ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday clashed with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the Biden administration’s failures on border security.
A partial transcript follows:
RADDATZ: But that’s what you’ve been doing and trying to do with people. I want to go back to an interview I did with you in March…
MAYORKAS: Yes.
RADDATZ: …2021, two months into your term as Secretary of Homeland Security. You seemed totally confident at the time that you had the situation under control. Let me ask you what you told me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Mayorkas: We’ve experienced mass migration before. We know how to handle it. We have a plan. We are executing on our plan, and we will be successful. This is our job.
But one thing is clear: it will take time.
It’s hard, but we can do it. This is our job and we will accomplish our mission.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Raddatz: “We will succeed.” That was three years ago. Since then, 6.5 million migrants have been apprehended at the southern border. It would be very hard to call that a success.
MAYORKAS: Martha, please remember that immigration and migration is a dynamic phenomenon. It is ours alone, and we are not the only ones experiencing it across the region, and around the world. Remember what everyone expected when Title 42 was lifted in May 2023? People expected chaos. Our models worked. We got the numbers down. They go down, and they go up.
What we need is congressional action. We can’t just throw more people at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, or the Department of Justice. Congress needs to act.
RADDATZ: We know what happened with Republican senators in February. President Biden told our correspondent David Muir this week that he didn’t move this plan sooner because he was accused of abandoning a bipartisan agreement. So why wait four months to do this?
Mayorkas: Let’s look at the timeline. President Biden introduced legislation to Congress on the first day of his administration. Public Health Order 42 was in effect until May 2023. We implemented regulations limiting asylum, and then in August we pressured Congress to fund our department in a supplemental appropriations bill. But that was unsuccessful.
And so in October we sought congressional action, and then began the very difficult work of bipartisan negotiations with Republican and Democratic senators, Martha.
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