WASHINGTON—Heritage’s border security and immigration team released the following statement Thursday after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Their comments come after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts called for Mayorkas’ resignation or impeachment earlier this year:
Mark Morgan, former acting CBP commissioner and Heritage visiting fellow: “Secretary Mayorkas continues to lie about the border crisis, and Thursday was no exception. He refused to take responsibility for the historic crisis he and his boss in the White House have intentionally created. He failed to apologize for slandering the mounted Border Patrol agents in Del Rio whose careers he and the president ruined over a debunked political narrative. And he was silent on the death of a Texas National Guardsman killed while attempting to rescue illegal aliens in the Rio Grande.
“He can talk about ‘six-pillar plans’ as much as he likes, but it’s all hot air meant to distract Americans from the objective reality that the Biden administration created this crisis. The only way to resolve it is to secure our border and end the policies that have encouraged record numbers of illegal aliens to enter our country. We must restore the previous administration’s policies that created the most secure border in our lifetimes. Bring back the Remain in Mexico program. Restore the asylum cooperative agreements we negotiated with Northern Triangle countries. And restart the construction of the border wall system. Do your job. Uphold the law and secure the border or resign.”
Lora Ries, former acting DHS deputy chief of staff and director, Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center: “Mayorkas’ testimony should make clear to all members of Congress what has long been apparent—he either needs to resign immediately, or the next Congress should move to impeach him. He has overseen the worst border crisis in American history, a crisis that was predictable, preventable, and unnecessary. Instead, he willfully plowed forward to advance President Biden’s open-borders agenda.
“Under his leadership, we have seen more than 100,000 apprehensions at the border every month. Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens have been released into the country since Biden took office. In 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses, a historic number largely driven by fentanyl flooding across the border. Either Mayorkas lacks the courage to speak up against these open-borders policies, or is himself also committed to seeing them through. Either way, it is time for him to go.”
Tom Homan, former acting ICE director and Heritage visiting fellow: “I have never seen an administration so committed to making our country less safe and secure than this one. They have lost operational control of our southern border, which is now under the authority of the drug cartels and human smugglers. And Secretary Mayorkas does not care, plain and simple. He has refused to be transparent about his role in facilitating the worst border crisis in our history. He has made it essentially impossible for ICE to detain and deport those here illegally. Under his leadership, detainers for homicide, sexual assault, assault, and other heinous crimes are down significantly. Overall ICE arrests have dropped to record lows. ICE has released more than 14,000 criminals onto the streets to re-offend, rather than detain and remove them from the U.S. and make our communities safer.”
“This secretary, the president, and the open-borders activists behind the scenes in the administration have opened our borders, and then made it impossible for law enforcement to remove those released into our country by the thousands. Mayorkas has undermined our sovereignty and security, and Congress needs to do something about it.”
For a more complete rundown of the hearing, click here.
