Republican senators unleashed months of pent-up frustrations at the Biden administration’s top border official during a committee hearing that the conservative members focused entirely on the border crisis.
The 10 Republicans present Tuesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security went after Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and pointedly attacked his leadership of the 250,000-person department.
“The people determining our border policy — in your opinion, are they just incompetent, or do they believe in open borders?” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked.
The top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, faulted Mayorkas and other Biden administration officials for rescinding Trump administration policies.
The Biden administration terminated all previously funded border wall contracts, has restricted the illegal immigrants whom ICE may arrest within the United States, ended a program that required asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico and not be released into the U.S., and rescinded asylum agreements with other countries. The result, Grassley said, is the wave of noncitizens coming across the border this year. --->READ MORE HERE
Sen. Ted Cruz peppered Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with repeated questions Tuesday about children the lawmaker said were being held in “Biden cages” at the US border with Mexico.
“How many children have been in the Biden cages in calendar year 2021?” Cruz (R-Texas) asked Mayorkas during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
“Senator, I respectfully disagree with your use of the term ‘cages,'” Mayorkas responded.
“Fine, you can disagree with it,” Cruz rejoined. “How many children have been in the Biden cages? I’ve been to the Biden cages, I’ve seen the Biden cages. How many children have you detained at the Donna [Texas] tent facility in the cages you built to hold kids? How many children have been in those cages?”
“I, respectfully, am not familiar with the term ‘cages’ and to what you are referring,” Mayorkas said.
“Enclosures in which they are locked in, in which I took photographs and put them out because you blocked the press and didn’t want people to see the Biden cages,” said Cruz. --->READ MORE HERE
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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Tuesday that Vice President Kamala Harris has not been “directly” involved in his department’s key policy decisions during her nearly eight months tackling the “root causes” of illegal immigration for the Biden administration.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) recalled that President Biden had called Harris the “most qualified person” to stem the flow of migrants coming to the US-Mexico border from Central America and elsewhere when he tapped her for the role in March.
“Do you report to her?” Hawley asked Mayorkas.
“Senator, I report to the vice president and the president, and your question misstates the facts,” the DHS secretary responded. “The president did not appoint the vice president to be the border czar. He asked her to lead the effort in addressing the root causes of irregular migration. Those are two very different things.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories:
Watch: Sen. Cruz Grills Border Chief Mayorkas
Senator Lee Slams Mayorkas for Failing to Defend Border Agents from Debunked ‘Whipping’ Accusation
‘I Give Myself an A’: 4 Highlights of Mayorkas’ Senate Testimony on Border Crisis
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