DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the “biggest disaster for border security and immigration enforcement in American history,” RJ Hauman, head of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) told Fox News after Mayorkas ordered an end to mass worksite deportation raids.
“After the issuance of today’s memorandum effectively ending worksite enforcement – on top of other radical policy changes that are getting hard to count – one thing is clear: Secretary Mayorkas is the biggest disaster for border security and immigration enforcement in American history,” said Hauman.
“Since the Biden administration cannot abolish ICE outright, Mayorkas is destroying it from within.”
Republicans have called for Mayorkas to face impeachment for his actions on the border, including his canceling of a slate of Trump-era border wall contracts in Texas last week.
“DHS Secretary Mayorkas, during a border crisis, is canceling border wall contracts. Impeach Mayorkas,” tweeted Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the cancelation of the contracts would “not solve the Biden border crisis.”
Mayorkas on Tuesday ordered Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to halt the raids, a practice utilized often during the Trump administration.
“The deployment of mass worksite operations, sometimes resulting in the simultaneous arrest of hundreds of workers, was not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country’s unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers,” Mayorkas said in a memo to acting ICE Director Tae Johnson.
“These highly visible operations misallocated enforcement resources while chilling, and even serving as a retaliation for, worker cooperation in workplace standards investigations,” he said.
Mayorkas also called for ICE officials to figure out a way to “alleviate or mitigate the fear” that witnesses, or victims, of labor exploitation may have regarding cooperation with law enforcement.
He also ordered the agency to identify any policies that “may impede non-citizens workers, including victims of forced labor, from asserting their workplace rights” and to present recommendations to change them.
The memo also warns that by “exploiting undocumented workers and paying them substandard wages, the unscrupulous employers create an unfair labor market.”
“They also unfairly drive down their costs and disadvantage their business competitors who abide by the law.”
“We will not tolerate unscrupulous employers who exploit unauthorized workers, conduct illegal activities, or impose unsafe working conditions. Employers engaged in illegal acts compel the focus of our enforcement resources,” he added.
