WASHINGTON — Republicans on Capitol Hill this week previewed how they plan to attack the Biden administration’s immigration policies as the midterm elections near and seek to get Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas to blame one accepting historic surge in migration across the southwestern border.
During more than eight hours of testimony and at times heated exchanges over two days of the hearing on Capitol Hill, Mr. Mayorkas did no such thing.
“I feel like America needs you to own this thing, good sir,” Rep. Clay Higgins, Louisiana Republican, said Wednesday during a hearing conducted by the House Homeland Security Committee. “Speak to the American people and own this thing. We’re losing our country down there. You must resign.”
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck said his constituents believe Mr. Mayorka committed treason and should be charged.
Mr Mayorkas shot back: “What you just said is deeply offensive on so many different levels and in so many different ways. I won’t ask you for an apology.”
The stark ideological differences surrounding immigration are nothing new, but a once-obscure public health rule used to limit immigration during the pandemic has become the face of the problem as its end date, May 23, approaches.
Although the stated purpose of the rule, known as Title 42, is to limit the spread of the coronavirus in border patrol facilities and border towns, Republicans and even some moderate Democrats now see it as an effective tool to control immigration as Congress continues to poke at its passage more broadly Changes in the country’s immigration laws.
Several Republican-led states have filed lawsuits to uphold the public health rule.
The number of undocumented migrants crossing the southern border has increased since President Biden took office. March set a record for most crossings in a single month in decades: 221,303. The influx has at times overwhelmed border officials, who complain that they are stuck inside doing the paperwork to process migrants, rather than patrolling hundreds of miles of the border the service is responsible for protecting.
Despite the public health regulation, the Biden administration has allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants into the country to face deportation proceedings, mostly families with young children. The Trump administration also admitted large numbers of migrants during a migration push in 2019. Many newcomers apply for asylum, a process that can take six to eight years but allows them to await a decision in the United States.
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Title 42 gives border guards the power to expel people without asking if they are afraid to return to the country they come from, a process that takes considerably longer.
The repeal of the rule, critics say, will lead to a breakdown in operational control along the southwestern border.
When it was introduced at the beginning of the pandemic, it was presumed to mark the end of the health emergency that would trigger the rule’s lifting. It was long thought that a repeal would boost the number of undocumented migrants crossing the south-west border.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration was under intense pressure from Democrats to repeal the rule as the pandemic had reached a stage with relatively few hospitalizations and severe cases of illness.
In late March, the Department of Homeland Security released a 16-page operational plan for the southwest border that outlined how the government would respond to an increase in migration; Officials were preparing for up to 18,000 migrants a day, according to the plan.
Days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced they would lift the emergency rule later this spring, sparking outrage from both Republicans and some Democrats, whose seats are at risk in the midterm elections.
In the weeks that followed, lawmakers from both parties called for a plan for how the government would respond to a surge in migration without being able to quickly expel people under public health rules; It wasn’t clear if they hadn’t seen the Department of Homeland Security’s plan or just dismissed it. However, their demands led to high-level hand-wringing in the White House over whether repealing the order on May 23 could result in the House and Senate losing control next year.
A new 20-page memo, further outlining the plan, was drafted and released this week ahead of Mr. Mayorkas’ performances on Capitol Hill to discuss the department’s budget request for spending year 2023. The memo included a strategy broken down into six “pillars,” along with 17 pages of background on the dysfunctional immigration system the Biden administration inherited and a summary of steps the administration has taken to fix it.
The pillars include mobilizing more staff and support at the border; adopt new measures to speed up migrant processing to avoid overcrowding at border stations; take measures to quickly remove migrants who are not allowed to enter the country, as was done before the pandemic; Working with non-profit organizations that can help migrants who are allowed to remain in the country after their release from state detention; target smugglers; and working with other countries in the region to try to limit migration.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called it “ridiculous” when speaking in the Senate Thursday on the administration not ready to cope with the expected surge in migrant crossings.
During hearings this week, Democrats cited the plan and gave Mr. Mayorkas an opportunity to discuss it during testimony.
Republicans and Democrats have argued over which administration has worse immigration policies, citing Mr Trump’s restrictive approach and President Biden’s more liberal approach.
At one point during the Homeland Security Committee hearing, Representative Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, briefed the Republicans, her fellow Democrats and Mr. Mayorkas.
“Our immigration system is broken,” she said. “Every single person here, along with the secretary, has some of that responsibility.”
She added: “If you want to criticize what’s going on at the border, propose legislation to improve it. Don’t just use it as a political mace.”
Republicans and Democrats have proposed several laws to address the border situation, but none have been able to break the split between the parties.