Biden official faces fury as GOP lawmaker calls him 'most dishonest witness' ever in Judiciary Committee
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faced tough questions from House Republicans, as critics accuse him of providing false or misleading information to Congress.
Former acting ICE Director Tom Homan argued on "Faulkner Focus" Wednesday that Mayorkas is unaware of how many people are actually crossing the southern border and that the secretary is "lying" about the scope of the crisis.
"He's not telling Congress, the American people exactly what he's doing. He's lying to the American people, and he's lying to Congress under oath, which is a crime in itself," said Homan.
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WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 27: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies before a House Appropriations Subcommittee on April 27, 2022 in Washington, DC. Mayorkas testified on the fiscal year 2023 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Mayorkas was on the receiving end of another barrage from Republicans on Wednesday as he faced the House Judiciary Committee and was quizzed about the administration’s efforts to tackle the border crisis.
"I’ve been in Congress seven years. I think you're the most dishonest witness that has ever appeared before the Judiciary Committee, and I think I speak for a lot of my colleagues," Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., said. "This is such a frustrating exercise for us because our constituents want answers."
The fireworks came as part of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the department, which has been at the center of the handling of the ongoing crisis at the southern border in its third year.
Mayorkas has become a lightning rod for the crisis, with Republicans blaming him for running "open border" policies they say sparked and then fueled the border crisis, which saw over 1.7 million migrant encounters in fiscal 2021 and over 2.4 million in fiscal 2022.
Nov 19, 2022: A massive group of migrants in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Fox News)
Homan said Mayorkas should have been impeached a year ago and that he is an embarrassment to his office.
"What this man has done is violate the oath of office he took," said Homan.
"He sits here under oath and tells Congress that illegal entries are down 50%. Well, he knows what he's doing. He's taking thousands of people who enter illegally and pushing them through a port of entry through an unlawful program he created," said Homan, accusing Mayorkas of "bringing thousands of illegal aliens to a port of entry that he knows don't qualify for asylum based on ten years of data."
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"It is a shell game," Homan said.
"He's lying to the American people. He's lying to members of Congress. He created an illegal system that he will lose in court when the 20 states' lawsuit finally comes to court."
National Border Patrol Council VP Art Del Cueto said Mayorkas and senior administration officials "don't even know how many people have been crossing."
He added, "They can talk about the encounters, but they don't know how many people have crossed because the agents aren't working in the areas that they should be working."
He said the morale of Border Patrol agents has been "destroyed" under the Biden administration, accusing many senior officials of waiting until retirement to start "telling the truth."
Eagle Pass Border Patrol look over the Rio Grande scanning the area illegal traffic, February 06, 2003. (Shaul Schwarz/Getty Images)
Mayorkas and the agency have pushed back consistently against Republicans' claims, arguing his agency is working in a broken system in need of reform by Congress while dealing with a hemisphere-wide crisis. The agency has pointed to a sharp drop in encounters after the end of the Title 42 public health order.
While encounters are still high, with over 144,000 in June, they were the lowest numbers since February 2021. It has led to claims by DHS that its post-Title 42 strategy is working. The strategy includes a historic expansion of the use of humanitarian parole to allow migrants in legally at ports of entry while limiting the ability of migrants who enter illegally to claim asylum.
"Our approach to managing the borders securely and humanely even within our fundamentally broken immigration system is working," Mayorkas said. "Unlawful entries between ports of entry along the southwest border have consistently decreased by more than half compared to the peak before the end of Title 42.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
Elizabeth Heckman is a digital production assistant with Fox News.
