CNN anchor Poppy Harlow pressed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday as to whether the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border is a “crisis.”
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced his first-ever trip to the border amid the ongoing surge in migrant apprehensions and human smuggling operations. Migrant apprehension numbers exceeded a record-high 2.3 million in the 2022 fiscal year, and reached more than 230,000 at the start of the 2023 fiscal year.
Mayorkas argued on CNN that this surge in migration is part of a global phenomenon and thus not unique to the southern border.
“Would you, secretary, qualify what is happening on the border right now as a crisis?” Harlow asked.
“We have seen the situation at the border, managed it in a orderly way, have seen it in extraordinarily challenging circumstances as well. You can rest assured, Poppy, that we’re doing everything that we possibly can to build a system that provides humanitarian relief in a safe and orderly way while trying to persuade Congress to fix what is a broken system,” Mayorkas said.
“I understand that but, just, what you’re seeing — what you’ve seen the twenty times you’ve been there — the record number of migrants at the southern border, and last year it was nearly 2.4 million. If that’s not a crisis, secretary, what is?” she asked. (RELATED: Mayorkas Dodges Question About Potential Impeachment)
“Poppy, we have seen 2.4 million encounters at our southern border and it is reflective of the greatest level of displacement of people in the world since World War II. It is reflective of a migration challenge that is gripping entire hemisphere,” he told Harlow. “When I was in Colombia, I spoke with the president of the country, the foreign minister, the minister of security, and they spoke of 2.4 million Venezuelans in Colombia now.”
We are seeing Costa Rica’s population increasingly formed by Nicaraguans,” he continued. “We’re seeing a tremendous movement of people throughout the hemisphere, and a regional challenge requires a regional solution, and that’s why President Biden has led the regional leaders in addressing it.”
Harlow replied that the situation is “in the hands” of Mayorkas and the Biden administration.
In recent weeks, migrants have lined up at the border in Arizona and Texas in frigid weather to await the expiration of the Trump-era immigration policy, Title 42, which expelled over one million migrants to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
On Dec. 19, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the Biden administration’s attempts to end the policy.