DHS chief: Not all illegal immigrants ordered out got ‘due process’
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas suggested Tuesday that not all of the estimated 1.2 million illegal immigrants in the US with final removal orders should be deported.
Mayorkas made the startling claim under questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who asked about a memo issued by DHS Sept. 30 that outlined immigration enforcement priorities and stated in part: “The fact an individual is a removable noncitizen will not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them.”
“Does that reasoning apply to the [1.2] million illegal immigrants who have received due process and been given a final order of removal by an immigration judge?” asked Grassley.
Mayorkas answered that he had issued the enforcement policy after drawing on “tremendous experience not only as a member of the Department of Homeland Security, but as a federal prosecutor.”
“We cannot remove 1.2 million individuals, nor can we remove more than 11 million undocumented individuals, individuals who are unlawfully present in the United States, who might not have final orders of removal,” Mayorkas added.
“You might be right on that point,” said Grassley, who then repeated his question about whether the memo applied to the 1.2 million with final orders of removal to their name.
“It certainly does,” Mayorkas said. “However, I would not necessarily accept the fact that all of them have received due process.”
“Should any of them be removed?”Grassley asked.
“Of course,” Mayorkas said. “I do believe that individuals who pose a public safety threat, who pose a national security threat, who pose a border security threat, should be removed, and we should be smart and effective in our use of resources, and we should focus on the well-being of our communities and prioritize individuals for removal.”
In his opening statement, Grassley slammed the Biden administration and DHS for policies that led to what he called a “sorry state of affairs” at the US-Mexico border.
“The most solemn responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the people of the United States,” Grassley said. “In choosing to actively ignore the immigration laws passed by Congress and in choosing to pursue policies that encourage unprecedented levels of uncontrolled illegal immigration to the United States, this Administration and this DHS have failed on both counts.”
Grassley noted that federal authorities have apprehended more than 1.4 million migrants since President Biden took office.
“That on its own is an astounding number,” he said. “It’s greater than the individual populations of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington, DC. It’s twice as large as the Des Moines, Iowa, metro area. And that doesn’t include the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who got away.”
According to Grassley, the ongoing crisis has been caused by Biden rolling back or reversing many of former President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, adding that the “sorry state of affairs was entirely preventable … it was also entirely predictable.”
”When you terminate physical barrier construction, severely restrict the ability of ICE to deport illegal immigrants, terminate the ’Remain in Mexico’ program, roll back asylum cooperative agreements, gut Title 42, and openly support sanctuary city policies, then you shouldn’t be surprised when there’s a surge at the southern border,” Grassley said in his opening remarks.
“When you allow the ACLU and open-borders immigration activists rather than career law enforcement professionals to dictate the terms of your immigration and border policies, then you shouldn’t be surprised when record-shattering numbers of people start showing up at the border to take advantage of that,” Grassley added.
“When you run DHS like it’s an ‘Abolish ICE’ fan club, you shouldn’t be surprised when you have an illegal immigration crisis on your hands,” the senator went on.
Mayorkas was grilled during the hearing about the numbers of migrants crossing the border, as well as the enforcement of orders to appear or report to an immigration judge or Immigrations and Customs Enforcement after they are released into the US.
