Americans cannot take Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas' word on illegal border crossing statistics, says Rep. Laura Lee, R-Fla.
"What's important to understand is that they've converted to using a new app that processes people who are crossing our border, lets them out into our country and then fails to track or have any consequences if they don't show up for a future court date," Lee told Newsmax's "National Report" Wednesday, minutes before Mayorkas testified before the House Judiciary Committee on border crossings.
"So, we have a lot of questions about the reality of those numbers and whether they will in fact be borne out by evidence and data," she added.
The Biden administration on Tuesday touted a June decline in border crossings, attributing the drop to its new policies.
"Our sustained efforts to enforce consequences under our longstanding Title 8 authorities, combined with expanding access to lawful pathways and processes, have driven the number of migrant encounters along the Southwest border to their lowest levels in more than two years. We will remain vigilant," Troy A. Miller, a senior Customs and Border Protection official, said in a statement.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., says he expects Mayorkas during the hearing to "deny reality."
"The last time he was before our committee, he made the bewildering claim that the surge in illegal border crossings had nothing to do with the administration's change in policies when the dots could not be easier to connect," he told Newsmax.
"As soon as Biden came into office, they stopped doing the things that were working," he said. "They stopped building barriers, they ended the 'remain in Mexico' program, they created huge new categories of de facto amnesty. And what has the result been? [The] 2021 fiscal year had had a record number of illegal border crossings.
"That record was broken in 2022 and its on pace to be broken again in 2023 with the consequence for Americans being national security imperiled, more people dying from fentanyl, more people suffering through the tragedy of human trafficking. Americans are dissatisfied with this across the board."
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