Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas boasted during an MSNBC interview with Nicolle Wallace on Monday that the Biden administration has “rescinded so many Trump immigration policies, it would take so much time to list them.”
The remarks from Mayorkas come as the administration has struggled to manage a crisis that exploded in Del Rio, Texas, as over ten thousand illegal aliens have flooded the area. The administration has struggled to secure the border throughout the entire year, and some estimates suggest that agents will make more than 2 million encounters with illegal aliens this year.
Mayorkas said that the Border Patrol agents on horseback who defended America’s borders when they rode up to illegal aliens who were coming through the Rio Grande have been placed on “administrative duties” and that “they are not performing their their typical law enforcement duties.”
Wallace later asked Mayorkas, “… what Trump era immigration policies have been banned, ended, reversed, and if any investigations are underway by you?”
“So, we have rescinded so many Trump immigration policies, it would take so much time to list them,” Mayorkas responded. “We rescinded the remain in Mexico policy. We rescinded, of course, the public charge rule that deprived, vulnerable migrants from accessing certain critical life benefits. We have restored the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the DACA program.”
Mayorkas later added that the Biden administration’s response to the border was a “very profound” departure from how former President Donald Trump secured the border.
WATCH:
Amid historic border crisis, Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary brags that Biden has rescinded more Trump policies than he can list. pic.twitter.com/B7PnIPbpkr
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) September 23, 2021
FULL INTERVIEW:
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, DHS SECRETARY: First, I must address the issue of the photographs that you mentioned because we were indeed horrified by the images. That is not who we are. That does not reflect our policies, our training, nor our values, and it is for that reason that we commenced immediately a fulsome and swift investigation to determine what exactly occurred and why. Those officers depicted in the images are no longer performing their law enforcement duties during the pendency of the investigation; we do not tolerate any mistreatment of any individual. We respect the dignity of every individual. With respect to the letter that you reference, I’m going to defer to the Department of State, as that is something in their domain, and how an individual handles policy differences or how an individual handles other issues, I will defer to them.
NICOLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Sir, have those officers been fired?
MAYORKAS: Those officers are on administrative duties; they are not performing their their typical law enforcement duties during the pendency of the investigation. We intend to complete that investigation within just a few days. We need to move swiftly to bring this to conclusion for the benefit of our department, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the heroic people who uphold its values, as well as for the American public that was correctly really galvanized by those horrible images.
WALLACE: Sir, we were harsh critics of Trump era immigration policies and when mostly investigative journalists revealed the heinous conditions at the border, we spent a lot of time on them. And I’d like to understand from you what Trump era immigration policies have been banned, ended, reversed, and if any investigations are underway by you?
MAYORKAS: So, we have rescinded so many Trump immigration policies, it would take so much time to list them. We rescinded the Remain in Mexico policy. We rescinded, of course, the public charge rule that deprived vulnerable migrants from accessing certain critical life benefits. We have restored the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the DACA program. We have rescinded so many and have restored so many that he really dismantled, and we are rebuilding our asylum system and all our humanitarian programs that were really destroyed in the prior administration.
…
WALLACE: And what do you sense is the departure from the previous administration’s addressing and their approach to these issues?
MAYORKAS: The departure is a very profound one. It is the difference between humanity and cruelty. It is the difference between providing safe, orderly, and humane pathways from something as pernicious as family separation. It is about investing in the countries of origin, and building them, and addressing root causes so that we don’t have desperate, vulnerable populations thinking and believing that the only way that they can take care of their families, their children, their loved ones, is to leave the homes of their choice, the homes of their origin, and take a perilous journey, miles and miles, thousands of miles north.