Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Texas is to blame for the southern border crisis as he based Gov. Greg Abbott for not ‘coordinating’ with other governors and state leaders.
The comments come after reports show that border patrol apprehended and encountered the largest number of migrants ever in DHS history in December.
But Mayorkas insists that President Joe Biden’s White House is not to blame on the same day House Republicans announced impeachment proceedings against the administration official.
Instead, he says the prevailing crisis is the fault of Texas Gov. Abbott as he continues to transport migrants from border communities to Democratic cities.
‘Let me identify one fundamental problem here – and that is the fact that we have one governor in the state of Texas who is refusing to cooperate with other governors and other local officials and coordinate efforts to address a challenge that our country – which this country should stand united to address – that our country is facing,’ Mayorkas told MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel on Wednesday.
He added: ‘And it’s a remarkable failure of governance to refuse to cooperate with one’s fellow local and state officials.’
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is at fault for the southern border crisis in deflecting blame away from the Biden administration as the DHS head faces impeachment in the House
Comes as reports indicate that December is on track to hit the most migrant encounters in the history of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with 304,000
The DHS head said that the administration has ‘dispatched teams’ to the cities where Abbott is sending the migrants, including Chicago, Denver and New York in an effort to ‘assist them in managing the challenge.’
Since August 2022, more than 85,000 migrants were sent by Abbott to so-called sanctuary cities – where Democratic leaders thwart federal immigration reporting laws and provide a safe haven for those illegally in the country.
New York City has borne the brunt of Texas offloading the crisis to Democratic enclaves, with Abbott sending 32,200 to the Big Apple in the last year-and-a-half.
Chicago, Illinois has seen the second amount of migrants sent from Texas with 24,500 migrants; Washington, D.C. has received 12,500; and 11,100 have gone to Denver, Colorado. Additionally, 3,400 arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and 1,250 in Los Angeles, California.
While highly unpopular among Democrats, Abbott’s strategy of sending migrants to sanctuary cities is helping flip the narrative and get more attention on the crisis.
Texas Gov. Abbott has transported upwards of 85,000 migrants from border communities in his state to Democratic cities like New York, Denver and Chicago. He also signed a law last month that allows law enforcement in his state to circumvent federal channels by arresting, detaining and deporting illegal immigrants
Migration continues to surge at the southern border three years into Biden’s presidency after he vowed at the start of his term to address the crisis
Mayorkas said on Wednesday that Congress is the entity that must directly address the border crisis in another deflection of blame away from the Biden administration as he faces impeachment proceedings from House Republicans.
‘We do hope that Congress passes that critically needed funding measure,’ Mayorkas told MSNBC, where he assured: ‘We have taken action on the border and we’ve taken action with respect to the challenges that cities across the country are facing.’
He reiterated that ‘the one thing in immigration that everybody agrees upon is the fact that we’ve been dealing with a broken immigration system for decades.’
In a separate interview with CNN on Wednesday morning, Mayorkas touted his role in providing support during Senate negotiations for an immigration overhaul.
‘Yesterday I joined the bipartisan group of senators who are negotiating a solution to a much plagued, broken immigration system,’ he said. ‘I was very privileged to participate in that.’
He did not say whether he or his office is in communication with Republicans in Congress directly, or House Speaker Mike Johnson in the lower chamber.