During an interview with CNN on Sunday, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, dismissed criticism from both Republicans and Democrats claiming that the Biden Administration had mishandled the ongoing border crisis, stating that he disagrees with their assessments
“You say that you, at the Department of Homeland Security, you have been preparing. Not everybody agrees with you, as I know you are aware, not just Republicans, even some Democrats, even those who represents parts of the border,” host Dana Bash said. “Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego said, ‘Federal agencies have had time to plan, but their efforts have fallen short.’ How do you respond to him and some other Democrats who say that you’ve fallen short?”
“I would respectfully disagree. We have been planning for months and months, over a year and a half. We have surged resources, asylum officers, Border Patrol agents, processing coordinators to do the data entry work so our Border Patrol agents can to be out in the field. We’ve expanded our holding capacity in Border Patrol stations,” Mayorkas said. “We’ve added beds to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in our detention facilities. We’ve increased our transportation resources, the number of flights, removal flights with our foreign partners. We’re setting up regional processing centers now. It’s extraordinary what we’ve done over the past 18 months or so.”
Title 42 ended Thursday at midnight, filling migrant processing centers with more than 25,000 migrants within hours, internal agency data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation showed. After the end of Title 42, Arizona’s Yuma and Tucson sectors, are 219% and 269% over capacity, respectively.
