Mayorkas used the statement to blame the Trump administration for some of the Biden government’s current immigration challenges. And Mayorkas made a remarkable projection, saying that “we are on the way to meet more individuals on the southwestern border than in the past 20 years”.
We analyzed six claims by Mayorkas. Here is a fact-check analysis.
Mayorkas wrote that, under the Trump administration, “there were no plans to protect our frontline people from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Facts first: “Without plans” is not true. Of course, the department took steps during Trump’s presidency to protect Covid-19 frontline employees.
In April 2020, the US Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a statement listing several ways to try to keep employees protected from the virus, such as new cleaning guidelines, increased teleworking and the use of personal protective equipment.
In September 2020, the department’s inspector general reported that ports of entry and border patrol stations said in April and early May that they had taken several measures to limit the spread of Covid-19 – including making masks available. and increasing the frequency of cleaning, conducting outdoor work when possible, conducting briefings to staff over the phone, asking people to stay in their vehicles during secondary border processing and conducting risk assessments of detainees to try to determine their exposure potential to the virus. The inspector general reported that “the facility reported concerns about its inability to practice social detachment and the risk of exposure to COVID-19 due to the nature of close contact with its work”, but that “most facilities stated they were prepared to deal with COVID-19. “
Marsha Espinosa, a department spokesman, told CNN on Tuesday that Mayorkas was “referring to DHS as a whole”, not just the Border Patrol facilities, when it made the claim about the absence of plans. But even if some parts of the department were hypothetically deficient in their planning, it is not true that there was no “no plans” period.
Instead, Mayorkas could have made a subjective argument that the Trump administration’s protection efforts were inadequate. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents thousands of Customs and Border Protection employees, called in the spring and summer of 2020 for several security improvements, including more frequent testing, contact tracking, more frequent cleaning and better protective equipment. . In 2021, the union criticized the department’s slow initial efforts to vaccinate employees.
On Sunday, Customs and Border Protection reported 8,131 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 28 deaths among its more than 60,000 employees.
Migration numbers in historical context
Mayorkas wrote: “We are on our way to meet more individuals on the southwestern border than in the past 20 years.”
Facts first: This may well be accurate – although we must be cautious about projections based on “rhythm”, since changes in political, economic and even climatic conditions can cause changes in the trend lines of immigration in the middle of the year. But experts say Mayorkas left out some important context about how current figures differ from previous figures.
First, let’s look at the numbers. In the first five months of fiscal year 2021, until February, Customs and Border Protection reported 396,958 “encounters” with migrants on the southwestern land border. Until February, then, this fiscal year had a slightly lower monthly average than the entire fiscal year of 2019. But, given that the number of meetings increased each month in fiscal year 2021, and given that the number soared from 78,442 in January to 100,441 in February, an average of five months does not fully represent the current situation. Mayorkas has access to internal data that CNN does not have, including ongoing data from March, and his projection seems reasonable.
However, he omitted some pertinent facts. Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said that due to the “Title 42” policy of the pandemic era of quickly expelling people who crossed the border without authorization, adopted by former President Donald Trump and largely preserved by Biden so far , “recidivism is greater than ever – it is easier than ever for rejected migrants to come back and try again. This high rate of recidivism is making the numbers appear higher than they really are.”
“Unfortunately, the government hasn’t updated the recidivism rate in a while, so we don’t know how artificially high the ‘date’ numbers are,” said Pierce. (A Customs and Border Protection official confirmed to reporters during a meeting on March 10 that there are “higher than normal recidivism rates as a result of Covid protocols.”)
Erica Schommer, clinical professor of law at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, said that comparing today’s gross numbers with those of 20 years ago “can be misleading” because, although people at that time tended to cross the border trying not to be seen by the authorities, today “many children and families and even some single adults that the Border Patrol is seizing are essentially surrendering” to start the asylum application process.
Likewise, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, political adviser to the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration organization, said that Mayorkas’ statement “lacks many nuances”. He said that since Border Patrol agents are avoided by a much lower percentage of migrants today than they were 20 years ago, the actual total number of migrants crossing the border today would be “MUCH less” than the total number of migrants. 20 years ago, even though the registered number of “meetings”, which does not include success
evasions, ended up reaching the same heights.
When the current increase started
Mayorkas sought to make it clear that the increase in migratory traffic on the southwestern border did not begin under the Biden government. He wrote: “Since April 2020, the number of meetings on the southwestern border has been steadily increasing.”
Facts first: This is true. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that the number of “encounters” on the southwestern land border has increased each month since April 2020, when the number dropped to 17,106 in the midst of the pandemic. The figure was 74,018 in December, Trump’s last full month in office, and 100,441 in February. It had been over 100,000 in one month during fiscal year 2019. You can look at government data and graphs on here.
The burden of the Border Patrol
Mayorkas wrote: “The expulsion of single adults does not represent an operational challenge for the Border Patrol because of the speed and minimal processing load of their expulsion.”
Facts first: What constitutes an “operational challenge” is a matter of opinion, but Mayorkas’ opinion is contested. Mark Morgan, head of President Barack Obama’s Border Patrol, who then served under Trump as the interim leader for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it is “basic math” that the current number of single adults represents an operational challenge. “One wonders whether Mayorkas transmitted this line by the men and women of the Border Patrol before saying it publicly, because if he had, he would have been ashamed to make such a statement,” Morgan wrote in an article on Tuesday on the website of the conservative Heritage Foundation, where he is now a visiting fellow.
Reichlin-Melnick, a critic of the policy for expelling the Title 42 pandemic and the
Morgan himself, said it also disputes Mayorkas’ claim. He said that while the rapid evictions of single adults under Title 42 take less time than normal arrests, “the fact is that since April 2020 they have had to spend more and more time arresting more and more single adults, which distracts the other aspects of border processing. ”
Expulsion of migrant families
Mayorkas wrote, “We are kicking out most single adults and families.”
Facts first: This was true in February, if you grouped single adults and people traveling as part of a family unit into a large statistical group. It was not true, however, for self-employed family migrants.
Published data on Customs and Border Protection show that, in February, 7,915 migrants who were part of a “family unit” on the southwest border were expelled under the Title 42 pandemic expulsion policy – about 41% of the 19,246 family unit members in “meetings” that month.
If you combine single adults with people who were part of a family unit, Mayorkas’ statement is clearly accurate. Of the 90,844 single adults and family unit members found in February, 72,023 of them, about 79%, were expelled under Title 42.
Trump and the asylum system
Mayorkas wrote: “The previous administration has completely dismantled the asylum system. The system has been destroyed, the facilities have been closed and they have cruelly expelled young children into the hands of traffickers.”
Facts first: A literal reader might disagree with the phrase “completely dismantled” – an asylum system still existed under Trump, of course – but we say that Mayorkas’ statement is fair, and “the system has been destroyed” is a reasonable assessment. Trump has made dramatic and unprecedented changes to the asylum system, both for avoid asylum seekers stay in the USA while their claims went through the legal process and to make it most difficult for asylum claims to be successful.
Reichlin-Melnick and Schommer told CNN that they agreed with Mayorkas’ statement.
Mayorkas’ claim about children and traffickers is also factually fair, although we will not judge how “cruel” the Trump administration was or was not.
Under the Title 42 pandemic expulsion policy, the Trump administration refused thousands of unaccompanied children who crossed the Mexican border. (The Biden administration has so far maintained most of the Trump 42 Title 42 policy, but has exempted unaccompanied children from evictions.) In addition, human rights defenders and journalists reported that drug dealers and other criminals were victimizing asylum seekers, including children, who were sent outside the United States under the Trump government’s “Remain in Mexico” program, which went into effect in 2019.
We are not sure what Mayorkas was referring to when he wrote “the facilities were closed” under Trump. The department did not respond to our request for clarification.
