(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged Tuesday that the Biden administration should have tightened border security sooner — a stunning admission given that he served as DHS secretary for nearly the entirety of Biden’s four-year term.
Mayorkas, the first cabinet secretary impeached by the House in nearly 150 years, made the remarks during an interview at a Politico summit while again pointing to what he claimed was a “broken immigration system.”
His comments came more than two years after former President Joe Biden left office following one of the most permissive border periods in recent history, with more than 6.3 million encounters recorded at the southern border by the end of his term. Of those, at least 2.4 million illegal aliens were released into the country under a range of controversial Biden-era policies.
At the pace seen before Biden left office, Republican lawmakers said that total encounters were set to reach 10 million, though some argued those projections were conservative estimates.
In September 2023, CBP recorded 269,735 encounters at the southern border, marking the highest monthly total on record. By contrast, President Donald Trump’s administration has averaged roughly 9,000 to 11,000 encounters per month since he took office.
Mayorkas’s remarks quickly drew backlash from Republican lawmakers, who pointed to the irony of the comments given his repeated defense of the administration’s border policies while leading DHS.
https://t.co/qxQdvRNbUM pic.twitter.com/HpwNQ0Saxz
— Speaker Johnson War Room (@speakerwarroom) May 12, 2026
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., wrote that Mayorkas “had FOUR YEARS as DHS Secretary to stand up and say this, but didn’t.”
House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., echoed the criticism: “Too little, too late. Americans died because of Mayorkas’ failure. That’s why we impeached him, and why his appearance at any kind of ‘security summit’ is unserious and insensitive.”
Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, argued the administration’s policies were intentional, stating: “Open borders wasn’t some accident– The Biden admin did it on purpose. They went as far as to sue Texas to stop us from building fences on our own border.”
Gill also warned that “if Democrats take back power, they will do it again until every American city becomes completely unrecognizable.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., said lawmakers should have impeached Mayorkas “sooner.”
