Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NBC’s Meet the Press that “the border is closed” as the Biden administration is now expelling single adults and migrant families who show up at the border.
But unaccompanied children are being accepted and given temporary housing until a sponsor can be found. Considering there are more than 15,000 minors in U.S. custody, that’s proving to be a challenge.
Mayorkas blamed the crisis on Donald Trump who, he says, “dismantled the orderly, humane and efficient way” that minors were processed.
“We are rebuilding those orderly and safe processes as quickly as possible,” he said. “But in the meantime, we will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphan children whom I saw over the last two weeks. We just won’t do that. That’s not who we are.”
In addition to criticism that their policies are enabling the surge, administration officials are also facing questions for not providing media access to border facilities so the public can get a firsthand look at the situation. Mayorkas said “we’re working on that” but made clear it wasn’t a top priority. He said the administration was dealing with a pandemic and “not focused on ride-alongs right now.”
“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked Mayorkas if there was a “gag order” obstructing media access, which Mayorkas denied.
The media had a hissy fit when Trump essentially did the same thing during the border surge in 2019, but there are only mild protests and polite questions now.
Meanwhile, Mark Levin had an eye-opening interview with former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan, who claimed on Levin’s radio show, Life and Liberty, that Biden’s policy is not “incompetent” but rather by design.
Host Mark Levin posited to Homan that the Biden administration’s strategy in dealing with the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border is “overwhelm the system, break the system, then blame the system and take control.”
“You’re correct,” Homan responded. “The Biden administration is still trying to blame President Trump for what’s going on the border right now. They’re ignoring the fact that — I don’t care if you love President Trump or hate him — you cannot deny the fact that he gave us the most secure border in my career, which is almost thirty-five years.
“I started in 1984 as a Border Patrol agent,” Homan added. “I spent my entire career on border enforcement, immigration enforcement, and President Trump got it right. He had unprecedented success on that border.”
The system is “overwhelmed” alright, and it’s certainly broken. Mayorkas is blaming “the system” for the crisis that the president refuses to acknowledge at the border. But what would it mean for the government to “take control” of the border? Don’t they already have that authority?
If Biden is going to use the crisis to declare blanket amnesty without congressional approval he would be in for the fight of his life — both legal and political. Some of his radical advisors are suggesting just that — forget a “pathway to citizenship.”
But it’s a fight that Biden could never win. So the best the president can do is hold the crisis at the border up as another example of his predecessor’s “inhumanity” and highlight the changes he’s making.
A veil of secrecy has been pulled across much of the border. The media certainly isn’t trying very hard to find out what’s going on. This is a case of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” They don’t have to criticize the Biden administration if they’re ignorant of what’s happening at the border.
And it’s likely to stay that way for the duration of the crisis.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member