FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday that the chaos at the southern border is a security issue, and called the flow of people “staggering.”
Testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Wray was pressed on his evaluation of the border, which Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas deemed “secure.”
Mr. Wray at first said he wouldn’t substitute his judgment for Mr. Mayorkas’s, but Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said he expected more from a “straight shooter” like Mr. Wray.
The director then acknowledged the heavy efforts his bureau makes to deal with crimes associated with the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
“To me, it represents a significant security issue and represents a wide array of criminal threats that flow out of it,” he said.
The Biden administration has been trying to tamp down on critical evaluations of the border situation, refusing to label the unprecedented number of people surging over the border as a “crisis.”
Mr. Mayorkas last month characterized the southern border as an ongoing “challenge,” but said it’s not out of control.
“The border is secure,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum. “We are working to make the border more secure.”
Those claims have taken hits in recent days with the Democratic mayors of New York and Washington demanding federal assistance to help deal with thousands of migrants who’ve made their way from the border to the two cities.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser labeled the situation a “crisis.”