Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Thursday that President Joe Biden’s administration has operational control of the southern border.
“We do,” responded Mayorkas to GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who asked, “Will you testify under oath that we have operational control of the border?”
House Republicans used the House Judiciary Committee hearing to grill the DHS secretary over the Biden administration’s plan to end Title 42, a pandemic-era health measure that allows border agencies to turn away illegal immigrants.
“Your agency is releasing people on purpose in order to flood the zone and make sure that more people can come to the United States,” Roy alleged of Mayorkas’s leadership over the DHS.
HOUSE DEMOCRAT BLASTS GOP COLLEAGUES FOR MAYORKAS BORDER SECURITY QUESTIONING
.@chiproytx just went GOBLIN MODE on disgraced DHS Sec. Mayorkas over MASSIVE border crisispic.twitter.com/1yKWm1Yxqn
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 28, 2022
The Texas congressman objected to Mayorkas’s response in light of the 221,303 border encounters by Customs and Border Protection just last month — a record number. The number for the fiscal year 2022 has already surpassed 1 million encounters and is likely to succeed last year’s record of 1.7 million encounters.
“The term ‘operational control’ means the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband,” Roy argued. “Do you stand by your testimony that we have operational control in light of this definition?”
Mayorkas said he thinks the secretary of DHS under former President Donald Trump “would have said the same thing.”
“The secretary would have at least had a basis for saying that we have some sort of control of the border, but the fact is we currently have people flowing across the border, including dangerous narcotics,” Roy said.
Roy held up several images during his exchange with the DHS chief, showing images of dead bodies found near the southern border, one depicting a mobile morgue with 27 bodies stored in South Texas.
Title 42, a health measure imposed by Trump’s administration in March 2020, is one of the few ways border agencies can turn away illegal immigrants, and the number of encounters with migrants is expected to reach 18,000 per day after the measure is revoked.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended on April 1 that the public health crisis was no longer severe enough to warrant the use of the policy. Both Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland have deferred to the health agency’s ruling on pandemic issues and said they only have the authority to enforce, not decide.
A federal judge on Monday barred the Biden administration from ending it, but the administration has since appealed. On Wednesday, Mayorkas testified before the committee, saying the CDC has “exclusive authority” over the rule that is set to expire on May 23.
