U.S. Border Patrol, San Diego, Calif. (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) – National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told a House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee Wednesday that cartels cut a hole in a 10-mile stretch of border that had been unmanned for two days and drove two vehicles through it.



“Yesterday, I received an email from an agent in Arizona, and that email said that there was a 10-mile stretch for two days – and this is documented on the reports from the Border Patrol management - 10 mile stretch of border that was unmanned for two days,” Judd said. “Criminal cartels were able to go to the fence, cut a hole in the fence, drive two vehicles through that hole and escape.”





Judd said he visited a station in the Del Rio Border Patrol sector two weeks ago. He was there for one day, but during the week of his visit, there was a total of 157 known entries into the U.S. “through that station’s area of responsibility.”



“One key way to determine whether the cartels are winning is to analyze key data of entries to arrests,” Judd said.



“Of those 157, 74 were arrested, 54 were known to have evaded arrest and furthered their entry into the United States, 17 were able to evade arrest and make it back to Mexico, and 12 were still outstanding and unaccounted for. That’s a 47 percent arrest rate. That’s not very good, but it’s not the Border Patrol agents’ fault. We’re just simply overmanned,” Judd said.



“We don’t have the resources necessary, and in fact, yesterday I received an email from an agent in Arizona, and that email said that there was a 10-mile stretch for two days – and this is documented on the reports from the Border Patrol management - 10 mile stretch of border that was unmanned for two days,” he said.

“Criminal cartels were able to go to the fence, cut a hole in the fence, drive two vehicles through that hole and escape,” he added. “They were able then to put the fence back up and try to hide the cuts that they had made. Border Patrol agents were able to go down and see the vehicle tracks.



“There was actually a camera that did catch the two vehicles on the border. They didn’t see the vehicle drive through the border, but the tracks clearly indicate that it was, and there was no other vehicles coming from east, so it had to have been those two vehicles that had crossed the border,” Judd said.



“The scariest part of those vehicles entering into the United States is we don’t know what was in those vehicles. We have no idea, and of those persons that were able to evade arrest in this Del Rio station, those 54 and the 12 outstanding, we don’t know where they were from,” he said.



“It’s unfortunate that we’re currently in this situation in which it appears that we invite what we’re currently experiencing, and because we’re overmanned – and it’s not that they didn’t want to man the border in these two areas in Arizona that this vehicle drove through. They just didn’t have the manpower to do it, and that’s the unfortunate situation today,” Judd said.