In an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday," President Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas – who last week testified that "the border is secure" – admitted that between 10,000 and 12,000 (and possibly more) of the mostly Haitian illegal immigrants who crossed into Del Rio, Texas, in recent days have been released into the United States, pending future proceedings. Some of those migrants were repatriated or detained, but thousands of them are now inside the country, in spite of Mayorkas' public assertions to the contrary. "If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family’s life," he said last Monday. By Sunday, he was conceding that thousands of the Del Rio illegal immigrants, whose presence prompted his warning, have been allowed to remain in the US. When pressed by Wallace on how many of those illegal immigrants will never show up for court dates, Mayorkas didn't offer a clear answer:
"Approximately, I think it's about ten thousand or so, twelve thousand," Mayorkas told "Fox News Sunday" when asked how many have already been released. He then acknowledged that this number could very well go up as the 5,000 other cases are processed. "It could be even higher. The number that are returned could be even higher. What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it," Mayorkas said. The secretary said the administration "will make determinations whether they will be returned to Haiti based on our public health and public interest authorities." Mayorkas said that those who are released have conditions placed on them, "are monitored by us," and authorities "ensure their appearance in court as the law requires." Host Chris Wallace noted that according to the Department of Justice 44% of those who are released miss court appearances. When asked whether many of the thousands who have just been released will just stay in the U.S., Mayorkas insisted that the system will work. "We have enforcement guideline in place that provide the individuals who are recent border crossers who do not show up for their hearings are enforcement priorities and will be removed," he said. Wallace noted that there are already 11 million people in the U.S. illegally, but Mayorkas said this is just evidence that the current system is "broken" and in need of reform.
Got that? If you come to America illegally, you will be turned away, so don't try it. But most of the thousands of Haitians in Del Rio were not turned away, and were in fact allowed to stay. DOJ has determined that nearly half of illegal immigrant "asylum" seekers (more on that in a moment) fail to appear for scheduled court appearances, but Mayorkas waved away that concern, avowing that the system will work. But when confronted with the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are living in America today, Mayorkas chalked that up to the system being "broken." It's a contradictory, convoluted mess. This administration's words on immigration mean nothing. Wallace asked Mayorkas why the Biden administration couldn't prevent unlawful migrants from entering United States territory in the first place, and the DHS chief responded, "we did." What? They most certainly did not, but perhaps this answer is unsurprising coming from an official who insists the border is closed and secure while refusing to acknowledge a crisis.
The FNS anchor suggested that a wall or fence could have prevented this massive influx, to which Mayorkas responded, "We do not agree with the building of the wall. The law provides that individuals can make a claim for humanitarian relief. That is actually one of our proudest traditions." He also tried to pretend that this massive wave of illegal immigration – "irregular migration," as he euphemized it, with some in the media instantly adopting the new leftist terminology – is nothing new. But this summer witnessed multi-decade highs in border encounters, with tens of thousands of known "got-aways" not included in the statistics. When things got bad during the Trump administration, which Mayorkas cited in a blame-shifting talking point, the Trump team took drastic action to largely mitigate the problem. Team Biden threw out those succeeding policies, and the problem grew far worse.
As for the talking point that these are merely "asylum seekers" striving to escape an acute and dire situation in their home country, that is broadly false. As the Associated Press reported last week, "most" of the Haitians in Del Rio (who merely represent a small snapshot of the overall crisis) had already been granted asylum status in other countries:
Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, said Tuesday he had spoken with his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, about the Haitians’ situation. Ebrard said most of the Haitians already had refugee status in Chile or Brazil and weren’t seeking it in Mexico. “What they are asking for is to be allowed to pass freely through Mexico to the United States,” Ebrard said. Two Mexican federal officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed Mexico's actions.
They've received refugee status in South American nations, and are uninterested in seeking refuge in Mexico. They simply want to live in the United States. That's understandable, but they don't have a right to be here. Many people would like to live here, and they must go through the proper process. A large majority of recent "asylum" claims are bogus or unsubstantiated. The Daily Caller has gathered more information about many of the Haitians pretending to need "asylum" in the United States:
Under U.S. immigration law, individuals are not eligible for refugee status if they are “firmly resettled in a third country.” Large numbers of Haitian migrants are likely ineligible for refugee status in the U.S. because they already received refugee status in Chile, government-issued photo identification cards viewed by the Daily Caller’s Jorge Ventura show.
Chilean ID's littered all over on the Mexican side in Ciudad Acuna. The majority of the Haitian migrants have been living in Chile for years and have even been given refugee status pic.twitter.com/insAB3TLyf
— Jorge Ventura Media (@VenturaReport) September 24, 2021
Asked about the gaslighting "whipping" smear against Border Patrol agents on horseback, Mayorkas wouldn't comment on it in any detail because of a pending investigation. This is a more circumspect response than his boss' cheap "they will pay" demagoguery, uttered while repeating a lie – a comment that strongly suggests that his mind is already made up, on an "outrage" that is, in fact, made up. I gave this analysis on the panel later in the show:
Sec. Mayorkas wouldn’t say if those CBP agents on horseback violated any protocols, pending the “whipping” smear investigation — but his boss, the president, already told the country those officers would “pay.” My analysis on @FoxNewsSunday: pic.twitter.com/KwJjx9XegT
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 26, 2021
Relatedly, I'll leave you with this exchange I had with Wallace on Friday:
