Former AG Jeff Sessions: ‘A Larger Number of Criminals’ Are Crossing the Border

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at an opioid roundtable in Washington on May 3, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Jeff Sessions, former Alabama senator and attorney general under President Donald Trump, said the current border crisis is allowing more criminals to enter the United States.

“You know, in poor countries, they don’t keep people in jail for 30, 40 years. They’re glad to get rid of you. So if you’re a child molesterer and the sheriff and the police chief in Honduras knows you, what are you going to do? You got a cousin in Los Angeles, you just go across the border,” Sessions said in a Sept. 29 podcast with Mark Krikorian, director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.

“So I think we are picking up a larger number of criminals than we used to in the immigration system.”

Sessions became a polarized figure among conservatives soon after he became attorney general as he recused himself from the Department of Justice’s Russia collusion investigation.

Border Patrol takes into custody six illegal immigrants who were being smuggled from the U.S.–Mexico border, through Kinney County, Texas, on Aug. 28, 2022. One (R) was later discovered to be a wanted child sex offender. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

At the border, Sessions was instrumental in the “zero tolerance” policy that was enforced for about two months beginning in April 2018. The policy matched immigration law that says if individuals cross the border illegally, they must be detained.

It became known as the “family separation” policy as several hundred parents were temporarily separated from their children as all adults were detained and prosecuted for entering illegally.

The motivation behind the policy was to halt the “catch-and-release” scenario that had attracted thousands of illegal immigrants who knew they'd be set free inside the United States, despite the vast majority not being eligible for asylum.

The administration stopped the zero tolerance program on June 20 and later enacted the Remain in Mexico program, which had the effect of dramatically reducing illegal entries. Instead of being released into the United States with a court date years down the road, the program forced illegal border crossers to wait in Mexico until their case had been adjudicated by an immigration judge.

A group of Nicaraguans and Cubans crosses the Rio Grande from Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, on April 25, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“It’s difficult to overstate how tough it was for the Trump administration to make progress,” Sessions said.

“Lawsuits were filed in courts, as Attorney General and we dealt with them. And we defended the president’s actions. And we began to win cases and change policies. And the success was real. And numbers fell. And it was thrown away by [the Biden] administration. What they did exceeds anything imaginable.”

President Joe Biden issued a handful of executive orders within hours of taking office on Jan. 20, 2021.

On day one, the administration signed executive orders and issued memos to temporarily suspend deportations of illegal aliens, reverse Trump’s ban on travel from terror-prone countries, halt border wall construction, stop adding people to the “Remain in Mexico” program, preserve and fortify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and release a sweeping immigration package to Congress that includes amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Since then, record numbers of illegal aliens from more than 160 countries have crossed the U.S.–Mexico border, including more than 2 million in the past year.

A group of Hondurans prepare to cross the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass, Texas, from Piedras Negras, Mexico, on April 21, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Border Patrol agents have reported an additional at least 599,000 illegal aliens to have evaded capture over the past year—almost 50,000 per month, according to numbers obtained by Fox News.

The ones who evade capture, known as “gotaways,” are typically assumed to be evading law enforcement because they are either criminals, previously deported, or they know they won’t gain legal entry.

During fiscal year 2022, Border Patrol agents arrested 78 illegal aliens along the southern border who are on the U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist—compared to three during fiscal year 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Additionally, Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 11,000 convicted criminals at the border and a further 836 with warrants for arrest in fiscal year 2022, with one month of data missing. An additional 697 gang members have been arrested at the border.

“I have a sense that the whole world is now just learning that it’s not just Mexicans and Central Americans that can come illegally—they can come here illegally too,” Sessions said.

A Border Patrol agent talks to a Chinese man who just waded across the Rio Grande from Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, on Jan. 25, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Krikorian said he anticipates more illegal aliens coming in from African nations, the Middle East, and China and India.

“Once the door is open, they'll rush through it hoping they get through before we wake up and close it again,” he said.

Sessions said Republican lawmakers in Washington need to apply more pressure to secure the border.

“What I found was, and said many times, they will vote for most any bill on immigration that sounds good, but if it really works, it never passed,” Sessions said.

During Trump’s first two years, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate, but failed to pass any legislation that closed immigration law loopholes that were driving most of the illegal entries.

“That we have to open our system up to the world, for anybody who wants to come is a colossal disaster. It can never be a legitimate policy of a great nation,” Sessions said.