After months of negotiations, the until-now-secret text of a bipartisan Senate immigration bill may soon be released, with Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, saying a vote could come as soon as next week. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department is responsible for securing the border, has been actively involved in the negotiations, even as former President Donald Trump has tried to derail them in order to prevent President Biden from getting any credit for border reform.
At the same time as talks have progressed in the Senate, Mayorkas has become the target of a partisan impeachment effort in the House, with Republicans claiming that he has broken the law by not more forcefully stopping migrants from crossing illegally into the United States. Mayorkas was tight-lipped on the impeachment proceeding and on the details of the Senate legislation, including whether he supports the idea of border shutdowns. He was also careful when I asked him about the political repercussions of what many Americans, including many Democrats, now view as an immigration crisis. (Mayorkas will not use the word “crisis.” He says “the system is broken.”) And he would not talk about Biden-administration missteps.
But immigration, of course, is not just an issue on Capitol Hill. Undocumented migrants are sleeping on streets across the country, city resources are overwhelmed and the border has become a major concern for voters in an already volatile presidential election year.
As we’re speaking, Republicans in the House are preparing to impeach you for high crimes and misdemeanors, saying that you’ve not secured the border and that you’ve lied about it. Many legal scholars on the left and the right say the charges do not meet the bar for impeachment. But I’m wondering how you feel about the whole thing. I have to tell you that I am intensely focused on the work. I have tremendous confidence in my integrity. I have tremendous pride in the people with whom I work, and that is my response.
Do you think the process is legitimate? I think it is baseless. I think it’s a political process, and I am not engaged in politics. I’m engaged in the work of the Department of Homeland Security.
Legitimate or not, what this impeachment will certainly do is amplify a very public debate that we’re having in this country about the border and the policies there. Clearly no one is happy — and that’s an understatement. So can you tell me broadly what you think has gotten us in this position and what you think has gone wrong? It’s really important to understand that the position that our country is in is actually not a position that is exclusive to our country. I just spoke with one of my counterparts across the Atlantic, who expressed grave concern about what they are experiencing. And why is that? It is because the world is living through one of the greatest levels of human displacement that it ever has, and certainly since World War II. And the challenge that we are experiencing at our border, which is a very serious and consequential challenge, is one that the entire hemisphere is experiencing. There are over two million Venezuelans in Colombia alone. Venezuela, a country of approximately 28 million people — over eight million have fled. This is an unprecedented level of migration that we are experiencing throughout the hemisphere. And it includes our Southern border. And why? Poverty, violence, corruption, extreme weather events, the forces that compel people to leave their home in search of a better life, to free them from the suffering that they endure in their home countries and their perception that there is no likelihood of it getting better.
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February 03, 2024 at 01:54AM
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Alejandro Mayorkas Still Won't Call It an Immigration Crisis - The New York Times
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