WASHINGTON (TND) — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday some migrants try to manipulate the immigration system.
Mayorkas told CBS News the Biden administration has done an “extraordinary job” of handling increased migration while addressing immigrants exploiting the U.S.’ policies.
“The reality is that some people do indeed try to game the system,” he said. “That does not speak to everyone whom we encounter, but there is an element of it, and we deal with it accordingly.”
Mayorkas argued increased rates of illegal immigration and asylum seeking are part of a global trend.
“If we take a look at migration not just at our southern border, but in context, the level of migration throughout the hemisphere is unprecedented and throughout the world,” he said. “It’s the greatest level of displacement of migration since World War II.”
In September, more than 114 million people were displaced due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But the Biden administration is not encouraging migrants to enter the U.S., Mayorkas claims.
The reasons why people leave their countries of origin are those with which we are quite familiar: extraordinary poverty, violence, extreme weather events, corruption, suppression by authoritarian regimes,” he said.President Joe Biden has pushed Congress to pass legislation he argued would be more effective than executive action in addressing the issues at the southern border. On Thursday, a bill focus on border security died in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“Importantly, the bipartisan legislation that failed today for a second time would have equipped us with more tools to deal with those individuals who seek to game the system,” Mayorkas said.
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Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., argued Democrats were spinning the Biden administration’s record on immigration and engaging in “sham votes.”
Senate Dems’ border crisis has become a political crisis. And now they’re looking to Chuck Schumer to bail them out,” the senator said. “This is Washington cynicism at its finest, and the American people won’t be fooled. This is a political stunt.”Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claimed Republicans acted under former President Donald Trump’s direction to use the failed legislation as fodder for the presumptive GOP nominee’s campaign.
“Trump told his MAGA allies to kill it in the in its tracks so he could exploit the issue on the campaign trail,” Sen. Schumer said. “We gave Republicans a second chance to show where they stand. Do they want to fix this so-called emergency, or do they want to show blind allegiance to the former president, even when they know he's wrong?”
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