Mayorkas grilled by GOP on border crisis amid nearly 2 million migrant crossings, has few answers

Get the latest BPR news delivered free to your inbox daily. SIGN UP HERE

(Video: C-SPAN)

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to testify about the ongoing border crisis that hasn’t abated for a single minute since President Joe Biden took office in January.

But as usual, he had no answers — just excuses. Though certainly not because of a lack of effort by Republicans, who tried relentlessly to elicit meaningful responses from him.

During one particularly stunning exchange, Mayorkas proved incapable of identifying how many illegal alien women and children have been sexually assaulted and how many illegal aliens, period, have been released into the U.S. without being tested for COVID.

“How many women have been sexually assaulted being trafficked into this country in 2021?” the exchange began, with Sen. Ted Cruz asking.

“Senator, I have no ability to determine how many … have been sexually assaulted in Mexico along the migratory,” the secretary responded.

“Alright, how about this? How many children have been sexually assaulted by traffickers or other people when they were coming in illegally?” the senator then asked.

And again Mayorkas offered nothing, prompting Cruz to try another question: “Let me ask you this. How many illegal immigrants have you released into the United States who were COVID-positive?”

Again the secretary was left speechless. Yet despite this inability to offer a single data point, he later chose during the same hearing to grade his performance as DHS secretary highly.

“I’m a tough grader on myself, and I give myself an ‘A’ for effort, investment in mission, and support of our workforce,” he said.

Listen:


Sen. Mike Lee reportedly staunchly disagreed.

“The Department of Homeland Security has clearly failed in its mission to maintain operational control of its borders. Over 2 million people have likely crossed our southern border illegally this year, with no end in sight,” he said.

Indeed, people keep flooding across the border every single day. And it’s been like this for months specifically because of the pro-illegal alien policies that the administration has championed, according to ranking member Chuck Grassley.

“When you’re running DHS like it’s an ‘Abolish ICE’ fan club, you shouldn’t be surprised when you have an immigration crisis on your hands,” he told Mayorkas.

“When you allow the ACLU and open-borders immigration activists rather than career law enforcement professionals to dictate the terms of your immigration and border policies, then you shouldn’t be surprised when record-shattering numbers of people start showing up at the borders to take advantage of that situation,” he added.

Under Mayorkas, DHS has continually bent the knee to left-wing activists by instituting policies that benefit illegal aliens at the expense of the American people’s safety.

Some believe these policies have been pursued by design and that the administration secretly wants more illegal migration into the U.S.

“This is by design. … It’s going to get worse. Again, let me be clear: this administration has not done one thing, not a single thing, to slow the flow. They haven’t added a consequence or deterrence for these people coming across the border,” Trump-era ICE Director Thomas Homan noted back in August.

During the hearing Tuesday, Mayorkas also tried to deny that the administration has been housing illegal alien children in “cages.”

“Senator, I respectfully disagree with your use of the term cages,” he complained when pressed by Cruz about the administration’s demonstrable cages.

“Fine, you can disagree with it,” the senator dismissively replied before re-upping his question.

“How many children have been in the Biden cages? I’ve been to the Biden cages. I’ve seen the Biden cages. How many children have you detained at the Donna tent facility in the cages you built to hold kids?” he said.

Watch:

Cruz also reportedly sought to prod Mayorkas about the administration’s plans to fork over taxpayer funds to illegal aliens who were separated during the Trump era.

“It’s been reported the Biden administration is considering paying illegal immigrants whose families were separated $450,000 apiece. That would mean for a family of four, they would get $1.8 million,” the senator rightly noted.

Mayorkas tried to play coy by claiming that the $450,000 was per family, but The Wall Street Journal — the outlet that broke the story — reported explicitly that the administration was “considering payments of $450,000 per person affected by Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy in 2018.”

The senator fact-checked the secretary and then asked a simple question that, for all intents and purposes, summed up the Biden administration’s border activities.

If we pay millions of dollars to illegal immigrants, in your professional judgment, will we get more illegal immigration or less illegal immigration?” he asked.

Mayorkas refused to answer, not that a verbal answer from him was even needed given all the visual evidence emerging every single day from the border:

DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW

Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!

Success! Thank you for donating. Please share BPR content to help combat the lies.
Vivek Saxena

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

BPR INSIDER COMMENTS

Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!

Latest Articles