Mayorkas grilled on border as funding debate heats up 

Senators grilled Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday as lawmakers weigh a request from the Biden administration for additional border funding. 

Mayorkas appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee to discuss last month’s supplemental funding request from the Biden administration, which called for more than $13 billion in additional dollars for efforts aimed at bolstering border security.  

During the hearing, Mayorkas fielded questions from both sides on how the requested funding would counter fentanyl smuggling and potential immigration policy reforms.

Mayorkas said the funding requested last month would assist officials “tremendously in our border enforcement efforts with respect to the hiring and deployment of personnel that procurement and implementation of technology.” 

But he also pushed against policy changes in a “piecemeal form,” calling instead for changes to be pursued “in a comprehensive form.” His comments come as Republicans have been pushing to tie legislation for aid to Ukraine to border funding and policy reforms.  

Just days before the hearing, a group of Senate Republicans laid out a list of border policy demands — including boosting border wall construction, better pay for border agents and changes to the asylum system — that have already drawn pushback from Democrats who have panned the pitch as a “non-starter.” 

In a tense exchange, Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who’s among the Republicans behind the proposal, pressed Mayorkas at the Wednesday hearing on migrant encounters at the border, while pointing to multiple visual aids, including a board with the heading, “Biden Border Crisis.” 

“The highest encounters was in September, things need to change, you agree, like now?” Graham asked, to which Mayorkas agreed and pointed to the administration’s funding request. 

However, Graham shot back that the “supplemental makes everything worse, not better,” before pressing the secretary about potential changes to the asylum system.  

Mayorkas again said he would work to “achieve a comprehensive solution,” but senators dialed up the pressure on the secretary on the issue. 

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who previously headed the committee that oversees funding for the Department of Homeland Security, pressed Mayorkas for examples of possible policy changes that could be pursued.  

In response, Mayorkas spoke to the need for a “top to bottom” approach to reforms, noting potential opportunities for changes from a more economic lens. 

“We have a remarkable demand for labor. We have an international supply for labor, and yet we cannot seem to marry the tools,” Mayorkas said. “And so in the economic context, I would say that there’s a tremendous opportunity, just as there is in the asylum context.” 

He also said officials are “intensely focused on hiring reform,” while noting “advances in the polygraph process” he’s said have “been a challenge for many years.” 

“I would suggest, too, more pay and better retention bonuses to be able to keep the people that you have, that’s part of the package that we’re putting forward here as ideas on ways to help,” Capito said.  

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) also pushed for proposals for “incremental improvements that can be executed in a 10-day or six-week legislative timeframe.” 

“We also have to understand that we’re going to have to do this in chunks and that in the context of an emergency security supplemental, there may be some changes,” he said, but he added, “We can’t say we can’t do anything until we do everything.” 

“I just think that’s not a tenable position, given the political configuration of the Congress and what we need to accomplish in the next six weeks,” he added.