Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday that he’s done what he can on his own to solve the border crisis and now it’s up to Congress to offer more support by approving President Biden’s request for $14 billion in new money.
He also challenged the looming impeachment proceedings against him, saying he’s been upholding immigration law during his three years in office.
Speaking from the border in Texas, Mr. Mayorkas acknowledged December was a terrible month for illegal immigration with an “extraordinarily high” number of crossings. He said that forced his department to take the draconian step of shutting down some of the border crossings.
But he said the agents and officers at the border, whom he called “heroes” for putting up with the chaos, are trying their best. He said Congress owes it to them to pony up more money.
“They need and deserve resources only Congress can provide,” Mr. Mayorkas said.
He spoke two days before the House is slated to hold its first hearing as it pursues his impeachment. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, on his own visit to the border last week, said Mr. Mayorkas is now the greatest domestic threat to national security in the U.S.
Those pushing impeachment say Mr. Mayorkas has lied to Congress, flouted court rulings and broken laws passed by Congress.
The secretary rejected the accusations.
“Some have accused DHS of not enforcing our nation’s laws. This could not be further from the truth,” he said. “There is nothing I take more seriously than our responsibility to uphold the law, and the men and women of DHS are working around the clock to do so.”
He explained December’s bad numbers by blaming Mexico, saying America’s southern neighbor had to cut back on its enforcement operations.
He said Mexico has stepped up its enforcement in the new year and early signs show a significant drop in numbers, although it’s not yet clear whether that’s the normal seasonal dip or whether Mexico’s measures have begun to bite into the smuggling cartels’ operations.
Mr. Mayorkas said the U.S. has also taken steps over the years, including creating pathways for unauthorized migrants to enter through his “parole” powers, which in some cases allows them to avoid paying the cartels, and more recently stepping up deportations and returns to try to prove that migrants won’t necessarily succeed in getting caught and released.
Still, the odds are in favor of the migrants.
New department data released late last week showed that in September, the latest month of numbers, Customs and Border Protection encountered nearly 270,000 unauthorized migrants and immediately paroled or released more than 200,000 of them.
Nearly 124,000 of the encounters were migrants who came as families, and more than 112,000 of them were paroled or released.
Mr. Mayorkas is part of negotiations with senators to strike a deal on border spending. Republicans have said they won’t approve any money without changes to policy that could derail the flow of people coming illegally.
After initially resisting the idea of policy changes, the Biden administration has signaled it is now open to it. But there is a real question as to whether the president will be willing to accept the kind of changes that would be needed to make a serious dent, and whether House Republicans will accept less than a full border policy rewrite that cleared the House last year.
Mr. Mayorkas said the new money he wants will pay for more deportation flights and detention beds, more Border Patrol agents and more immigration infrastructure to hear migrants’ cases. Republicans have said that until policies are changed, all of that money would only mean illegal immigrants get processed and released more quickly.
Mr. Mayorkas on Monday repeatedly said Congress has “under-resourced” immigration enforcement.
It’s tough to square that with Mr. Mayorkas’ budget requests, however. Over the last three budgets he has requested a cut to Customs and Border Patrol every year, and requested a cut to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention beds every year.
It was Congress that rebuffed those cuts and delivered more money than Mr. Mayorkas asked for in the last two years. Congress is still debating its 2024 spending bill for Homeland Security.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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