Mayorkas Touts ‘Positive’ Early Signs That Biden’s Border Executive Order Is Working

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s recent executive order on the border, saying there are “positive” early signs that it’s working to bring down the number of illegal border crossings to 1,500 or less while noting the Biden administration is prepared to fight legal challenges to the order in court.

The order took effect immediately, meaning that as of Monday, June 10, it’s been in force for six days, a period Mr. Mayorkas said in a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week” was very early going.

“We are at a very early stage. Implementation, as you noted, has just begun,” Mr. Mayorkas said in the interview. “It’s early, the signs are positive. Our personnel have done an extraordinary job in implementing a very big shift in how we operate on the southern border.”

The last time the daily encounters dipped below 1,500 was in July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Asked by The Epoch Times whether the number of daily illegal crossings has dipped in the days following President Biden’s executive order, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Borders Protection (CBP) said the agency reports official figures on a monthly basis.

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Immigration has emerged as a top issue for Americans ahead of the November elections.

1,500 Illegal Crossings by Election Day?

While pointing out that the executive order was in its early stages of implementation, Mr. Mayorkas was reluctant to make any predictions as to when he thinks its key aims might be reached.

Asked whether he believes that, by Election Day, the number of illegal crossings will fall to 1,500, Mr. Mayorkas said, “we are driving to that.”

Besides shutting the border to asylum-seekers, the Biden administration is concurrently communicating throughout the region to persuade would-be illegal immigrants to opt for lawful pathways of entry into the United States, Mr. Mayorkas added, seeking to make the case that the executive order is not insignificant.

“Let’s not minimize the significance of this move and the significance of operationalizing it,” he said, adding that “it requires the cooperation of other countries, which we have secured.”

Mr. Mayorkas was then pressed to explain why prior much-touted Biden administration efforts to address the border crisis had failed to make a meaningful dent in the numbers. He was asked in the interview why roughly 6.5 million illegal immigrants entered the country since he told ABC in 2021 (two months into his tenure as Homeland Security Secretary) that the Biden administration had a plan to curb unlawful crossings and would surely succeed in its implementation.

“Migration is a dynamic phenomenon,” Mr. Mayorkas replied, arguing that the numbers are subject to constant fluctuations and that a lack of Congressional action on border security is also partly to blame.

Congressional Action Call

A bipartisan deal on border security failed to get sufficient Congressional backing on two occasions, with President Biden’s executive order coming roughly four months after that failure.

Mr. Mayorkas defended the legality of the measure in the interview on ABC, arguing that order also serves to keep people from being exploited by human traffickers. He added that the Biden administration is prepared to face the ACLU’s legal challenge in court.

“We stand by the legality of what we have done. We stand by the value proposition. It’s not only a matter of securing the border, Martha, we have a humanitarian obligation to keep vulnerable people out of the hands of exploitative smugglers,” Mr. Mayorkas said. “There have been many a story about the trauma and the tragedy inflicted by those organizations.”

President Biden’s asylum ban has exceptions for unaccompanied minors, people who face serious medical or safety threats, as well as victims of trafficking.

When President Biden took office, he reversed many of his predecessor’s restrictive immigration policies but, in the face of recent criticism, he has hardened his stance.