Jeh Johnson, Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, warned during an interview on Sunday that President Joe Biden was going to pay a steep political price for his continued crisis on the southern border as up to 18,000 migrants could be headed to the U.S. per day if the CDC lifts Title 42.
“The CDC and the Department of Homeland Security have said for months that border crossings will almost certainly increase once the order is lifted,” The Washington Post reported. “Homeland Security officials, who oversee CBP and other agencies, said officials are planning for multiple scenarios in case of a major influx, tapping Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to prepare for as many as 18,000 migrants per day, almost triple the current numbers.”
CBS News host Margaret Brennan asked Johnson whether the Biden administration was prepared to deal with such a dire situation, to which he responded by claiming that Biden officials have told him that they were making adequate preparations.
“Numbers at these levels are difficult to handle on the southern border,” Johnson said. “Communities on the southern border, catholic charities, the volunteers, difficult to absorb these types of numbers under almost any scenario. It’s challenging for the Border Patrol, for ICE to properly process and track these individuals. And, obviously, the Biden administration is paying a political cost for these.”
Johnson said that if he were still in office, he “would have argued that we should keep it in place just a little while longer, until perhaps July, when these numbers do tend to slow down in the hotter weather,” noting that “March, April, May tend to be the peak seasons for migration on our southern border.”
“And so DHS will have a challenge. And I heard the current secretary the other day say at present they have something like 7,000 a day,” he added. “That’s a high number.”
House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), slammed the administration last week, warning that Biden’s border crisis would dramatically worsen if Title 42 was rescinded.
“Not only is the Biden administration’s flawed policies fueling the massive surge expected, but they have offered no plan on how to counter the imminent chaos predicted to unfold,” McCarthy said. “This is an abandonment of their most basic responsibilities in governance, particularly from the border czar Vice President Harris and Secretary Mayorkas, who are neglecting to do their jobs.”