Wall St Journal: Alejandro Mayorkas Blamed for Del Rio PR Disaster

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief reversed a short-lived enforcement policy in August shortly before roughly 30,000 Haitian migrants converged on the border crossing at Del Rio, Texas, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The November 18 report described how border chief Alejandro Mayorkas reversed the planned August enforcement against one group of Haitian migrants:

In August, as intelligence reports showed large groups of Haitian migrants in southern Mexico preparing to move north, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to deport about 600 Haitians who had recently crossed the border.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, signed off on the [Haitian] deportations, people familiar with the matter said. But he reversed the decision and ordered them released after immigration advocates flagged that the migrants were eligible for deportation protection since they arrived before July 29 [qualifying them for a prior Mayorkas welcome policy], the people said …

News of their release spread on Haitian social media. A month later [in September], about 30,000 Haitians crossed the border near Del Rio, Texas, with thousands crowded under a bridge. Those later arrivals, who didn’t qualify for the temporary deportation relief, were subject to a large-scale deportation campaign. The U.S. sent 58 deportation flights to Haiti in September, up from two the previous month, according to public flight tracking data.

The Mayorkas flip-flop proved disastrous for Biden’s ratings because it prompted coverage by the TV networks and cemented public worries about the rising migrant surge. In mid-November for example, Biden’s average ratings for immigration were 29 percent positive, 61 percent negative, according to RealClearPolitics.com.

His policy reversal also proved disastrous for 8,000 of the migrant Haitians, many of whom were lured out of jobs and homes in southern America by Mayorkas’s summer-long welcome for the prior Haitian arrivals.

TheWorld.org reported November 8:

In Haiti, many [of the] people [deported from the U.S.] are having to start all over again, without anything back at home, while others are still trying to figure out how to reach the US. This includes people like Dessecia and Dianie, who said they were 15 when they left Haiti, and now, at age 19, are among those who were recently deported back. They asked that their full names not be used because they plan on trying to enter the US again.

The two lived in Chile for about four years before deciding to migrate to the US in September. At the border, they were taken into custody and held for weeks at a detention facility, where they met, before being put on a deportation flight.

[…]

Esthere Thomas was deported about a month ago from the Texas border with her 11-year-old daughter. They also migrated first to Chile, which once allowed Haitians to enter with ease. Thomas got by as a housekeeper until Chile’s policies changed and there was a rumor that the Biden administration was allowing all families into the US. She and her daughter trekked thousands of miles from Chile to the US border.

DHS spokeswoman Marsha Espinosa dismissed the evidence of Mayorkas’ shifting decisions, saying his agency sees internal disagreements of opinion “as a hallmark of good ideas and good government,” the Journal wrote.

Mayorkas presents himself as a champion for migrants, even though hundreds of migrants are dying, or are losing their little wealth, as they try to research his border welcome.

“Justice is our priority,” Mayorkas declared at a November Senate hearing, adding “That includes securing our border and providing relief to those [migrants] who qualify for it under our laws.”

Mayorkas is a child refugee from Cuba and a pro-migration zealot who is opening many doors in the border for economic migrants.

Haitian migrants surge across the Rio Grande river to get food and water in Mexico after another crossing point was closed near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on September 19, 2021. (Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images)

In June, for example, he argued that the dignity of migrants is the “foremost” duty of his agency. In May, he said the agency’s “highest priority” is the return of lawfully deported adults to live with their left-behind children in the United States. In December 2020, he claimed an amnesty would raise wages for Americans.

In April 2021, he said migrant-owned companies “are the backbone of our communities — and of our country.” In September 2021, he reminded migrants that they can claim fear of torture to avoid a quick expulsion. In 2013, Mayorkas declared  that Americans’ homeland is “a nation that always has been and forever will remain a Nation of Immigrants.”

In numerous events, including the November Senate hearing, Mayorkas has insisted that the nation’s values require a welcome for migrants — even though less than one-third of Americans support the “Nation of Immigrants” claim.

Many polls show that labor migration is deeply unpopular because it damages ordinary Americans’ career opportunities, cuts their wages, and raises their rents. Migration also curbs Americans’ productivity, shrinks their political clout, widens regional wealth gaps, radicalizes their democratic, compromise-promoting civic culture, and allows elites to ignore despairing Americans at the bottom of society.

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