Sen. Mitt Romney lambasted Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — again — for failing to secure the U.S. border with Mexico and suggested it might be time for him to go.
The U.S. Border Patrol has reported more than 1 million encounters with migrants along the southwest border so far this year, putting it on pace to exceed last year’s record-high of 1.7 million. Another 60,000 cross the border undetected each month, Romney said.
“I’d say this is an extraordinary failure, and I don’t know where all the fault lies. I don’t know whether it’s the fault of the president not allowing you to have the policies you need to have a record that’s more like the prior administration or whether it’s your own failings as a leader,” the Utah Republican told Mayorkas in a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.
“But one or the other, this is a failed record and would cry for a change in leadership.”
Wednesday wasn’t the first time Romney, who was among six Republicans who voted to confirm Mayorkas last year, has gone after the Homeland Security secretary, and President Joe Biden on border issues.
Last fall, he called the Biden administration’s immigration policy a “monumental disaster,” and said that alone would be enough to leave the federal government “hanging on by a thread,” even if there were not so many other disasters.
Romney said the solution to securing the border includes finishing the wall started during the Trump administration and keeping the former president’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires some asylum seekers to return to Mexico to await a hearing in U.S. immigration court.
Romney also wants Biden to retain Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that has led the Border Patrol to turn away hundreds of thousands of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. from Mexico over the past two years.
“You do that and guess what? This is going to come back to the way it was,” Romney said.
Mayorkas said the Biden administration is very concerned that the end of Title 42 could result in an increase in encounters at the border.
“However, that is precisely why in September of 2021, understanding that Title 42 would not be around forever, we began to plan and prepare for its end,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intends to end its Title 42 public health order on May 23. That date, however, is in question because of Republican-led lawsuits seeking to keep the policy in place.
Mayorkas outlined a six-pillar plan in a memo last month to deal with ending the policy. It includes increasing border agents, transportation, medical support and facilities to support border operations. Homeland Security is ready to hold 18,000 noncitizens in custody, up from 13,000 at the beginning of 2021, according to the memo.
The plan also calls for increased use of expedited removal, detaining single adults when appropriate, referring for prosecution those whose conduct warrants it, and accelerating asylum adjudications to more quickly process and remove those who don’t qualify.
Romney said the administration record on immigration is “devastating to our country.”
Utah, he said, is desperate…
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