GOP Lawmakers Dispute Mayorkas’s Claims on Screening of Illegal Immigrants at the Border

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, speaks to reporters on his way to a closed-door GOP caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 10, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) on March 20 co-signed a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, asserting that he has misrepresented “DHS’s own data” while perpetuating an incorrect narrative on the screening of illegal immigrants in what they called the failure to resolve “the worst border crisis in American history.” 

“You implied that ‘the vast majority’ of illegal aliens who are released from DHS custody first receive and pass a credible-fear screening before they are released into the country.” the congressmen wrote, referring to a Feb. 18 interview Mayorkas did with Chris Wallace on CNN.

Yet, “DHS’s own data contradict your statements. Only a fraction of the illegal aliens DHS personnel apprehend receive a credible-fear screening prior to being released into the country.” 

“This is the latest attempt by Secretary Mayorkas to spin the facts about President Biden’s border crisis. Under the Biden Administration’s watch, the Department of Homeland Security has gone back to failed catch-and-release policies,” said Comer in a statement the committee released announcing its investigation.  

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas answers a reporter's question during a news conference with Mexican counterparts at the State Department in Washington on Oct. 13, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“Only a fraction of those released in the U.S. are even screened for a credible fear. The Oversight Committee will continue to conduct much needed oversight of the Biden Administration’s policies that have created the worst border crisis in American history and hold Secretary Mayorkas and others accountable for their failure to secure the border.”

The congressmen referenced in the letter comments Mayorkas made last month in which he said that a high percentage of the total of illegal immigrants that U.S. Border Patrol (BP) apprehends and are released in the United States have passed a “credible fear screening”—meaning that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services determined that those migrants hold a credible fear of persecution or torture if returned to their home country.

The congressmen are also requesting a long list of data from Mayorkas and documentation to help the Committee in “understanding DHS’s catch-and-release policies and its limited use of credible-fear interviews.”

As The Epoch Times reported in a Feb. 8 story about an Oversight committee hearing on illegal immigration at the southern border presided over by Comer:

“Before Joe Biden became president, there had never been a month in which there were more than 200,000 interceptions of illegal immigrants along the border.  Every month for the past 10 months, more than 200,000 illegal immigrants have been intercepted along the border.”