In part reading from a written warning by former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, first-term U.S. Rep. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) attempted to get some straight answers from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the ongoing illegal immigration border crisis during today’s meeting of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Pfluger was especially concerned about the terrorist threat among the huge influx, but Mayorkas seemed less than forthcoming.
In a hearing that was held remotely, Rep. Pfluger began his questioning — which is subject to a committee five-minute rule — by noting that the federal lawman, who served under five presidential administrations over the course of nearly 30 years, implied that the Biden administration has failed to secure the border in any meaningful way.
“Is the border more secure under your leadership than when you started,” Air Force vet Pfluger, who represents a district in the Dallas-Fort Worth outskirts, asked Biden appointee Mayorkas.
Despite the inundation that now includes Haitian economic migrants in addition to people from Central America and elsewhere who have been pouring across the U.S.-Mexico border since President Biden took office, Mayorkas inexplicably responded that “the border is secure. We’re executing our plan, and I have been very clear and unequivocal in that regard.”
When Pfluger restated the question, Mayorkas insisted that the border is “no less secure that it was previously.”
Pfluger highlighted a section of Scott’s letter in which he cautioned about the unprecedent number of suspected terrorists who allegedly have jumped the border, the congressman asked the Biden official how many of them have come in during calendar year 2021.
“I respectfully disagree with Mr. Scott’s assertion. And the information you have requested, we’ll be pleased to share with you in a classified context,” Mayorkas replied, with the implication that the details are secret.
Departing Border Patrol chief says terror suspects crossing into U.S. ‘at a level we’ve never seen before’ https://t.co/DDCuFbprU8 pic.twitter.com/clgPaC85oy
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) August 18, 2021
Pfluger continued on with Scott’s letter, in the which the latter insisted that Border Patrol is rapidly losing control of its ability to prevent even low-level, unsophisticated smugglers from avoiding capture. “To think that well-resourced terrorist networks, criminal organizations, and hostile nations are not doing the same is naive. The current situation is unsustainable and must be mitigated.”
Again asking whether the terrorist threat is unprecedented, the GOP lawmaker also recalled how he visited the Del Rio, Tex., hotspot where 15,000 migrants “bum-rushed the border.”
The DHS secretary repeated his disagreement with Scott, adding “that assertion has no relationship, to reference to Del Rio, and the fact that vulnerable Haitians have crossed the border there, have been encountered, and are being repatriated.”
Various reports have emerged that instead of being sent home, most of these individuals are being released into the U.S. with a notice to appear at an immigration office in two months.
“I talked to these Haitians; they got the word that Del Rio was open, and they came,” Rep. Pfluger explained. He added that he also spoken with two couples from Cuba.
“It took them 40 hours to get to our southern border because what they heard from social media, what they heard through their networks, was that it was open. They paid thousands of dollars to trafficking organizations to get there…the American people deserve to know what the threat is to our country…Why are you not releasing the number of known or suspected terrorists?”
“Congressman, I’ve been very clear that I’d be very pleased to share that information with you in a classified context,” Mayorkas said. He then claimed the Haitians that have converged on Del Rio “would say that the border…is open…”
In a point of agreement, both men acknowledged the humanitarian situation there is heartbreaking.
But Pfluger added that “we’ve had to repurpose Border Patrol agents from their national security mission all along the southern border to Del Rio. The governor of Texas has had to step in because the federal government has abdicated the duty to protect our country.”
Mayorkas again respectfully disagreed.
Rep. Pfluger concluded the discussion pursuant to the time limit by reaffirming that “as Texans and Americans, we want to know how many known or suspected terrorists entered this country.”
During his interaction with committee lawmakers during this hearing, Mayorkas’ demeanor was reminiscent of the way Big Tech executives testify on Capitol Hill: robotic, evasive or unprepared, or not fully informed about the operations of his own agency, and relying on talking points. The word “clear” used by politicians is often a tell.
Upon visiting Del Rio on Saturday as he alluded to above, U.S. Rep. Pfluger declared that “this is a crisis. We need the administration to call it a crisis, to take action not just here but all along our southern border…we need the administration to do something right now.”
Today, I was Del Rio where there are 14,878 migrants gathered at the port of entry.
This is an absolute tragedy of a crisis. @POTUS and @VP come see for yourself. pic.twitter.com/zMNvIj3iaq
— Rep. August Pfluger (@RepPfluger) September 18, 2021
In March, former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan said that Biden inherited from President Trump the most secure border in almost 35 years before reversing Trump’s effective enforcement policies that has now led to the surge of illegal aliens of massive proportions.
Pundits such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson have alleged that the Biden administration has thrown open the southern border to uncontrolled illegal immigration because the end game is the creation of a new voting bloc to support the Democrat Party’s left-wing agenda.
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Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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