During an appearance on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas declared the U.S.-Mexico border “secure” and “closed.”
“The border is secure,” he said. “The border is closed. We’ve been unequivocal in that and we are operationalizing our processes, executing our plans, we are a nation of laws, and we treat vulnerable children humanely. We can do it, and we are doing it.’
Following Mayorkas giving those remarks, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) disputed the claim.
Cotton, also speaking to “Fox News Sunday,” told host Chris Wallace the border was “wide open,” and he blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policy in the early stages of Joe Biden’s presidency for the crisis.
Partial transcript as follows:
WALLACE: You just watched my interview with Secretary Mayorkas. Your reaction, sir?
COTTON: Chris, it’s rich that Secretary Mayorkas won’t let press travel with him to the border, but he will come on your Sunday morning show and peddle the same kind of nonsense that has created the Biden border crisis in the first place. I mean, he’s basically saying the United States will not secure our border and that is a big welcome sign to migrants from across the world.
WALLACE: So you say that you have three simple solutions. What are they?
COTTON: Yeah, Chris, the Biden administration keeps saying that Trump somehow dismantled the immigration system. That’s false. It was the Biden administration that dismantled three highly effective policies.
First, the public health exclusionary order. They lifted that order as it relates to minors. Well, guess what we have now with the border? Lots more minors. That’s not a surprise.
Second, the “remain in Mexico” policy. The Trump administration worked with the government of Mexico to allow migrants who showed up on our border to make an asylum claim but remain in Mexico while we adjudicated rather than just releasing them into the country.
And third, the so-called safe third country agreement with countries like Guatemala that says if you pass through a country that’s not your own seeking asylum, you have to make that asylum claim when the first country to pass through. That’s the international norm, that’s what we should do.
Joe Biden could reimpose all three of those things this week if you wanted to.
WALLACE: One of the things I was struck by at the end of the interview, Secretary Mayorkas said, quote: The border is secure, the border is closed.
Is it?
COTTON: No, Chris, of course not. The border is wide open. There are reports now Custom and Border Patrol may be directed to simply start processing people into the country without even giving them a notice to appear in court.
And, of course, all of these bogus asylum claims are taking up so much manpower and resources of the border, that means that we also have other threats, like increases in fentanyl and other kinds of drug trafficking or persons on the terrorist watch list crossing to our border.
The border right now is wide open because the Biden administration dismantled the very effective policies of the Trump administration and the agreements we had with Mexico and other Latin American countries.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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