Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday said the Biden administration has closed the border with Mexico but will not turn back unaccompanied children.
“Our message has been straightforward and simple. And it’s true, the border is closed.
We are expelling families. We are expelling single adults. And we’ve made a decision that we will not expel young, vulnerable children. I think we are executing on our plans,” Mayorkas said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
But he was pressed by host Chuck Todd who questioned whether parents in Mexico and Central America are looking at that policy and thinking their children have a better chance of getting in the US if they try to cross the border alone.
“We have a short-term plan, a medium-term plan and a long-term plan, and the president and I have spoken to this repeatedly. Please remember something: That [former] President [Donald] Trump dismantled the orderly, humane and efficient way of allowing children to make their claims under United States law in their home countries,” the secretary said.
Mayorkas said the administration is trying to rebuild those policies.
“In the meantime, we will not expel into the Mexican desert, for example, three orphaned children whom I saw over the last two weeks. We just won’t do that. That’s not who we are,” he said.
He repeated President Biden’s message not to travel to the US.
“We are safely processing the children who do come to our border. We strongly urge, and the message is clear, not to do so now. I cannot overstate the perils of the journey that they take,” Mayorkas said.
Republicans blame the thousands of unaccompanied minors arriving at the border on Biden for rolling back many of Trump’s immigration policies that were intended to discourage people from traveling to the US.
Biden, in a series of executive actions since entering the White House, has ended construction on the border wall and reversed Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy that required asylum seekers to wait in their home countries for the legal system to consider their cases.