“By the end of Joe Biden’s first term,” said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, “nearly 20% of all Americans will be here illegally.” Mayorkas’ excuse for lying is that he works 18 hours a day. “When Republicans take back control of the House this fall,” Liz Peek suggests, “they should impeach Mayorkas and let him catch up on his beauty sleep.”
Mayorkas on Biden Administration Performance at Southern Border: ‘I Think that We Are Doing a Good Job’
During an appearance on Sunday’s broadcast of ABC’s “This Week,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas downplayed what has been panned as a lackluster effort by the Biden administration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mayorkas told anchor Martha Raddatz he thought the Biden administration was doing a “good job.”
Partial transcript as follows:
RADDATZ: What is the plan on the border? You really do have migrants flooding that area. The peak was during the Trump administration, May of 2019, at 144,000 crossings. In May of this year, you hit 240,000 crossings. You may be telling people to stay away, but they keep coming.
MAYORKAS: I think we saw the tragic result of people taking the dangerous journey in San Antonio just recently, when 53 people lost their lives in the most horrific of conditions in the back of a trailer truck.
We continue to warn people not to take the dangerous journey. We are enforcing our laws. And we are working with countries to the south, including our close partner, Mexico, but with Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, to really address the migration that is throughout the Western Hemisphere.
These are remarkably distinct times, and we have a multifaceted approach, not only to work with our partner countries but to bring law enforcement to bear, to attack the smuggling organizations in an unprecedented way. We are doing so very much. Ultimately, however — ultimately, because the border has been a challenge for decades — ultimately, Congress must pass legislation to once and for all fix our broken immigration system.
RADDATZ: But — but, Mr. Secretary, that does not look likely. And you have Congressmen Henry Cuellar saying that only about 30% of the Border Patrol are doing missions at checkpoints and the border because the other 70% are tied up at detention centers. How do you fix that? Again, the message is not getting out.
MAYORKAS: Well, we are continuing to deliver that message, and we will continue to do so. And for the first time since 2011, the president’s fiscal year 2023 budget calls for 300 more Border Patrol agents. And we are hiring case processers. We are addressing this issue vigorously and aggressively, to address the amount of — the number of encounters that we are experiencing at the southern border.
RADDATZ: Just a simple question: Do you think it’s working?
MAYORKAS: I think that we are doing a good job. We need to do better. We are focused on doing more, and we are doing it with our partners to the south. This is a — this is a phenomena that not only the United States is experiencing. Colombia now has more than 2 million Venezuelans within its borders. Costa Rica has indicated that 2% of its population is Nicaraguan, and that might rise to 5%.
The migration that is occurring throughout the hemisphere is reflective of the economic downturn, increase in violence throughout the region, the — the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the results of climate change. We’re really in a — in a regional challenge, and we are addressing it with our regional partners.
RADDATZ: And, Mr. Secretary…
MAYORKAS: And we’ll continue to do so, Martha.
RADDATZ: Mr. Secretary, I want to go back to the tragedy in that tractor-trailer truck with more than 50 migrants dying. Congressman Cuellar, who I mentioned before, told the San Antonio Express News that the vehicle was waved through at a checkpoint because traffic was backed up. Is that correct?
MAYORKAS: Martha, about 10,000 to 14,000 vehicles a day cross through the Laredo checkpoint. The smuggling organizations are extraordinarily sophisticated. They are transnational criminal organizations. When I was prosecuting human smuggling cases back in the ’90s, in Los Angeles, California, we were addressing much more rudimentary operations. They’re very sophisticated…
(CROSSTALK)
RADDATZ: But is that what happened? Was it waved through?
Was it just waved through?
MAYORKAS: I think the — the facts are still under investigation. It’s a criminal case. Four individuals have been charged. I won’t speak about the particulars. Those facts will be elicited in a court of law as the prosecution proceeds.
RADDATZ: And — and, just quickly…
MAYORKAS: But, you know, our — our…
RADDATZ: … what good are these checkpoints if a truck like that gets through — full of migrants?
MAYORKAS: Oh, because, Martha, in fiscal year 2022 alone. We’ve stopped more than 400 vehicles and saved and rescued more than 10,000 migrants.
RADDATZ: OK.
MAYORKAS: Those checkpoints are part of a multilayered approach. We’ve rescued so many migrants. But this is why we continue to communicate that the journey, the dangerous journey should not be taken. We are enforcing our laws and people lose their lives at the hands of exploitative smugglers.
DHS’ Mayorkas ‘Very Pleased’ with End of Trump-Era Border Program
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says he is pleased the Supreme Court issued a ruling allowing the agency to discontinue the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy. Mayorkas says the Migrant Protection Protocols requiring migrants to remain in Mexico as their asylum claims are processed has “endemic flaws, and it has unjustifiable human costs.”
Mayorkas made the remarks celebrating the end of the policy on CBS Face the Nation early Sunday saying, “We were very pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision supporting our termination of the ‘remain in Mexico’ program that the prior administration implemented. I have said from the beginning, that it has endemic flaws, and it has unjustifiable human costs.”
More than 70,000 migrants were returned to Mexico during the Trump administration and forced to await the processing of asylum claims outside the United States. On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration, allowing DHS to end the program.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, following an initial stopping of the program in January 2020, DHS began allowing more than 25,000 migrants previously forced to wait in Mexico to re-enter the United States. Mayorkas worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to register and return the migrants to the United States through an online program administered by several United Nations agencies.
In August 2021, a Texas federal district court ordered the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate the program based on a lawsuit asserting the discontinuance would result in harm as the result of more migrants being released within the state. The Biden administration formally reinstated the program in December 2021, although on a much smaller scale than pursued during the Trump administration.
Mayorkas’ celebration over the favorable Supreme Court Ruling allowing the department to completely end the program signals the end of nearly all the deterrent-based immigration policies put in place under the Trump administration. The CDC’s Title 42 COVID-19 emergency expulsion order is the only Trump-era policy relating to illegal border crossings left in place.
President Biden previously attempted to end the CDC Title 42 emergency expulsions in May but was met with a similar court-issued stay from a Louisiana Federal District Court within weeks. The ruling forced DHS to continue expulsions under the CDC’s Title 42 authority.
Although the authority for COVID-19 expulsions is still in effect, several categories of migrants have been excluded from removal under the program — namely unaccompanied migrant children and some migrant family units with tender age children. According to a source within Customs and Border Protection, the application of the authority has been watered down to the extent that a mere 30% of migrants arrested along the southwest border are subjected to expulsion on many days.
As far as the administration’s strategy for dealing with the record-breaking influx of migrants across the southwest border and the formation of new migrant caravans, Mayorkas says the department will continue to focus on efforts by “partners to the south.”
Mayorkas told Face the Nation, “We are working very closely with our partners to the south, with Mexico, that breaks up very often these caravans of individuals that seek to take that dangerous journey to reach our border, only to be met with the enforcement of our laws.”
Those efforts do not seem to be impacting the number of migrant crossings into the United States as Mexico, rather than deterring the migrants from traveling through the country, is now quickly disbanding the caravans not by arresting and removing them but by issuing travel permits expediting their trip to the north. As reported by Breitbart’s Cartel Chronicles, Mexico provided 3,000 such permits to the most recent migrant caravan traveling to the United States facilitating their arrival and illegal entry into the United States.
Mayorkas’ last pilar in the administration’s border enforcement strategy seems to be the repeated verbal warning to migrants against making the journey to the United States.
Speaking to Face the Nation about the migrant smuggling tragedy that ended when 53 migrants died in an enclosed tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Mayorkas said, “We have said repeatedly, and we continue to warn people not to take the dangerous journey. We saw so tragically in San Antonio, Texas, one of the possible tragic results of that dangerous journey and so many people don’t even make it that far in the hands of exploitative smugglers.”
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.
Jesse Watters: What kind of country are we living in?
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