Washington — Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas As his time at the helm of the nation’s immigration enforcement draws to a close, he said “a truly great solution was killed by irresponsible politics” when the bipartisan border deal fell apart earlier this year.
Mayorkas pointed to the agreement on a border package reached by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators in February, reached after months of deliberations that would have marked the first comprehensive overhaul of border security policy in decades — and given the president sweeping powers to crack down on unlawful border crossings. But the bill was quickly rejected by Republicans after newly elected President Donald Trump expressed his opposition.
After the legislation failed, the Biden administration imposed asylum restrictions that dramatically cut off the flow of immigration. When asked about the timing, amid criticism from Republicans that the Biden administration lacked the authority to act at the border without Congress, Mayorkas acknowledged that the administration might have taken the action more quickly if they knew the border agreement would be torpedoed.
“Looking back now, if we had known that irresponsible politics would have killed a clearly meritorious effort and a meritorious outcome, perhaps we would have taken quicker action in 2020,” Mayorkas said in an interview that aired on “ Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The comments come as border crossings have dropped to the lowest level of the Biden administrationafter reaching record highs a year ago.
The Secretary of Homeland Security noted that before Mr. Biden took office, “migration trend lines” increased exponentially worldwide in 2018 and 2019, “and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.” He added that the Biden administration has built capabilities over time that have made it possible to transport individuals and decompress areas where immigration is rising, saying that “we have unprecedented levels of enforcement in this administration carried out.”
“We are now removing more individuals in three years than the previous administration did in four years, and we are doing so not only in greater volume, but also in speed, because of the negotiations with other countries and with more countries than ever before. That has been the case,” Mayorkas said.
