Homeland Chief defends management of rising borders to GOP critics

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, under fire from Republicans over the Biden administration’s immigration policies, acknowledged a wave of migrants while defending the management of his department.

Mayorkas testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on Tuesday to advocate for $ 52 billion in discretionary spending on cybersecurity, disaster response and other priorities in DHS’s 2022 fiscal budget.

Republicans on the panel have repeatedly turned to border security, toasting Mayorkas over the growing number of migrants on the US-Mexico border.

This record is a total disaster, said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Also citing a decreasing number of arrests in the United States in immigration and customs matters.

US Customs and Border Protection reported more than 188,000 encounters with migrants at the southern border in June, the highest in decades. Mayorkas said the number overstates the overall level as it includes migrants who have attempted to cross multiple times.

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Paul Ratje / AFP via Getty Images

Migrants caught crossing the Mexican border are loaded into a van by U.S. Border Patrol officers in Sunland Park, NM, July 22, 2021.

Current plan

We have a plan underway to deal with the wave of migrants at the border, a wave that started in April of last year, Mayorkas said. It is a periodic surge that we have seen for many, many years in the absence of immigration reform.

He promoted the administration’s demand for $ 1.2 billion for port and border security, and he urged lawmakers to update U.S. immigration laws Democrats are considering as part of ‘a broad budget deal that could be passed using reconciliation, a procedure that would bypass the need for Republican votes.

Democrats consider legal route for some undocumented migrants

Mayorkas also sent DHS on Monday evening the announcement that he was resuming the accelerated deportation of some families of migrants trying to enter the United States. The department can expedite processing without compromising due process, he said.

The White House on Tuesday described the administration’s efforts to make the immigration system more humane. Biden officials defeated a series of Trump-era immigration policies, including a program that required many asylum seekers and migrants to wait in Mexico while their immigration enforcement cases were reviewed .

Some Democrats, including President Gary Peters (Michigan) and Senator Maggie Hassan (NH), have focused on the north, on restrictions on travel from Canada.

We’re looking at all the different ways to compartmentalize the problem and see if we can allow certain flows or relax certain restrictions in limited ways without jeopardizing the public health and safety of the American people, as well as the Canadian people, says Mayorkas.

ICE arrests, border wall

Republicans have expressed skepticism about the Biden administration’s immigration law enforcement efforts.

Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) asked the secretary if he agreed with the proposal by House lawmakers to cut funding for certain DHS immigration law enforcement functions. Mayorkas said he was in favor of increasing some enforcement spending in some areas and reducing them in others to prioritize the larger goal of public safety.

I know this from being in the trenches, doing the job, said Mayorkas, former DHS attorney and deputy secretary under the Obama administration.

DHS plans to issue full application guidelines for ICE by mid-August, he said. The agency has been operating on temporary enforcement priorities since February.

An exchange with Hawley highlighted tensions between the secretary and some of the ICE employees. The Missouri senator said ICE agents came to him with concerns about their ability to arrest and deport criminals. Mayorkas replied that he had never received a question from the head of the ICE union.

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), the top Republican on the panel, said the administration’s budget request would not properly secure sections of the border between ports of entry. Republicans have accused the administration of wasting millions of dollars in costs to suspend and terminate the border wall, a priority for President Donald Trump.

Biden administration nixes two border wall contracts in Texas

The final completion makes perfect sense, Portman said, referring to border barriers in the El Paso, Texas area. We have already paid for it.

Mayorkas called the Trump administration’s border wall plan misguided, but told Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) He had not considered DHS removing already-built parts of the wall.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen M. Gilmer in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robin Meszoly at [email protected]; Sarah Babbage at [email protected]

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