Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that President Joe Biden had “led the greatest expansion of lawful pathways” for immigration asylum seekers.
Mayorkas said, “So, the asylum system has been and continues to be a jewel of the United States. We take great pride as a country in this world to provide humanitarian relief for those who qualify. But the landscape of migration has changed dramatically over the past 10-plus years. No longer are individuals arriving at our border of their own volition. They are arriving in the hands of smugglers that wreak such tragedy, such trauma upon their lives. The cartels, the smuggling organizations control the land. And so, we have not only a security imperative, but a humanitarian responsibility to cut those smugglers out.”
He added, “And that’s precisely what we, as an administration, has done. We have attacked the smuggling organizations with our law enforcement authorities. We’ve arrested more than 10,000 smugglers. But President Biden has led the greatest expansion of lawful pathways ever, through a family reunification program, through expedited refugee processing, through the regional processing centers that we’re now building. But we have an obligation to deliver consequences at our border, to not only manage our border, but to cut the smugglers out.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.