Cotton: ‘Secretary Mayorkas Is Plainly in Over His Head’

On Monday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Fox & Friends,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) hammered the Biden administration, specifically Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, for the handling of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Cotton said that given FEMA was deployed to the region, it was a signal the situation was “at least” an emergency.

“Yes, they also sent FEMA. In case anyone has forgotten, the ‘E’ in FEMA stands for ‘Emergency,'” he said. “So I guess you could at least call it an emergency. But yes, it’s a total disaster. You heard Griff’s report that now they may be releasing people into the country without so much as a court date.”

“And I know that Joe Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have been claiming that oh, Donald Trump dismantled our immigration system,” Cotton continued. “No, it’s Joe Biden that dismantled the effective policies that had closed our border, allowing migrants to stay in Mexico while they process asylum claims or forcing them to make asylum claims — not in the United States, their country of choice, but the first country they passed through when they left their own country. Places like Guatemala.”

“Now, they claim that some of these countries — oh, they’re too violent,” he added. “We can’t possibly expect them to stay there — seek asylum there. Baltimore has a higher murder rate than most of these countries in the Central American Northern Triangle. So why should we expect that migrants have a right to come to our country to escape the so-called high violence there when Baltimore and other cities in America have higher murder rates than some of these countries in Central America?”

The Arkansas Republican described Mayorkas as “in over his head” and criticized Mayorkas for barring the press.

“Secretary Mayorkas is plainly in over his head,” Cotton explained. “And no matter how many TV interviews he does from Washington, while he won’t let press travel with him to the border, or how many bumbling statements Joe Biden says over helicopter engines that you shouldn’t come now — remember, that’s the critical word,” Cotton explained. “They’re not saying don’t come, just don’t come now. Actions speak louder than words.”

“And when thousands of migrants get from Central America to our border, and they get released in our country, and they send text messages back and post on social media hey, you can all come up now, the border’s open, guess what?” he continued. “People are going to come because if you let them in, more will come. The simple policy changes, again, would be applying the pandemic exclusion order to all migrants — not exempting minors. That’s what Joe Biden did. Not surprisingly, we got a lot more minors. Second, requiring so-called asylum seekers to seek asylum in the first country for which they pass, especially Guatemala, since they must pass through Guatemala from all points to the south. Donald Trump had that in effect; Joe Biden tore it up.”

“And then finally, if those asylum seekers get to our southern border, requiring them to remain in Mexico rather than releasing them into the country or with a court date — or now, without a court date at all,” Cotton added. “Those three policies could be reinstituted this week and they would immediately stop this border crisis, but Joe Biden refuses to do so.”

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