Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday that Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) Alejandro Mayorkas “needs to resign” because “he’s incompetent.”
“I’m not unhappy. I’m pissed. Secretary Mayorkas needs to resign: he’s incompetent,” Graham told Martha MacCallum, host of Fox News’ “The Story,” going on to say, “The border is not closed. It’s been surrendered.” The South Carolina senator insisted that if Mayorkas continues to lead the DHS, “there’s no way in hell” the border crisis will be solved. He also claimed for every Haitian who is deported “five are being released into the United States,” and argued that the U.S. effectively has no border security. (RELATED: ‘Scares The Hell Out Of Me’: Lindsey Graham Says Biden ‘Believes He’s Been Successful In Afghanistan’)
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“The culprit here is President Biden. He’s the one that turned down sound military advice to withdraw all of our forces from Afghanistan. He’s the one that changed the policies of President Trump … They took all of the Trump policies that worked on the border, they repealed them, they canned them and now we’re being under siege,” Graham argued.
Graham also accused Biden of “dereliction of duty” on two key issues: leaving American citizens and Afghan allies behind in Afghanistan and surrendering the “border to drug cartels and human smugglers.”
The senator then defended Border Patrol agents on horseback, noting that “the man on horseback is there to protect your family” while the migrants “rushing our border have put us all under siege.” Graham went on to say that the “most inhumane” thing about the border crisis is how border patrol agents “have been completely abandoned, demagogued, scapegoated and treated like dirt by elected officials and the Democratic Party and this administration.”(RELATED: Hundreds Of Haitians Remain Trapped At Mexican Migrant Camp After Del Rio Port Of Entry Closure)
TOPSHOT – Haitian migrants, part of a group of over 10,000 people staying in an encampment on the US side of the border, cross the Rio Grande river to get food and water in Mexico, after another crossing point was closed near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on September 19, 2021. (Photo by PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images)
During Thursday’s media briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki dodged questions from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy about the whereabouts of migrants who had been camping under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
Thousands of Haitian migrants have reportedly been released throughout the U.S. while some have been deported. However, Psaki blamed the ongoing border crisis on the “dysfunction” of the Trump administration.