国土安全部部长亚历杭德罗·马约尔卡斯(Alejandro Mayorkas)周日为该国的边境政策进行了辩护，坚称拜登政府在移民潮问题上采取了足够强硬的立场，同时驳斥了过于严格的说法。
马约尔卡斯对进步人士的批评提出了质疑，这些人将美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)的政策与前总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的政策相提并论，后者要求移民在申请美国庇护之前，先在他们经过的国家申请庇护。
部长说，在过去的两天里，边境巡逻队发现，与本周早些时候第42条在周四午夜结束之前的数字相比，在南部边境遇到的人数下降了大约50%。
“这不是庇护禁令。我们既有人道主义义务，也有安全问题，要把残忍的走私者赶出去。这是政府的责任，我们正在这样做，乔恩，这根本不是一项禁令，”马约尔卡斯告诉《本周》的联合主持人乔纳森·卡尔。
他接着说，“我们的规则规定，个人必须使用我们提供给他们的合法途径。如果他们没有，那么他们一定是在他们旅行过的某个国家寻求救济，但被拒绝。如果他们都没有做到，这不是禁止庇护，但他们有更高的证明门槛，他们必须满足。这是一个可以克服的不合格的假设。”
马约尔卡斯还对白宫计划在没有法定法庭日期的情况下释放一些移民进行了反驳，原因是尽管一名法官最近裁定废除这项政策，但收容越境人员的设施过于拥挤。
“我们有义务遵守这一裁决，”他说。“我们不同意法官的观点。我们认为这是一个非常有害的裁决。当...的时候...我们的边境巡逻站变得过于拥挤，这是一个人的安全和保障问题，包括我们自己的人员，而不仅仅是脆弱的移民，能够释放他们。这是历届政府都做过的事情。”
国务卿的评论是在拜登因第42条(Title 42)的结束而面临大量批评和媒体报道的情况下发表的。第42条是疫情时代的一项政策，允许边境官员驱逐非法越境的移民。
这一规定的结束与新冠肺炎周围国家紧急状态的结束同时发生，预计会造成试图越境的人数激增。
与此同时，国会山的民主党人和共和党人在如何解决未经授权的过境问题上仍然存在分歧，延长了华盛顿在移民政策变化上长达几十年的停滞不前。
众议院共和党人确实通过了寻求限制庇护和延长特朗普时代边境墙的立法，但该法案在到达由民主党控制的参议院时已经死亡。
奥巴马政府试图阻止预期的边境激增，使移民更难申请庇护，同时拒绝与前任政府更严厉的政策进行任何比较。
马约尔卡斯还为副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯辩护，后者在拜登担任总统期间曾受命处理移民问题。
“这是一项持续多年的努力。副总统哈里斯在北部三角国家危地马拉、洪都拉斯和萨尔瓦多领导了超过30亿美元的投资。
这一努力始于奥巴马-拜登政府。它在特朗普政府期间被严重削弱，副总统哈里斯领导了一场非凡的努力，以解决人们逃离家园的根本原因:暴力、贫困、腐败、专制政权、极端天气事件、迫害等。”
Mayorkas defends border policies against bipartisan backlash, cites drop in border encounters
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday defended the country's border policies, insisting the Biden administration was taking a strong enough stance on a surge of migration while batting away claims it was being overly strict.
Mayorkas took issue with criticism from progressives who compared President Joe Biden's policies to those of former President Donald Trump, who required migrants to apply for asylum in countries they passed through before applying for it the U.S.
The secretary said that over the past two days, the Border Patrol has seen an approximately 50% drop in the number of people encountered at the southern border compared to numbers earlier this week before Title 42 ended at midnight on Thursday.
"This is not an asylum ban. We have a humanitarian obligation as well as a matter of security to cut the ruthless smugglers out. That is a responsibility of government and we are doing that, and Jon, it is not a ban at all," Mayorkas told "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
He went on, "What our rule provides is that an individual must access those lawful pathways that we have made available to them. If they have not, then they must have sought relief in one of the countries through which they have traveled and been denied. And if they haven't done either, it's not a ban on asylum, but they have a higher threshold of proof that they have to meet. That is a presumption of ineligibility that can be overcome."
Mayorkas also fended off barbs over the White House's plan to release some migrants without mandated court dates due to overcrowding in facilities housing those who cross the border despite a judge's recent ruling scrapping the policy.
"We have an obligation to comply with that ruling," he said. "We respectfully disagree with the judge. We think it's a very harmful ruling. When ... our border patrol stations become overcrowded, it is a matter of the safety and security of people, including our own personnel, not just the vulnerable migrants, to be able to release them. And this is something that administration after administration has done."
The secretary's comments come as Biden faces a barrage of criticism and an avalanche of media coverage over the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allowed border officials to deport migrants illegally crossing the border.
The ending of the rule, which coincided with the ending of the national emergency around COVID-19, is expected to produce surges of attempted border crossings.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill remain divided over how to address unauthorized border crossings, extending a decades long standstill over immigration policy changes in Washington.
House Republicans did pass legislation seeking to limit asylum and extend the Trump-era border wall but the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
The administration has sought to thread the needle in blunting an expected border surge, making it harder for migrants to apply for asylum while pushing back on any comparisons to the previous administration's more draconian policies.
Mayorkas also defended Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tasked earlier in the Biden presidency to handle immigration.
"That effort is a yearslong effort. And Vice President Harris has led the investment of more than $3 billion in the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador," he said.
"That effort began in the Obama-Biden administration. It was terribly taken down during the Trump administration and Vice President Harris has led an extraordinary effort to address the root causes of why people flee their homes in the first instance: violence, poverty, corruption, authoritarian regimes, extreme weather events, persecution and the like."
