Trump administration dismantled ‘safe’ border policies, Biden rebuilding process: DHS chief Mayorkas
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tells ‘Fox News Sunday’ the Biden administration is encouraging families not to send their migrant children along ‘dangerous’ border.
The Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared on the Sunday news shows this past weekend to discuss the state of play on our southern border.
I was shocked when he said this to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday:" "The border is secure. The border is closed. We've been unequivocal in that and we are operationalizing our processes, executing our plans, we are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely. We can do it and we are doing it."
That is not true. The border is not closed and it is not secure.
Mayorkas declared that the current surge of migrants across our southern border was because of President Trump’s policies and not because of the policies of the Biden administration and all the promises and enticements our current president made during the 2020 campaign.
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That’s simply not true. This administration is lying to the American people.
I sat in amazement that someone in that position would outwardly and intentionally misstate the facts on national television to the American people who are entrusting him with this country’s safety and security.
The border is not closed.
All one has to do is look at the images from the border. Thousands of unaccompanied children are streaming in at an almost never-before-seen rate. It is unprecedented.
Thousands of family units are streaming across also. The secretary told Wallace, "Chris, we do expel families. We are working with Mexico to increase Mexico's capacity to receive the expelled families. … we are operationalizing our processes, executing our plans, we are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely. We can do it and we are doing it."
The secretary said families are being expelled but again that is not the case most of the time.
In the interview, Wallace cited a recent CBP statistic that shows nearly 59% are being released into the U.S. overall along with 100% of the unaccompanied children.
One day last week, a CBP command source I know, told me that in one day they released over 82% of the almost 1,400 family units they apprehended into the U.S.
To say on national television that you are expelling families is hiding the real truth and data.
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Mayorkas said the border was secure but my same sources at CBP command tell me that they are averaging over 1,000 "got-aways" per day.
"Got-aways" are illegal aliens who enter the country unlawfully and are not caught.
The CBP base this number on sensor traffic, camera traffic and foot signs that they could not respond to because they were tied up with hundreds of family units and children.
I have said many times in op-eds for this website and in numerous Fox interviews that the cartels in Mexico control the border.
Intelligence reports clearly show that the cartels coordinate the movements of large family groups in one area to overwhelm the Border Patrol so they can move drugs, gang members, criminals and others that don’t want to get caught into the U.S. through the unguarded section of the border.
This humanitarian crisis we are witnessing along our border creates a national security crisis.
I hope and pray that the secretary sees the same intelligence reports I have seen over the years.
Remember, during the last family and child surge, enough fentanyl was smuggled into this country to kill over 60,000 Americans. That is NOT a secure border regardless of what political side you are on and to say so is disrespectful to the men and women putting their lives on the line guarding our border.
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The surge in migrants is not because of President Trump but is clearly because candidate Joe Biden made promises before the election such as ending the Remain in Mexico policy, ending ICE detention, creating a moratorium on deportations, and promising amnesty, DACA fixes and free health care to those who come here illegally.
It doesn’t take a border expert or a DHS secretary to know that when you make those types of promises to vulnerable people, they will come.
Besides, the proof is in the data and the images we see every day.
The American people are not blind or stupid and it should be embarrassing for anyone in this current administration to try to paint the picture along our border otherwise.
The statement Mayorkas made that the administration is not encouraging people to come is also false.
The promises I just listed above, along with all the anti-immigration enforcement executive orders President Biden has signed since entering the White House to keep those promises, speak louder than any words.
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Finally, let me underscore this. Secretary Mayorkas has said we are a nation of laws and the law dictates that those who cross our border have a right to claim asylum.
I agree with that.
However, the laws also say that after receiving due process and being ordered deported by a federal immigration judge, ICE must carry out that deportation order and remove them.
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I wish the secretary would have been asked, if he believes in the law as he says he does, why he doesn’t enforce the results of those laws and the due process we give them at great taxpayer expenses.
The DOJ website clearly shows that between 86-89% of all Central Americans who claim asylum at the border never receive relief from our courts because they either don’t show up in court or they simply don’t qualify.
However, ICE cannot remove those cases and execute those lawful federal orders because the Biden administration has taken non-criminal fugitives off their list of priorities.
I am sure the secretary knows as well as I do that, according to the recently published DHS immigration life cycle report, out of the hundreds of thousands of family units and unaccompanied children that were ordered removed during the past eight years, less than 3% of them actually left.
That is why they keep coming. Even if they lose in court, they don’t really lose – they get to stay and will be rewarded with amnesty.
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You cannot claim that you are adhering to the law in order to give someone due process on asylum and ignore the final decisions of that very same due process.
Here’s what I would like to tell the secretary: Not removing those asylum seekers who lost their case is ignoring the rule of law. Instead of abolishing ICE, we should abolish the immigration courts because those judges' orders don’t mean anything anymore because ICE isn’t allowed to act upon them because of the intentional actions of the Biden administration. That is a fact.