Mayorkas made the comments while appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” more than two weeks after testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, when he repeatedly asserted that the U.S. border was “safe.”
“We are seeing a level of migration not just at our southern border but across the hemisphere that is unprecedented,” Mayorkas said on Sunday, adding that he believes our hemisphere is experiencing the highest level of migration since the Second World War.
Mayorkas criticized Congress for its inaction, saying President Joe Biden “provided a solution” to the situation “on day one” of his administration in the form of immigration reform legislation.
He praised the Biden administration, saying, “Within the confines of a broken immigration system, we’re doing so much.”
Mayorkas said: “Our strategy is to develop legal pathways, weed out unscrupulous smugglers and provide the legal pathway so people can get humanitarian aid without having to make the risky journey from their own country. they cross our southern border without going through an entry point.
Mayorkas again focused on the “completely broken immigration system”, saying there are more than 2 million immigration cases in the backlog, which have been increasing “year on year”.
Two months after Biden took office, Border Patrol personnel began a now-discontinued practice of rapidly releasing foreigners on parole, which increased the backlog.
Some migrants who have crossed the southern border may have to wait a decade to even get an appointment to face a judge because US immigration offices are so overwhelmed with processing migrants in court.
Mayorkas said: “We have to fix it.” Legislative change is needed.
