Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas held Congress responsible Wednesday for the ongoing migrant influx at the U.S.-Mexico border, the day before Title 42’s expiration.
“I cannot overemphasize that our current situation is the outcome of Congress leaving a broken, outdated immigration system in place for over two decades, despite unanimous agreement that we desperately need legislative reform.” (RELATED: Biden Speaks With Mexican President Amid ‘Unprecedented Migration’ At Border)
Authorities have used Title 42, issued by former President Donald Trump and set to terminate Thursday, to perform more than 2.7 million expulsions along the southern border, and Mayorkas saying during a Wednesday speech that DHS will subsequently start processing people at the border using its authorities under the U.S. code’s Title 8. Officials have announced they expect a massive surge in migration following the end of the policy.
Mayorkas said the DHS expects large numbers of southern border encounters in the following weeks and is already seeing “high numbers of encounters in certain sectors.”
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Mayorkas has repeatedly refused to call the situation at the southern border a “crisis,” despite Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz characterizing it as a crisis while under oath in August.
Mayorkas said Wednesday that the DHS’s overall approach is to institute lawful immigration pathways and tougher consequences for those who choose to immigrate by other means, claiming this was being done, “within the constraints of a broken immigration system that Congress has not fixed for more than two decades.”
“Our immigration laws today are outdated,” he said. “The solutions we are implementing are the best available within our current legal authority.”
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