Washington — Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Friday denounced Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s effort to fortify stretches of the southern border with razor and concertina wire as ineffective, saying migrants are “simply slicing” the boundaries.
“We don’t contemplate concertina wire to be efficient. It impairs Customs and Border Safety’s capability to do its job, and we’re additionally seeing migrants relatively simply slicing concertina wire,” Mayorkas informed a bunch of reporters who attended a roundtable on Friday at Homeland Safety (DHS) headquarters in Washington.
As a part of a broader, multi-billion-dollar marketing campaign often called Operation Lone Star, Abbott has instructed state Nationwide Guard troops to place up concertina and razor wire, in addition to different boundaries, alongside components of Texas’ border with Mexico. The wire is presently on the heart of an ongoing authorized battle in federal court docket between Texas and the U.S. Justice Division.
Abbott argues that the boundaries deter migrants from crossing into his state illegally and has credited them for a marked drop in unlawful crossings alongside the Texas border since final yr. Extra broadly, he has claimed that Texas’ actions, which additionally embrace arrests of migrants on trespassing fees, are liable for pushing migrant crossings into Arizona and California in current months.
However Mayorkas disputed Abbott’s declare on Friday, noting that some stretches of the Texas-Mexico border have been fortified with razor wire late final yr, when migrant crossings have been hovering to document ranges, together with within the Texas border city of Eagle Move.
“I do know that Governor Abbott of Texas has taken credit score for a discount within the variety of encounters and I’d posit that the instruments that he has employed — and I am not commenting on their lawfulness or authorized shortcomings, that’s clearly the topic of litigation in court docket — however the instruments that he has employed have been in impact in December, they usually have been in impact in January,” Mayorkas mentioned.
“And so to attribute the numerous drop within the variety of encounters to something he has completed, I’d say is belied by the information,” Mayorkas added.
Representatives for Abbott didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Mayorkas’ remarks.
Throughout Abbott’s tenure, Texas has mounted essentially the most aggressive state effort in fashionable historical past to problem the federal authorities’s long-standing energy to set border and immigration coverage.
Along with the trespassing arrests and the deployment of boundaries and Nationwide Guard troops, Texas has bused tens of hundreds of migrants to Democratic-led cities, with out notifying native authorities. In January, the Texas Nationwide Guard commandeered a public park in Eagle Move and has since blocked federal Border Patrol brokers from processing migrants there.
Texas has additionally sought to implement one of many hardest state immigration legal guidelines in U.S. historical past. The measure, often called SB4, would empower Texas officers to arrest and jail migrants on misdemeanor or felony fees if they’re suspected of crossing within the U.S. with out authorization and to organize them to return to Mexico. The regulation is presently paused whereas a federal appeals court docket determines its legality.
Mayorkas mentioned he could not say a lot about SB4 due to the continuing court docket case. However he famous that “it’s the federal authorities’s place that immigration coverage is the unique province of the federal authorities.”
Mayorkas accused Texas of attempting to create dysfunction by way of its border efforts.
“We predict that accountable governance requires folks in positions of authority to speak, coordinate and collaborate with each other, and the deliberate refusal to take action, in an effort to sow chaos, isn’t accountable governance,” he mentioned.
Mayorkas, who got here to the U.S. as a baby refugee from Cuba, has discovered himself on the heart of the nation’s contentious debate over immigration coverage. It is a debate that has intensified lately due to document ranges of migrant apprehensions reported alongside the southern border since President Biden took workplace.
Earlier this yr, the Republican-led Home of Representatives impeached Mayorkas on fees that he breached the general public’s belief and failed to completely implement U.S. immigration legal guidelines, making him the primary cupboard secretary to be impeached because the 1870s. Mayorkas has not been accused of non-public misconduct and Democrats have mentioned Republicans impeached him solely primarily based on immigration coverage variations.
The Home impeachment managers are anticipated to ship the articles of impeachment to the Democratic-led Senate on Wednesday, when Mayorkas can also be set to testify earlier than two congressional committees for funding hearings.
On Friday, Mayorkas reiterated that he stays targeted on his day job and mentioned he hasn’t thought of whether or not he’d desire that the Senate maintain a trial or rapidly dismiss the impeachment articles.
“After I say that I’m not targeted on the impeachment proceedings, I truly imply it,” Mayorkas mentioned. “I’ll say this, that it’s my hope that my time isn’t taken away from my work.”
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