WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended how the Biden government is dealing with a new wave of unaccompanied minors on the United States’ border with Mexico amid humanitarian and security concerns, saying the American people ” will look back and say that we have protected the border and we have defended our values. “
Mayorkas emphasized in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that the government’s message to those seeking to enter is that “the border is closed”. But he said that while the government continues to expel families and single adults, it will not send unaccompanied minors back.
“We are not going to expel three orphaned children, for example, into the Mexican desert,” said Mayorkas, while warning against coming to the border.
“We are safely suing children who arrive at our border,” he said. “We strongly recommend, and the message is clear, not to do this now. I cannot overstate the dangers of the journey they take.”
Mayorkas linked some of the problems to the policies of the Trump administration, which he said “dismantling the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their own country”.
“We are rebuilding these ordered systems both in Mexico, in close partnerships with the Mexican government, and in the countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador,” he said.
Pointing to overcrowding concerns exacerbated by the pandemic, Mayorkas said the administration is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services to build temporary facilities to remove unaccompanied minors from border patrol posts. A Border Patrol station, he said, “is no place for a child.”
Former President Donald Trump attacked Mayorkas and the Biden government in a statement on Sunday night, saying “they are losing their heads and drinking water quickly” and describing the system he has put in place as “smooth running” and “the safest frontier” of the story. “
“Even someone with the limited skills of Mayorkas must understand that if you provide the capture and release system to illegal aliens in the world, the whole world will come,” said Trump.
NBC News reported last week that the government is limiting media access to information about border operations, reaching what some current and former Customs and Border Protection officials have called an unofficial “order of silence”.
Mayorkas denied any order of silence. He said that while the government is focused on navigating the plight, aggravated by the pandemic, it is working to “provide access” for the public to see the conditions.
The government is fighting a sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the border. On Saturday, the Border Patrol had 5,049 unaccompanied children in custody, according to data obtained by NBC News.
The arrivals are stressing the system, prompting humanitarian criticism and complaints from Republicans, as well as some Democrats, that the Biden government is not doing enough to stem the flow of migrants.
Biden, who was returning to the White House after the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, on Sunday night, was asked if he plans to go to the border.
“At some point, yes,” he told the pool reporter.