DHS Mayorkas: Border Crisis a ‘Challenge’ Because Trump ‘Dismantled’ Our System

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the continuing surge of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is former President Donald Trump’s fault because his administration “dismantled our capabilities to address it.”

Mitchell said, “Let’s start with the border. Migrant numbers are exploding at the border. It’s the worst we’ve seen in 21 years. Usually, there is a diminishing in the summer. Usually, these numbers go down in summer. Why are they continuing to surge, and what can you do about it? The messaging does not seem to take. People in the triangle are not hearing the message don’t come.”

Mayorkas said, “We certainly have a challenge at the border. We have remarkable people to address that challenge and a plan in place that we are executing. Let me, if I can share with you what makes the challenge so acute at this point in time. We are following an administration that, frankly, dismantled our capabilities to address it, and so we are building it from the ground up. We lost four years of investing in the countries from which these individuals are migrating. Our safe and orderly systems were torn down, and so we’re rebuilding them. And our plan is in place, and we’re executing it.”

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