Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was acting like a "pro at not giving facts and figures" during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week, and didn't want to give answers about the record numbers of immigrants who have been entering the country since President Joe Biden took office, Sen. Marsha Blackburn told Newsmax Thursday.
"What he continued to try to do the entire hearing was to deflect," the Tennessee Republican said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "He was very arrogant. He was very ill-prepared, and so he was very dismissive of the hearing."
Meanwhile, the administration doesn't know where many of the immigrants have gone, said Blackburn.
"You've got about 250,000 that have been given the notice to appear," she said. "You have another group that was given a notice of removal. But what about the other 1.3-1.4 million people that have come across that that have been caught and released. He didn't want to talk about any of that."
Blackburn also discussed what Republicans would do if they flip the House and Senate to alleviate the immigration situation.
"You do exactly what the Border Patrol has said they need to have done, which is, number one, build the wall," said Blackburn. "They have asked for a wall on the southern border for 30 years. Give them the wall."
She also said Republicans would increase surveillance capabilities at the border, with more agents and officers, and would ensure that there are more judges to clear the backlog of immigration cases.
"You have to put remain in Mexico in place until those cases are heard, or remain in El Salvador or any other Central or South American country where these people are coming from," said Blackburn.
The senator also commented on the news that a record 100,000 Americans will have died of drug overdoses this year and blamed the overdoses on the border situation.
"People are dying because the drug cartels are pushing these drugs across the border, moving them to their U.S.-based distribution centers in cities all across the country," she said. "Many of these drugs are coming from China in the first place as well, so you can add 762,000 dead from COVID to another 100,000 drug overdoses."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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