Alejandro Mayorkas, who recently stepped down from his role as Secretary of Homeland Security after facing significant criticism, including impeachment proceedings during his tenure, defended his department’s border security efforts in a recent interview. He emphasized that there were notable successes in securing the nation’s borders throughout his four years in office.

“The border right now is more secure than it was at the end of 2019, the last year before the pandemic struck,” Mayorkas told NPR, which was reported on Wednesday. He further noted, “The number of individuals encountered at the border on a daily basis is lower than it was at that time, and that has been consistently the case now for approximately six months.”

Despite these claims, Mayorkas acknowledged that the Biden administration struggled to effectively communicate the unprecedented nature of migration levels, which he described as the highest seen since World War II. Although there were moments of disagreement within the administration, he remarked that decisions were ultimately made with unity and the team moved “forward as a team” in tackling the challenges. “We will continue to do that until this administration comes to a close,” he stated.

The number of individuals attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border surged in December 2023, leading to a peak in migrant encounters. Mayorkas attributed this to factors beyond the control of the White House, but the situation nonetheless led to impeachment articles being filed against him by House Republicans in early 2024. Both charges were dismissed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Mayorkas also pointed to a sharp rise in deportations over the previous year and noted that fewer individuals were attempting to cross the border. President Biden took executive action in June to block asylum-seekers, which contributed to this decrease in border crossings.

He added that the spike in late 2023 was largely due to a lack of funding for the Mexican enforcement agency IME. Mayorkas explained that Biden sent him and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Mexico to push for funding for the agency. “It’s as though we did not have any Border Patrol presence on our side of the border,” he recalled. “There was no interdiction of migrants seeking to reach the southern border between the United States and Mexico.”

After the Mexican government, under then-President Lopez Obrador, provided funding to IME, the number of migrants attempting to cross the border began to decline. “But the most precipitous drop really occurred upon our swift and effective implementation of the president’s proclamation in June of 2024 that restricted the ability of individuals to claim asylum at our southern border,” Mayorkas said.

While NPR pointed out that border encounters were increasing until 2023, Mayorkas explained that the delay in action was due to several factors. “In the first part of our administration, we were climbing out of the COVID-19 pandemic,” he noted, adding that there was immense pressure to maintain the Title 42 public health order, which had been introduced by President Trump in his first term.

The administration eventually lifted the order, seeking additional funds to support the immigration system, though Mayorkas reported that “Congress did not provide it.” Furthermore, a bipartisan border security bill, which he called crucial, was “politically torpedoed.”

When asked if he would handle the situation differently, Mayorkas expressed a forward-looking approach. “We provide our input to those who will govern in the future, and we move forward. But there’s no question that the narrative was not a successful one,” he admitted.

He firmly stood by the model that the Biden administration established to restrict asylum claims while fostering legal and safe immigration pathways, stating, “We have delivered the border and those accessible pathways to the incoming administration.”

{Matzav.com}