“It is something that I fought as the deputy secretary of Homeland Security. It’s something that, as the secretary, I worked around because I think it is irresponsible to release that individual and not turn that individual over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” said Mayorkas.

During his full four-year term, however, the sanctuary movement exploded, as did the release of criminal illegal immigrants until near the end of the former president’s term. Biden was struggling for answers to the border crisis, which President Donald Trump seized as a top campaign concern.

While there is contrarian evidence that the Biden team bowed to sanctuary policies, Mayorkas suggested that he didn’t get credit for pressing cities for access to criminal illegal immigrants while they were held by local law enforcement. He blamed poor communication.

“We lost the narrative,” he told interviewer and former Homeland official Juliette Kayyem, who praised the policies of Mayorkas.

One of the nation’s experts and critics of sanctuary cities ripped Mayorkas’s comments and actions today, telling Secrets that the former secretary was responsible for the surge in sanctuaries during the Biden administration.

“The remarks from Mayorkas at Harvard are the most flagrantly hypocritical words imaginable. He made the whole country a sanctuary for criminal aliens, with his open door at the border, allowing unvetted people from all over the world to enter, including terrorists, prison gangs, and human traffickers,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for Washington’s Center for Immigration Studies.

“He did not lift a finger to discourage sanctuary policies; instead he made sure that billions of dollars in federal funds earmarked for disaster assistance and the homeless instead went to sanctuary cities to support illegal migrants. He allowed millions of dollars of federal awards from the Department of Justice to flow to the same law enforcement agencies that refuse to cooperate with ICE to remove criminal aliens,” said Vaughan, who for years has mapped sanctuary towns, big cities, states, and facilities.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu had a long day on Capital Hill. Here’s a quick recap.

We’ll see what happens going forward.

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— Penny Kmitt (@pennylikeacoin) March 6, 2025

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Mayorkas made his comments in Boston, an infamous sanctuary city. Earlier in the day, the mayor of Boston and other big cities defended their pro-illegal policies before a House committee.

The irony wasn’t lost on Vaughan, who told us, “This man, who was impeached for failing to do his job and for undermining immigration enforcement in every way possible, who inflicted the worst mass migration crisis our country has ever experienced, has the chutzpah to scold sanctuaries in from the comfortable cocoon of a stage at Harvard?  While the mayor of Boston was sitting in front of a congressional committee being blistered all day for releasing hundreds of criminals?” she said.