(The Center Square) – Retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said he was instructed by the Biden administration to not publicize arrests of illegal immigrant border crossers identified as “Significant Interest Aliens” with ties to terrorism.

Heitke testified before a U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday about how Biden-Harris “open border policies have undermined our safety and security.”

“We had an exponential increase in Significant Interest Aliens … with significant ties to terrorism,” illegally entering in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector, he said.

Prior to the Biden-Harris administration, the sector averaged 10 to 15 SIAs per year. “Once word was out that the border was far easier to cross, San Diego went to over 100 SIAs in 2022, way over 100 SIAs in 2023 and more than that this year,” he said.

“These are only the ones we caught,” meaning the number likely is higher because of the volume of gotaways, those who illegally cross the border and are not apprehended.

“At the time, I was told I could not release any information on this increase in SIA’s or mention any of the arrests,” Heitke testified. “The administration was trying to convince the public that there was no threat at the border.”

His testimony came as the greatest number of individuals on the U.S. federal terrorist watch list have been apprehended under the Biden-Harris administration of 1,856 since fiscal 2021 through August, The Center Square reported.

None of this would have happened if current federal laws enacted by Congress were enforced, he said.

“The only true consequence we have to slow down and discourage people from coming to the United States illegally is sending them back to their country of origin,” required under current law, he said.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, Border Patrol agents were instructed to do the opposite, he said. In three and half years, “I saw a steady decrease in countries we could send people back to.

“For the first time in my 25 years and under five different administrations, whether through neglect or on purpose, I saw a large-scale lapse in our ability to return people to their country of origin. The inability to send people home meant that most people being arrested for illegal entry would either have to be detained or released.”

Since January 2021, “on day one,” the Biden-Harris administration “made a point of decreasing the amount of detention space available nationwide,” noting that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s funding for detention space has steadily been cut and private detention eliminated.

The “open border policies” and “the fact that so many illegal aliens were being released into the United States spread worldwide very quickly,” he said, resulting in an unprecedented influx of illegal entry into the country.

“The impacts to me and my agents were significant. Sectors were ordered to take in and process all the illegal aliens encountered on the border. The Border Patrol saw groups of hundreds and thousands coming into the United States and turning themselves in.”

The result was “80% to 90%, sometimes 100% of the agents on duty [were taken] away from” the southwest border. There were miles of the border unmanned in Texas, Arizona and California, he said, where there was “no agent presence for weeks and months at a time.”

Foreign nationals “who did not want to be caught could simply walk in,” he said, referring to gotaways. They total at least more than 2 million since fiscal 2021, The Center Square first reported.

“We have no idea who and what entered our country over this time. Throughout 2022 and 2023, I sent agents to Texas and Arizona to count gotaways. Those sectors could not even put enough agents in the field to see what they had missed.”

U.S. Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-NY, then asked him, “What information do we have on the millions of known gotaways that have entered this country?”

“None,” Heitke replied.

“Zero information of millions of people – some of which have been found to be on the terror watchlist – we have zero information?” D’Esposito asked.

“Correct.”

Heitke was previously interviewed by the committee last year and described the level of national security threats that existed because they were forced to close checkpoints after an influx of illegal border crossers shifted to California. Agents were then required to shift manpower from the field to process and release into the country illegal border crossers, The Center Square reported. With their agents being pulled from the field, Heitke and others said Americans were unsafe and transnational criminal organizations were exploiting the open border to smuggle people and an unprecedented amount of fentanyl.

“Each time we asked for help in dealing with a new issue, it fell on deaf ears,” he said.