Washington- Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said, as his tenure as head of the nation’s immigration service draws to a close, that “a truly great solution was killed by irresponsible politics” when the bipartisan border deal collapsed earlier This year.
Mayorkas highlighted the agreement on a border package reached by a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators in February, after months of deliberations that would have marked the first comprehensive overhaul of border security policy in decades — and would give the president sweeping powers to crack down on illegal border crossings. But the bill was quickly rejected by Republicans after President-elect Donald Trump expressed his opposition.
Following the failure of this legislation, the Biden administration instituted asylum restrictions that significantly disrupted the flow of immigration. Asked about the timing, amid criticism from Republicans that the Biden administration possessed the authority to act on the border without Congress, Mayorkas acknowledged that the administration could have acted more quickly if it had known the deal border would be torpedoed.
“Looking back, in 2020, if we had known that irresponsible policy would have killed what was clearly a meritorious effort and result, perhaps we would have taken executive action more quickly,” Mayorkas said in an interview aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
These comments come as border crossings have fallen to level lowest level of the Biden administrationafter reaching records a year ago.
The Homeland Security secretary noted that before Mr. Biden took office, “migration trend lines” were increasing exponentially in 2018 and 2019 around the world, “and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit “. He added that over time, the Biden administration developed capabilities that allowed it to transport individuals and decompress areas experiencing increased immigration, saying “we applied enforcement to a unprecedented level throughout this administration.”
“We are now deporting or returning more people in three years than the previous administration did in four, and we are doing it not only in greater volume, but also more quickly, due to negotiations with other countries and with more countries than ever this has been the case,” Mayorkas said.