Chip Roy: Biden has turned DHS into a 'welcome mat' for illegal immigrants

As migrants surge to the U.S. and American border communities report violent crimes being committed, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is pointing at President Joe Biden's policies for the crisis.

"There is one thing that changed in the last couple of months and it was the incoming Biden administration," Roy told Fox News Monday, speaking from Laredo, Texas.

"This is all a direct result of wide-open borders policy by the Biden administration, failure to finish the fence, but most importantly, they're basically turning DHS into a welcome mat and they're just encouraging more dangerous journeys for kids," he added.

After he was sworn into office, Biden reversed many of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement policies. Since then, he has been viewed as a "migrant president" by immigrants hoping to journey to American for a better life — and criminals seeking to take advantage of them — with migrant apprehensions at the border surging dramatically since the president took office. "Staggering" numbers of unaccompanied children have flooded the border, overwhelming federal facilities where they are housed longer than legally permissible in horrendous conditions without enough light, bedding, or food.

One facility run by Customs and Border Protection in Donna, Texas, has reached 729% of its COVID-19-recommended capacity, being designed to house 250 individuals and forced to hold more than 1,800 people. In response, the Biden administration is deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist in caring for these children.

Roy predicted that over the next few weeks the numbers of migrants reported to be in federal custody would fall as the Biden administration releases them into the public.

"Pretty soon at some point these numbers for these packed facilities will go down, and they'll go down because the Biden administraiton is going to start increasing catch-and-release," Roy said, adding that Americans are being put in danger by criminals taking advantage of the unsecured border.

Indeed, Americans living in communities along the border say the federal government seems unable to manage the surge of migrants and accompanying wave of crimes being committed where they live.

Emily Lord King, a rancher from south Texas who was interviewed on Fox News alongside Rep. Roy, said law enforcement seemed ill-prepared for what happened after Biden changed Trump's policies.

"We just saw a change overnight, and I don't feel like law enforcement was prepared for it," King told host Harris Faulkner. "I don't think they have the resources, and now we have human smugglers that are driving right through fences on our property. They're not apprehending everyone that's in those vehicles and they're left on our property running loose."

"We don't feel safe," she added. King described how under President Trump her ranch experienced just one incident with migrants on her property. Now, she says she's had incidents with human smugglers at least once a week since mid-January.

"Americans are in danger, immigrants are in danger, and it's the Biden administration's fault, all for crass political purposes," Roy said.