In more than two years, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has added an illegal alien population to the United States equivalent to the size of Nebraska and Hawaii, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) says.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, McClintock, who chairs the committee’s immigration subcommittee, asked DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas if there was a “maximum number of illegal migrants you believe we should admit into this country?”
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) questions Intelligence Committee Minority Counsel Stephen Castor and Intelligence Committee Majority Counsel Daniel Goldman during House impeachment inquiry hearings before the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill December 9, 2019 in Washington, DC. The hearing is being held for the Judiciary Committee to formally receive evidence in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, whom Democrats say held back military aid for Ukraine while demanding they investigate his political rivals. The White House declared it would not participate in the hearing. (Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images)
Mayorkas responded by stating that DHS enforces “the laws that Congress has passed and that is indeed what we’re doing.”
UNITED STATES – MARCH 28: DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security,” in Hart Building on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
McClintock then noted that since Biden took office, DHS has successfully added millions of illegal aliens to the nation’s population. The latest estimate suggests that nearly 17 million illegal aliens reside in the U.S. today, costing Americans $163 billion annually.
“You’ve already released more than 2.1 million illegal immigrants into this country since you took office — that’s a population the size of the state of Nebraska,” McClintock said:
While the Border Patrol has been consumed by taking names and changing diapers at the border, 1.5 million known got-aways have illegally entered the country as well. That’s an additional illegal population the size of the state of Hawaii.
So once again I would ask you, what is the limit and is there one?
Mayorkas, again, evaded the question and claimed that DHS has “expelled or removed approximately 1.4 million people who did not have a legal basis to remain in the United States — the largest number in recent history.”
As McClintock mentioned, that figure includes illegal aliens who were turned away at the southern border which are not classified as interior removals, known most commonly as deportations.
When only deportations are accounted for, the figure is far lower.
“Well, actually you testified that 72,000 illegal migrants were removed in 2022, but in 2019, there were 267,000 removals,” McClintock said. “So removals are down under your administration by more than 75 percent.”
“Meanwhile, in 2019, there were 458,000 border encounters, yet under your policies, we’re now up to 2.3 million encounters — that’s five times as many,” he continued. “While encounters were up five times, removals are down by 75 percent.”
Similarly, McClintock said DHS is merely reconfiguring illegal immigration through its migrant mobile app, whereby foreign nationals in northern Mexico are encouraged to schedule appointments at the border for release into the U.S. interior.
“This program began with as many as 1,000 illegal migrants a day; it’s since been amped up to as many as 1,500 a day. That’s more than 540,000. That is the population equivalent of adding a new state of Wyoming every single year. That’s why the [apprehension] numbers are dropping. Instead of them coming to the border, you’re bringing them directly through the ports of entry. So please don’t dissemble,” McClintock told Mayorkas.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.