuals in the non-detained docket.

"We could have detained more people, and we could have removed more people and I think we could use more resources and support," added Lechleitner, who has served with DHS since its creation in 2003. "We could have done that in the last four years."

Lechleitner said that he has often sought more resources for ICE, which he believes has been underfunded.

The agency deported just over 47,000 immigrants in fiscal 2024 and could not have deported more than that without more money, he said.

"We're burning hot," he said. "We're at maximum resource capacity. At this point, we're going to need more money and resources to increase, and with more money and resources, we can increase detention, we can increase removal operations."

Lechleitner, who has worked under Republican and Democrat administrations, said he wishes Trump's administration well but warned that it will be expensive and difficult to prioritize arrests of migrants who have criminal records.

"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 meaningful way," said Lechleitner. "But we need resources. Give us more resources. Give us more personnel, give us more support, and we can do more."

The outgoing administration should also have been more transparent with Americans about the issues with immigration while giving ICE the freedom to be more public about its work and concerns, Lechleiter said.

"Let us talk. Let us demystify. Because, if not, people are going to just make their own stories up about what's going on, and it's going to be more problematic," he said.

However, he added that his team was prevented from doing monthly news conferences, and he doesn't know why.

"We were only allowed to do so much," he said.

Lechleitner also admitted that it "drives me nuts" when cities adhere to sanctuary policies and won't tell ICE when undocumented people are being freed from custody.

"It's like, 'Come on, man, these are public safety, national security threats. And why? Why can't we just cooperate and just do this to protect the American public?'" Lechleitner said.