During an interview with “PBS NewsHour” on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended President Joe Biden waiting to take executive action on the border in light of criticism from Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director of ICE P.J. Lechleitner by stating that if Biden had acted earlier, “it would be litigated earlier and the outcome is still uncertain.”
Co-host Amna Nawaz asked, “President Biden also didn’t take new executive action until June of last year, and that action has now resulted in, what? A 60% drop in encounters at the U.S. southern border. I’m sure you have seen there was an interview given by the outgoing ICE Director, a man named P.J. Lechleitner, who said that Mr. Biden should have taken that kind of action sooner. He said, in part, this, ‘The administration should have taken that action earlier, and I think the career people in DHS would have liked that, [and] all of us in DHS, quite frankly. I don’t know if anybody in DHS wouldn’t have wanted that earlier.’ Is he wrong?”
Mayorkas answered, “Let me say where we are now, and let me answer your question. First, where we are now. We are delivering to the incoming administration the most secure border in years. The monthly average number of encounters now is lower than they were in 2019. So, we have taken executive action. The President took executive action. We in the Department of Homeland Security swiftly and effectively implemented it.”
He continued, “Let’s take a step back and remember where we were. We entered this administration in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, Title 42, the public health authority, was in place. The public health authority was no longer needed as a matter of the state of public health in May of 2023, and it was lifted. Everyone expected calamity to follow, 18,000, 20,000 encounters a day. Those never materialized. We then went to Congress after the lifting of Title 42 and sought the much-needed resources. We sought funding for more Border Patrol agents, more ICE officers, more asylum officers, more immigration judges. We were denied. We then returned to Congress with a second request, the need being so compelling. We were again denied, and we moved into the bipartisan Senate negotiations that actually produced a transformative piece of legislation, the first in almost 30 years, only to see it politically torpedoed. And in light of that, the President quickly took executive action, which is now being litigated in the courts. The enduring solution is legislation.”
Nawaz then asked, “Mr. Secretary, your critics, though, will point out, if this was a priority for the administration, the President could have taken that executive action even earlier, being able to say, if Congress won’t act, then I will. What do you say to that?”
Mayorkas answered, “And then it would be litigated earlier and the outcome is still uncertain. The President on day one presented to Congress legislative reform. We have advocated for and supported legislative reform every day since. That is the solution to a broken immigration system.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
