Central American migrants sit on top of the border wall on the beach in San Diego during a gathering of migrants living on both sides of the border, Sunday, April 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Former Obama Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is not afraid to speak the truth about the emergency situation at our southern border.

Last Monday, border agents apprehended more than 3,700 illegals trying to cross into the US, the highest number for a single day in over ten years. On Tuesday, that figure stood at over 4,000.

At a news conference on Wednesday in El Paso, TX, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters that “the breaking point has arrived. CBP is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and border security crisis all along our Southwest border — and nowhere has that crisis manifested more acutely than here in El Paso.”

He said CBP is “reluctantly” performing direct releases of migrants, meaning they are not turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they are not detained, they are not given ankle bracelets to track their movements and they are allowed to leave with just a notice to appear in court at a later date.”

Jeh Johnson appeared on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ to say that “we are truly in a crisis.” (His full remarks can be heard in the video below.)

He told the panel that during his tenure as Homeland Security Secretary, he would arrive at work each morning at 6:30 and would immediately read the intelligence report.

There would be my Intelligence Book, the PDB, sitting on my desk. And also the apprehension numbers from the day before and I’d look at them every morning…my staff will tell you if it was under 1,000 apprehensions the day before, that was a relatively good number and if it was over 1,000, it was a relatively bad number and I was going to be in a bad mood for the whole day. On Tuesday, there were 4,000 apprehensions. I know that a thousand overwhelms the system. I cannot begin to imagine what 4,000 a day looks like. So, we are truly in a crisis.

At the Border Security Expo last week, CBP Chief Operating Officer John Sanders said this was “due to large numbers of people illegally crossing together, rather than a handful at a time.”

According to the Washington Examiner, “in fiscal 2017, CBP documented two groups of 100 people or more. The number of group apprehensions jumped to 13 in 2018 and have spiked to 93 just in the first six months of fiscal 2019.”

There is no doubt that an emergency situation exists at the border. Democrats will go so far as calling it a “humanitarian crisis,” but no further. You know how deeply they feel for those poor people who are simply seeking a better life and who have endured so much already during their arduous journey.

Because the growing number of illegals in the US is politically advantageous for Democrats (most vote for Democrats), they refuse to admit there’s an emergency.

Kudos to Jeh Johnson for his willingness to speak the truth.