Border Patrol officials criticized the Biden-Harris administration for its "blatant attempt" to downplay the "optics" of the ongoing border crisis "to protect their image before the election."
The administration has instructed Border Patrol agents to ship illegal immigrants from the overcrowded San Diego Border Patrol center to border towns in Texas and Arizona, to avoid releasing them onto the streets of San Diego, sources told the New York Post.
San Diego County Border Patrol supervisor Jim Desmond called this migrant transfer a "blatant attempt" by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris "to protect their image before the election."
"This isn’t about securing the border for the Feds—it’s about optics," Desmond said.
Every week the San Diego Border Patrol center, which is at 122 percent capacity, sends "numerous buses" full of illegal immigrants to Yuma, Arizona, and "three to four planes" to McAllen, Texas, Desmond said.
"They don’t want street releases because it will look negative on Kamala Harris. All San Diego NGOs are at full capacity and cannot take any more," another Border Patrol source told the Post.
Yuma County supervisor Jonathan Lines said the Biden-Harris administration "continues to move people around to minimize the optics of an open border" as Election Day approaches.
"The border is not a priority for this administration. Women and children have suffered at the hands of cartels. This is a border security crisis of epic proportions, which has turned into a humanitarian crisis throughout the U.S.," Lines told the Post.
San Diego is seeing a massive influx of illegal crossings as migrants believe they have a better chance of staying due to a recent California order that requires agents to release migrants from over 100 countries that don’t easily welcome deportation flights.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement source told the Post that the agency is also facing heightened pressure from the Biden-Harris administration to "ramp up removals" ahead of the election.
"The Biden administration is pressuring ICE days out from Election Day to ramp up removals. The administration wants to send a message to swing voters that they are strong and serious about border security and immigration enforcement," the source said.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, more than 10 million migrants have crossed the border illegally. Last week, Border Patrol agents threatened to stage a mass "exodus" from the agency if Harris wins the White House in November, saying they won't stick around for another "four years of hell."