Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Sunday that more than 12,000 Haitian migrants who had been camped out under a bridge near Del Rio, Texas, have been released into the US and more may follow them.
He told “Fox News Sunday” that there are about 12,400 Haitians in the process of having asylum claims heard by an immigration judge, while around 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security.
About 3,000 are being detained.
“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas responded when asked how many migrants have already been released.
He added that the number could go beyond 5,000 as other cases are processed.
“It could be even higher. The number that are returned could be even higher. What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it,” Mayorkas said.
The secretary said the administration “will make determinations whether they will be returned to Haiti based on our public health and public interest authorities.”
He also bristled under questioning by Fox News’ Chris Wallace who said DHS figures show the “flood” of illegal immigration has gotten worse under the Biden administration.
“I wouldn’t call it a flood,” Mayorkas said.
Many of the migrants being released into the US may have coronavirus because the Biden administration is not requiring them to be tested or be vaccinated after they enter the US illegally.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Mayorkas how many of the 30,000 migrants were tested.
He said the administration follows “strict COVID testing protocols.”
“We test, isolate, and quarantine unaccompanied children. We work with nonprofit organizations to test families,” he said.
“Those who are in ICE custody are tested, isolated, and quarantined. Those who are expelled under the Title 42 Public Health Authority are returned immediately. They are not placed in immigration court proceedings, and those we do not test, because they are returned immediately,” Mayorkas said.
The makeshift camp under the International Bridge was cleared at the end of last week, but at one point it contained as many as 30,000 migrants who lived in squalid conditions and created a humanitarian crisis for the White House.
The US deported about 2,000 of the migrants in flights to Haiti and roughly 8,000 voluntarily returned to Mexico.
Wallace pressed Mayorkas on how many of the migrants being freed in the US will remain and pointed out that the Justice Department estimates that about 44 percent of those released will miss their immigration court appearances.
“We have enforcement guidelines in place that provide the individuals who are recent border crossers who do not show up for their hearings are enforcement priorities and will be removed,” Mayorkas said.
Wallace asked the secretary why the US didn’t stop the migrants from entering the US when they first began amassing at the border in early September.
“We did. We encountered them as they gathered in that one section in Del Rio, Texas,” he replied, noting that the administration has to operate under existing laws and statutes.
But Wallace asked why they hadn’t erected a “wall or a fence” to keep the migrants from entering.
“It is the policy of this administration: we do not agree with the building of the wall,” Mayorkas said. “The law provides that individuals can make a claim for humanitarian relief. That is actually one of our proudest traditions.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who followed Mayorkas’ appearance on Fox News, accused the administration of “dereliction of duty.”
“The United States Constitution itself requires that the president and that the federal government secure the sovereignty of the United States of America, including the states in the United States of America, and the Biden administration has abandoned any pretense of securing the sovereignty of either Texas or the United States by having these open border policies that you so well articulated,” Abbott said.
“They have created a magnet that led to these massive groups of Haitians, as well as the other groups, that are coming here for one reason, and that’s because they have sent a message and a signal to the entire world that they are not going to secure the border, they’re going to allow them across,” he said.
Wallace asked Mayorkas whether the White House is creating the conditions for a surge in migration.
He said there are 20,000 Haitians in Columbia, 3,000 in Peru and 1,500 in Panama waiting to come to the US.
“Haven’t you given Haitians, and a million more immigrants will you have had encounters with since Joe Biden came into office, haven’t you given them a reason to believe there’s a reasonable chance if they come into this country, they’ll end up being released into the country and have months or perhaps years to stay here?” Wallace asked.
“This is nothing new. We’ve seen this type of irregular migration many, many times throughout the years. I don’t know if Governor Abbott said the same thing in 2019 when there were more than a million people encountered at the southern border,” Mayorkas said.
