WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2021) Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas refused during a congressional hearing on Wednesday to use the word "crisis" to describe the surge in illegal would-be immigrants through the US border with Mexico.
"A crisis is when a nation is willing to rip a nine-year-old child out of the hands of his or her parent," Mayorkas told a subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee in a reference to the policies of the previous Trump administration. "The numbers we have seen could be the largest we have seen in 20 years."
Throughout the hearing, Myorkas sparred with Republicans on the committee, with several of them blaming the Biden administration for the surge of migrants through the border.
"This administration has [restored] this crisis. 'Catch and Release' has returned. I call that a crisis," Republican Congressman Michael MacCaul said.
Some 100,000 potential illegal immigrants tried to cross the border into the United States from Mexico in February compared with only 36,000 in the same month last year, Congressman Michael Guest noted. The Biden administration was unprepared to handle a surge in immigration in the middle of the continuing coronavirus pandemic, he added.
