Hector Garza ,a spokesman for a local National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), has disclosed a startling development in the federal government's efforts to deal with the border surge:

The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms.

This is not the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] or another federal agency renting or leasing an aircraft, these are the same planes that the American public uses for domestic travel. This just adds insult to injury. Not only are we releasing unknown illegal aliens onto American streets, but we are allowing them to travel commercially using paperwork that could easily be reproduced or manipulated on any home computer. The Notice to Appear form has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.

We do not know who these people are, we often have to solely rely on who they say they are, where they say they came from, and the history they say they have. We know nothing about most of them, ICE releases them into the American public, and now they are boarding aircraft at will with a simple paper document that anyone can easily alter or reproduce themselves.

These assertions have led to the NBPC issuing this statement:

The National Border Patrol Council adamantly opposes the decision of DHS to release the illegal aliens who have been transported from the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector to other locations for processing. The lack of consequences has furthered this crisis and will only continue to do so. The fact that TSA is accepting the I-862 (Notice to Appear) as a form of identification and allowing illegal aliens to travel commercially shows just how little regard the federal government has for its own immigration laws.

Garza went on to highlight why this development is so troubling: "The threat this poses from terrorists upon the American people is absolutely unacceptable. Central Americans are not the only people crossing our border and being released. Does anyone actually think that cartels and others criminal or possible terrorist organizations are not taking advantage of the fact that we are having to leave our border wide open while we reassigning the majority of our agents to process family units and minors? Of course this situation is being exploited by such threats."

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was that those wishing to board planes needed a passport or a REAL ID-compatible U.S. Drivers license. This development is in direct contravention to those recommendations.