Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas spent more than five hours before the House Judiciary Committee answering questions about his department’s management of the border and its seeming lack of interest in enforcing U.S. immigration laws.
It was not the first time Secretary Mayorkas has given testimony before a congressional committee on these matters. In the Republican-led House of Representatives, several committees are looking into the Biden administration’s handling of immigration matters, and one is specifically examining whether the secretary himself is in dereliction of his duty to secure our borders and faithfully enforce federal laws.
In advance of last Wednesday’s hearing, Secretary Mayorkas was notified in writing about the specific information the oversight committee was looking for. This was information he had been asked to provide on several previous occasions, but has yet to produce. These issues included:
- All policies and data related to encounters, gotaways, paroles, and releases at the southern border since January 20, 2021.
- All policies and data regarding arrests, removals, releases, and detentions since January 20, 2021.
- All policies and data regarding the Department’s adjudication of immigration benefits since January 20, 2021.
Repeatedly throughout his appearance last week, Secretary Mayorkas expressed his pride in leading a federal agency with more than 260,000 employees and a nearly $100 billion annual budget. Yet with all these resources, and despite repeated requests (dating back months) for some of the most basic and important information that his agency should be collecting as a matter of course, Mayorkas could not or would not provide answers.
Since President Biden has taken office, more than 7 million migrants have been encountered at our borders. More than 2 million migrants who crossed the border illegally have been released into the United States pending hearings on their claims to remain here, at some distant future date. An additional 1.4 million have been allowed to enter under the administration’s massive abuse of parole authority. Another 1.5 million are known to have entered the country illegally, but evaded inspection by the Border Patrol.
In fact, Mayorkas could not even reassure the committee that his department has in custody, or is closely monitoring a small subset of migrants who, by definition, pose a threat to the security of the nation. He could not, or would not, provide status reports on 238 apprehended migrants who are on the terrorist watch list (much less those who might be among the 1.5 million “gotaways’), or the 14,000 drug smugglers who have been arrested at the border this year alone.
Mr. Mayorkas is neither stupid nor incompetent. He is, in fact, the very shrewd architect of the Biden administration’s open border policies and their efforts to circumvent almost every statutory restriction on the number of people who are allowed to enter the United States and the means by which they get here. His performance at last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing only reinforces the notion that, when it comes to immigration policy, he and the administration are deliberately withholding vital information from Congress and the American people.
Mayorkas is deliberately hiding information because there is virtually no public support for this administration’s unchecked immigration policies. And, they are being abetted by a largely compliant media that has turned a blind eye to the administration’s actions and the crisis on our soil. Mayorkas and his minions are not keeping track of the millions of people they are allowing to enter the country because they have no intention of ever removing them and want to ensure that no subsequent administration will be able to.
Mayorkas’ repeated stonewalling of congressional oversight committees only reinforces the case being built by the House Homeland Security that he is in dereliction of his duty as DHS secretary and in violation of his oath of office, and must be removed.
Ira Mehlman is media director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.