Prior to an advisory committee meeting in Buffalo, Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan met with Congressman Brian Higgins.

The Democrat said the commissioner informed him the 56 Port of Buffalo agents had been reassigned to the southern border earlier this year but that number is now down to 13.

"I understand that may be reduced still further over the next couple of days so that's a very, very positive development," Higgins said.

The commissioner did not speak specifically about a northern border staffing report, that's now nearly three weeks late. As part of supplemental aid to the south, Congress mandated a report by August 1, detailing the reassignments of northern border agents and what conditions would allow those ports to return to normal staffing levels.

"Overall for CBP, we actually had 731 officers detailed to the southern border to help with the crisis down there," Higgins said.

Morgan did discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the U.S.- Mexico border, and the importance of the many officers who have gone there to assist. That includes Officer Stacy McIsaac, who earlier this week performed the Heimlich maneuver on a child in Texas.

"One of those individuals that was detailed down from Buffalo, we have a southside facility along the southwest border, and a couple of days ago there was a child at one of the facilities having a hot meal and the minor child started choking, and one of the officers from here actually saved that child's life," Morgan said.

Morgan said, while southwest border enforcement actions were down 43 percent from May to July, the number of people apprehended in 2019 is still on pace to exceed a million. While CBP has approached those numbers in the past, he says it's never been this many families and unaccompanied minors before.
   
"It's really unprecedented," Morgan said. "It's one of the worst crises we've really faced with immigration in modern history. It's the largest exodus reported in history of the Western hemisphere."

In Buffalo, to speak about trade and commercial operations, Morgan stressed how important those pieces are to fixing the overall problem. He said economics remains the driving factor for most immigrants illegally crossing the border.