During a Senate Judiciary Committee, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was questioned by multiple senators about the border crisis and withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sen. Ted Cruz asked Mayorkas multiple questions about illegal aliens, to which he did not have answers.
He then asked “How many children have been in the Biden cages in calendar year 2021?” Mayorkas responded “Senator, I respectfully disagree with your use of the term ‘cages'”.
“Fine, you can disagree with it,” Cruz continued. “How many children have been in the Biden cages? I’ve been to the Biden cages, I’ve seen the Biden cages. How many children have you detained at the Donna tent facility in the cages you built to hold kids? How many children have been in those cages?”
Mayorkas, again, disagreed with the term “cages” and eventually said “I will have to circle back with you with a precise number”.
Sen. Chuck Grassley asked Mayorkas about a memo from September when he said “he fact that an individual is a removable non-citizens should not alone be the basis of an enforcement action against them”.
Grassley wondered if that still applies to anyone who already has a final removal order against them. Mayorkas responded “We cannot remove 1.2 million individuals”. “I would not necessarily accept the fact that all of them have received due process,” he added.
Mayorkas explained that those, out of the 1.2 million, who “who pose a public safety threat, who pose a national security threat, who pose a border security threat” should be deported.
Sen. Cory Booker questioned Mayorkas about the deportation of immigrants with the concern of spreading COVID-19. Mayorkas said that, with respect to Title 42, the CDC “determined that the public health imperative required its continued use. The Delta variant was a very significant reason”.
Sen. Lindsey Graham also questioned Mayorkas during the hearing. In particular, he grilled Mayorkas on the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Graham focused on the vetting of Afghan refugees before they were flown into the U.S. “How many of them were vetted before they got on the plane?” he asked.
Mayorkas answered “It is our policy to vet and screen 100 percent of them”. “So 100 percent of those people that got on the plane were vetted. That’s your testimony under oath?” Graham responded.
Mayorkas said “I cannot speak to that”. At another point, he added “I would posit, and I will confirm this, that well over 99 percent of them were fully screened and vetted before they boarded a flight”.