DHS Secretary Mayorkas addresses Senators at committee hearing

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated at a Senate Committee meeting on Wednesday that he doesn’t believe there is a crisis at the US-Mexico border.

“The number of people that are arriving at our border is at an extraordinary height. There’s no question about that. But that is not unique to the southern border of the United States. There is a tremendous amount of movement throughout the hemisphere and in fact throughout the world” Mayorkas said.

Mayorkas was asked whether there was a crisis at the border.  Mayorkas admitted that while there were challenges at sections of the border, he stopped short at saying there was a crisis.

“I think that we face a very serious challenge in certain parts of the border” Mayorkas said.

“I view it as a significant challenge” he went onto say.

Mayorkas was asked why he wouldn’t admit there was a crisis at the border.

“You know what? Because I have tremendous faith in the people of the Department of Homeland Security. And a crisis speaks to me of a withdrawal from our mission. And, and we are only putting more force and more energy into it” he replied.

Several senators hit out at Mayorkas during the session.

“Mr. Secretary, I want to say to you right now, your behavior is disgraceful. And the deaths, the children assaulted, the children raped, they are at your feet. And if you had integrity, you would resign,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Mayorkas.

“I’ve been to the southern border,” Cruz said. “And if you go to the southern border, along the southern border, you see thousands of these wristbands because the illegal immigrants wear them. The drug cartels, every color corresponds to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels. You have turned these cartels into multibillion-dollar criminal organizations.”

Mayorkas refused to answer Cruz’s question.

“What the senator said was revolting. I’m not going to address it.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MI) also hit out at Mayorkas.

“Rather than building a wall, Mr. Secretary, you have built Ticketmaster for illegal immigrants,” Hawley said.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), pressed Mayorkas about cartels “flooding the border” with migrants to overwhelm agents, Mayorkas said this was not something he know about.

“I am not aware of that as a strategy,” Mayorkas said.

“You’ve simply lost all credibility, Mr. Secretary,” Cornyn replied.

In fiscal 2020, the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 405,036 total encounters. In fiscal 2022, the figure increased to 2,214,652.