EL PASO, Texas—Interim Chief for the El Paso Sector Walter Slosar has served in the Border Patrol under six different presidential administrations. Today, the border is the “most secure border we’ve ever had,” he said.
Illegal border crossings have fallen from almost 1,000 a day in August 2022 to just 35 a day in July in the El Paso Sector, which includes the two westernmost counties in Texas—Hudspeth and El Paso—and all of New Mexico.
While Slosar says he is proud that encounters have fallen so low, he is “also not satisfied.”
The Border Patrol chief explained that an average of about nine illegal aliens are still managing to evade apprehension every day in the El Paso Sector.
“Those are nine people that we don’t know who they are, [what] their intentions are, and so, we’re really focused on getting that number to zero,” Slosar said.
“Criminal, foreign terrorist organizations, transnational criminal organizations, they’re try still trying to profit” by sneaking people and drugs across the border, he explained. The change now, according to Slosar, is those criminals are running from Border Patrol,” whereas [during] the previous three, four years, they were looking for us.”
During the administration of President Joe Biden, “criminal organizations made sure that [illegal aliens] were able to come across, use the asylum laws as a way to stay here, have a court date years in advance, but right now, ‘catch and release,’ it’s over,” the chief said.
‘Catch and release’ was the policy of apprehending illegal aliens at the border and paroling them into the U.S. until their asylum court date. President Donald Trump ended the practice during his first administration, but Biden permitted the practice to resume under his administration.
The El Paso Sector Border Patrol estimates the changes at the border in the past eight months, especially the end of “Catch and release,” has cost the criminal cartels over $1 billion. That loss of revenue is driving the cartels to rely on new or varied tactics to smuggle people and drugs into the U.S., according to Slosar.
The cartels are digging tunnels under the border wall, using drones to monitor the location of Border Patrol agents, and looking for weak points along the border to cross. But as the cartels employ new tactics, Slosar says Border Patrol is also adapting and working to employ new technology to further heighten “domain awareness.”
New technology, such as cameras, sensors, and aerial assets, are key to combating the current threats at the border, he explained.
“We’re continuing to develop technology and employ technology,” he said, adding that “a lot of that is going to be able to come in with the ‘Big Beautiful Bill‘ and the money that we’re about to receive, or we’ve [already] received.”
The Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump signed in July, allocates $165 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, including $46.5 billion to complete border-wall construction, $3.2 billion for “new technology,” and $2.7 billion for “new cutting-edge border surveillance,” according to DHS.
The physical border wall also creates a deterrent for illegal crossings. More wall has, and continues to be, installed along the southern border with Mexico. Additionally, DHS has announced plans to paint the border wall black as a further deterrent to illegal immigration.
The steel beams of the border wall stand up to 30 feet high in some locations, and in the sun, can reach temperatures of between 150 to 180 degrees, according to Slosar. “I recommend that nobody touch it, to include criminal organizations, when it’s hot like that,” he said. A black wall will get even hotter, creating another deterrent.
Since he joined the Border Patrol in 1998, Slosar says he has seen Border Patrol get “more support” or “less support” in various presidential administrations, but regardless, the chief said, the Border Patrol, “as defenders of the Constitution, are going to defend this border, no matter what.”
“We’re going to continue, as long as we possibly can, to put people on planes to get them out of the country,” Slosar said, noting that if one illegal alien is allowed to stay after crossing the border illegally, more will come.
“We have to make sure that we take a good look at what’s going on across the border, policy-wise, infrastructure-wise, strategic communication-wise, and make sure that it is known … that you cannot enter the United States illegally,” Slosar said, adding, “It’s a national security problem. It’s our biggest national security problem.”
