TPPF Factchecks the Mayorkas Memo on Border Security

This week, Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas distributed a memo entitled “DHS Plan for Southwest Border Security and Preparedness” that is riddled with lies, falsehoods, and misleading statements. Experts from the Texas Public Policy Foundation have identified and debunked the most egregious assertions:

 

LIE: “Under the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been executing a comprehensive and deliberate strategy to secure our borders and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system.”

FACT: The Biden-Harris administration has been dismantling effective border management, immigration law enforcement and asylum policies, leading to vast human smuggling and drug trafficking that is neither safe, orderly or humane.

 

LIE: “Since January 2021 DHS has effectively managed an unprecedented number of noncitizens seeking to enter the United States and interdicted more drugs and disrupted more smuggling operations than ever before.”

FACT: Instead of effectively managing the crisis, since January 2021 DHS has fueled it. Because of DHS’ catch and release policies, human smuggling has been incentivized and higher quantities of devastating illicit drugs like fentanyl are getting into the country.

 

LIE: “We are administering consequences for unlawful entry, including removal, detention, and prosecution.”

FACT: DHS has lessened the consequences for unlawful entry. DHS has been tying ICE’s hands by severely restricting agents’ ability to make arrests and execute deportation orders.

 

LIE: “We are targeting and disrupting the transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and smugglers who take advantage of and profit from vulnerable migrants, and who seek to traffic drugs into our country.”

FACT: DHS policies have been enriching and facilitating the work of transnational criminal organizations and human smugglers. Migrant deaths are soaring. U.S. taxpayer money is being used to complete the human smuggling process.

 

LIE: “We have a better understanding of who is attempting to enter the country than ever before.”

FACT: The exact opposite is true. Migrants who appear on our southern border are released into the country with little knowledge of who they are. The hundreds of thousands of “Gotaway” migrants who escape apprehension also belies this blatant lie.