Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas refused to admit Friday that the southern border is experiencing a crisis and trashed critics who say that under President Biden, the border is open.
The government official blamed the problems at the border on an immigration system that has been broken for some time and defended the job his department has done on immigration.
Mayorkas made the claims in an interview with The New York Times after the number of illegal southern bordercrossers recently reached an all-time monthly high.
Mayorkas spoke to Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who began the interview by asking the official what he thinks about the fact that Congressional Republicans are about to impeach him for not securing the border.
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Mayorkas trashed the expected impeachment charges, saying he’s too "focused on the work" he’s doing at DHS to think about them. He then praised himself and his team, saying, "I have tremendous confidence in my integrity. I have tremendous pride in the people with whom I work, and that is my response."
When Garcia-Navarro pressed him over the fact that "clearly no one is happy" over border security at the moment, Mayorkas argued the migrant surge is not a failure of U.S. policy because rest of the world is dealing with a migrant surge.
"It’s really important to understand that the position that our country is in is actually not a position that is exclusive to our country. I just spoke with one of my counterparts across the Atlantic, who expressed grave concern about what they are experiencing," he said, adding, "The world is living through one of the greatest levels of human displacement that it ever has, and certainly since World War II."
The reporter followed up by asking about the president finally calling the border situation a crisis and whether Mayorkas agrees.
The official dodged answering, replying, "Lulu, I have to share with you: I am not focused on the label that one appends to it. I am focused on the challenge that it is and what we can do about it."
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She asked, "Why not label it, though? I mean, the president has. Why the reluctance?"
He dodged again, saying, "The choice of language has become a proxy for the politics of the issue. And I am focused on the substance of the issue and addressing it substantively."
They then talked about Biden’s critics who say the border is "open," with Mayorkas attacking that notion as "both inaccurate and harmful." When asked to explain, he offered, "Because those words are then taken by the smugglers that exploit the vulnerable. They know how to reach desperate people, and they use those words as truth to drive human behavior."
Moving on, Mayorkas pushed back on claims that millions of people are exploiting the current asylum system to stay in the country, claiming that his team has "removed or returned millions of people."
Later in the interview, Mayorkas was asked if the current border surge granted some legitimacy to arguments that there should be massive cuts to immigration, and deportation of undocumented people. The official responded by claiming people pushing these points are driven by "hate" and he doesn’t agree with them.
"I’ve never understood individuals with anti-immigrant sentiments to need ammunition. Hate is its own ammunition. And regrettably, we have seen that materialize in many different ways around the world and in this country," he said.
Towards the end of the interview, Mayorkas insisted on his belief that America will continue to be a country of immigrants despite how people view the current crisis. And when asked about how immigration may affect Biden’s re-election chances, he said that he is just focusing on finding solutions to the problem.
