Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on “CNN This Morning” Wednesday that the fact that people can stay in the U.S. for years before their asylum claims are heard in immigration court is an “attractive factor,” but there's more to it than that. He said there was no such thing. There are things the government can do to reduce the number of people coming to the border, such as reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy.
Mayorkas said: “Additional refugee workers are needed to really speed up the refugee status review process, so people don't have to wait six years to receive their results. This is effectively , the fact that people can stay here for six years is a draw.” The situation before their asylum case is decided is a powerful example of how broken our immigration system is, and continues to be broken for a long time. ”
Co-host Phil Mattingly then said, “When we talk about numbers, ABC News reports that there were more than 300,000 border encounters in December. CNN reports that more than 225,000 people were illegally arrested. We reported that people were arrested for crossing. These are record numbers. This is an ongoing trend line. Is there anything on the executive branch that we haven't done yet that you think could stop this? ”
Mayorkas said, “We are focused on the fundamental solution to a long-standing problem, and that fundamental solution is legislation. We are already working hard to deliver results and do everything we can.” We have promulgated regulations to do the best we can within the law, but fundamentally the law itself has to change. Everybody agrees on this, and when we talk about immigration, this is very rare.”
In a separate interview on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” Mayorkas asked co-host Willie Geist, “Is it a good idea to keep asylum seekers in the U.S. while they await trial, or is it now a good idea?” Should I stay where I am?' ? “We've asked for additional asylum staff. We're going to right-size that immigration agency through regulators, but fundamentally, fundamentally, Congress needs to fix our broken immigration system.'' , the backlog of cases is a powerful example of why.”
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