Mayorkas on ‘political suicide mission’ as face of Biden border crisis
Naomi Lim
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The White House has made Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas the face of the humanitarian crisis unfolding at the southern border as pseudo-immigration federal authority Title 42 is rolled back.
But the administration’s attempts to distance President Joe Biden from the politics of the post-pandemic demand from immigrants seeking asylum is unlikely to absolve him from blame as he embarks on his 2024 reelection campaign.
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Before Title 42’s repeal Thursday night, Biden and his staff have increasingly tried to manage expectations, the president himself bracing the public for chaos at the border. Yet that has not prevented Republicans from apportioning responsibility to him and Mayorkas, the latter of whom appeared in Thursday’s White House press briefing, in addition to holding his own media conferences and participating in multiple interviews with news outlets in recent weeks.
“President Biden knows an uncontrollable surge of illegal immigrants are on their way to his open border, so he sent Secretary Mayorkas on a political suicide mission in a failed attempt to insulate himself from the enormous backlash from voters,” one House Republican strategist told the Washington Examiner.
For another Republican aide, Mayorkas “has proven himself to be completely ineffective.” “The only people who benefit from his ‘leadership’ are the drug cartels making billions off trafficking these migrants,” the source said.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) described the problem at the border as “a self-inflicted wound” caused by Biden’s open border policies.
“Since Secretary Mayorkas and President Biden have abdicated their duty to protect the homeland, House Republicans have stepped up to fill in the gap with the Secure the Border Act,” he said. “It’s time Senate Democrats, President Biden, and Secretary Mayorkas joined the effort; our nation’s strength, security, and success depend on it.”
Biden’s average approval on immigration issues is net negative 23 percentage points, 35% to 59%, according to RealClearPolitics, worse than his overall average approval of net negative 11 points, 42% to 53%.
That polling coincides with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre yielding to Mayorkas in the James S. Brady briefing room Thursday, coordinating questions and answers with reporters for more than an hour.
“Tonight at 11:59 p.m. ET, the pandemic-era Title 42 public health order will end,” he said. “We are clear eyed about the challenges we are likely to face in the days and weeks ahead, and we are ready to meet them.”
Mayorkas underscored “the strain” rescinding Title 42 in favor of Title 8, a separate federal authority, will put “on our personnel and our facilities” at the border. However, he was repeatedly needled on why he anticipated “it will take time” for “results” from the administration’s plan “to be fully realized” if it had been preparing for “almost two years.” In response, he pointed to congressional and resource restraints.
“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,” he said.
Title 8, though less expeditious than Title 42, creates tougher penalties for illegal immigrants. The administration will now deny entry to anyone who did not first seek asylum in a country they traveled through or online.
“If anyone arrives at our southern border after midnight tonight, they will be presumed ineligible for asylum and subject to steeper consequences for unlawful entry, including a minimum five-year ban on reentry and potential criminal prosecution,” Mayorkas said.
After Mayorkas’s briefing, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) implored lawmakers to pass his conference’s immigration bill, which proposes resuming construction of the border wall and reintroducing the “Remain in Mexico” policy.
“Thank God the Republicans are in charge today,” McCarthy said. “Thank God that they’re willing to do something instead of ignoring the problem but bringing a solution. I think when you run for office, you should show up for work. I think when you have a committee hearing along the border to learn the facts, stop playing politics and work for the American people.”
After a prime-time address providing an update on his debt ceiling negotiations with McCarthy, Biden told reporters that “it remains to be seen” whether there will be an uptick in the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally.
“It’s going to be chaotic for a while,” the president said.
A day later, Biden was adamant that “chaotic” does not mean he and his administration are ill equipped to deal with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants already at the border who are being encouraged to apply for asylum via an app.
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“What I was saying is it takes time to put some of what we want to do in place,” he said. “For example, opening up consulates in other countries like Colombia and other places. That could make a big difference.”
It is unclear when the “consulates,” 100 regional processing centers across the Western Hemisphere, will be ready to accept immigrants. At least one other is planned for Guatemala.