ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz confronted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday over the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border.
Partial transcript as follows:
RADDATZ: But that’s been something you’ve been doing all along. You’ve been trying to do that with people. I want — I want to go back to an interview I did with you in March…
MAYORKAS: Yes.
RADDATZ: … of 2021, two months into your tenure as DHS secretary. You seemed totally confident then that you had that under control. Let’s listen to what you told me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYORKAS: We have seen large numbers of migration in the past. We know how to address it. We have a plan. We are executing on our plan and we will succeed. This is what we do.
But one thing is also clear, that it takes time.
It’s tough, but we can do it. This is what we do, and we will accomplish our mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RADDATZ: “We will succeed.” That was three years ago. Since then, 6.5 million migrants have been apprehended along the southern border. It would be very hard to call that a success.
MAYORKAS: Martha, remember something that immigration, migration is a dynamic phenomenon. It is something that we alone are — it’s not just us who is experiencing it, throughout the region and throughout the world. Let’s recall what everyone expected when Title 42 was lifted of May 2023. People expected pandemonium. Our model worked. We drove the numbers down. They go down. They go up.
What we need — what we need is congressional action. We cannot resource the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice with additional personnel. We need Congress to legislate.
RADDATZ: And we know what happened in February with Senate Republicans. President Biden told our David Muir this week that the reason he didn’t implement this plan sooner is that he would have been blamed for blowing up that bipartisan deal. So, why did you wait four months to do this?
MAYORKAS: Oh, let’s look at the — let’s look at the timeline. On day one of his administration, President Biden sent Congress a piece of legislation. Title 42, the public health order, was in place until May of 2023. We implemented a regulation that restricted asylum, and then we pressed Congress to resource our department in August with a supplemental funding bill. That did not succeed.
Then in October, we sought congressional action, and then we started, Martha, the very difficult work of bipartisan negotiation with Republican and Democratic senators.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
