Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has refused to comment on the deliberative process of whether or not he has advised President Joe Biden on current border policies related to recent spikes in illegal immigration numbers.
U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-FL) suggested that if Mayorkas is unable to change the policy to stop the rise in numbers, a new secretary of Homeland Security might be needed.
"These numbers reflect abject failure at the border and so somebody has to take responsibility for it and since I guess you and he don't talk or maybe if you do you haven't been very effective at changing policy, then maybe we need a new secretary of Homeland Security," Giménez said during a recent House Homeland Security Committee hearing.
A recent report from The Heritage Foundation showed that illegal alien encounters have surged and shifted since October 2020. The lowest month was April of 2020 with 29,743 encounters. When Biden took office in January 2021, the number was 95,276. Two months into his term in March 2021, the encounters number made an abrupt jump to 195,025. In June 2021 the encounters rose to 207,823. In March 2022 the encounter numbers were 250,404. By May of 2022, the encounter number was at 274,992. December of 2022 saw the highest number of unlawful entry encounters with 302,041. Monthly averages of unlawful entry encounters have increased by 258% since Biden took office.
John R. Modlin, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, offered his observations in a February House Oversight Committee meeting.
“I can tell you that in fiscal year ‘18, ‘19 and ‘20, Tucson sector had about 60,000 apprehensions," he said in the meeting. "In 2021, 190,000 apprehensions, so we tripled the previous year. Last year it quadrupled—last year it was 250,000. We’re 20,000 ahead right now so we went from what I would describe as unprecedented to a point where I don’t have the correct adjective to describe what’s going on.”
