Representative Tom McClintock (R-CA) claims that in a period of over two years, President Biden’s Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) has increased the country’s illegal immigrant population by an amount comparable to Nebraska and Hawaii.
The head of the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee, McClintock, questioned DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the “maximum number of illegal migrants that you feel we ought to allow into the United States,” during the hearing this week.
Mayorkas replied by saying that DHS upholds “the regulations that Congress has enacted and that is in fact what we are doing.”
McClintock continued by pointing out that DHS has effectively increased the population of the country by millions of illegal aliens since Biden assumed office. According to the most recent estimate, there are currently close to 17 million illegal aliens living in the United States, costing taxpayers $163 billion a year.
“Since you entered office, you have already let over 2.1 million illegal immigrants into our country, which is a population the equivalent of the state of Nebraska,” according to McClintock.
“While the Border Patrol has been occupied with collecting names and putting diapers on babies at the border, 1.5 million documented got-aways have also unlawfully entered the nation. An extra illegal population the size of Hawaii is represented by that.”
“So once more, I would want to know: Is there a limit, and if so, what is it?”
Once more dodging the question, Mayorkas asserted that DHS has “expelled or deported roughly 1.4 million individuals who didn’t have a legal basis for staying in the United States — the highest number in recent history.”
As McClintock noted, this statistic includes deportations of illegal aliens who have been turned away at the southern border and are not counted among interior removals.
The number is much smaller when only deportations are included.
“In your testimony, you stated that 72,000 illegal immigrants will be deported in 2022, however, in 2019,” McClintock noted that “267,000 illegal immigrants were deported. Therefore, removals have decreased by more than 75% under your watch.”
“Meanwhile,” he said, “In 2019, there were approximately 458,000 border interactions, but because of your policies, we are now approaching 2.3 million encounters, which is five times as many. Removals are down by 75%, but encounters were up fivefold.”
McClintock agreed, claiming that DHS is essentially rearranging illegal immigration using its migrant mobile app, which encourages foreign people in northern Mexico to book appointments at the border to obtain passage into the American interior.
“This initiative started with up to 1,000 illegal immigrants per day; it has now been increased to up to 1,500 per day. Over 540,000 people, to be exact. That would increase the population by the same amount as creating a new state of Wyoming each year. That explains why there are fewer people being arrested. You’re bringing them in straight through the ports of entry rather than having them cross the border. As a result, McClintock pleaded with Mayorkas not to lie.”
