国土安全部部长亚历杭德罗·马约尔卡斯周一为拜登政府处理边境无人陪伴移民儿童的做法进行了辩护日益增长的批评说他希望给在总统统治下分离的家庭唐纳德·特朗普选择在美国团聚，同时指责前政府“掏空”了移居系统。
“我了解到，我们没有可用的设施或设备来管理我们的国会几年前通过的人道主义法，”马约尔卡斯在白宫简报会上首次露面时说。“我们没有执行这些法律的人员、政策、程序或培训。坦率地说，整个系统都被掏空了。”
特朗普的移民方法主要集中在强硬的执法和安全措施上，包括拨款数十亿美元修建边境隔离墙，拜登阻止了这一举动。
“我们现在在边境看到的是系统拆除的直接结果，以及从零开始重建系统所需的时间，”马约尔卡斯说。“不过，我们已经开始了。”
德鲁·安格雷尔/盖蒂影像公司
国土安全部部长亚历杭德罗·马约尔卡斯在每日新闻发布会上发言
特朗普政府还采取了一项名为“零容忍”的政策，导致数千名移民父母与子女分离。迄今为止，数百人仍然分居，拜登在移民问题上的第一批行动之一是成立了一个由迈尔卡斯(Mayorkas)担任主席的特别工作组，让分居的家庭团聚。
“我们将探索合法的途径让他们留在美国，并满足家庭需求，所以我们尽可能地采取恢复性行动，”梅尔卡斯说。
尽管他称之为“挑战”，但他坚持认为美国在南部边境没有陷入“危机”。
自2020年4月以来，每月在边境逮捕的人数一直在增加，这对拜登政府构成了核心挑战回滚工作特朗普时代的许多强制措施。
“我们需要个人等待，”梅尔卡斯说。“我要说的是，他们会带着目标等待。这就是我们尽快重建一个系统的能力，这样他们就不必踏上危险的旅程，我们也能让他们从他们的原籍国获得人道主义救援。”
安德鲁·哈尔尼克/美联社
国土安全部部长亚历杭德罗·马约尔卡斯在白宫举行的新闻发布会上说
马约尔卡斯坚持认为，新政府对移民的待遇不同于特朗普政府。
然而，拜登尚未撤销特朗普时代在大流行开始拒绝或“驱逐”边境上绝大多数移民后制定的协议。《公共卫生法》第42条的这一部分被称为“第42条”，人权观察员谴责这一做法，认为这限制了获得庇护地位的合法途径。
本月早些时候，几十个宣传组织致函拜登政府，呼吁迅速停止使用“第42号法案”，声称疾病控制和预防中心受到特朗普移民鹰派的压力，不得不发布这一命令。
“在总统竞选期间，你承诺结束特朗普政府不人道的边境政策，维护美国法律和条约义务，以保护难民和移民儿童，并采取基于科学的新冠肺炎措施为了让你们的行动反映这些承诺，你们的政府必须停止在边境滥用第42章公共卫生权威。"
马约尔卡斯拒绝将这一政策与特朗普政府的政策进行比较，指出在拜登的领导下，边境当局没有“驱逐”孤身儿童。
DHS chief defends Biden admin on immigration, says Trump 'gutted' system
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Monday defended the Biden administration's handling of unaccompanied migrant children at the border againstgrowing criticism, saying he hopes to give families separated under PresidentDonald Trumpthe option to reunite in the U.S. while blaming the prior administration for having "gutted" theimmigrationsystem.
"I learned that we did not have the facilities available or equipped to administer the humanitarian laws that our Congress passed years ago," Mayorkas said in his first appearance at a White House briefing. "We did not have the personnel, policies, procedures or training to administer those laws. Quite frankly, the entire system was gutted."
Trump'simmigration approachlargely focused on hardline enforcement and security measures including the appropriation of billions of dollars for a border wall, which Biden stopped.
“What we are seeing now at the border is the immediate result of the dismantlement of the system and the time that it takes to rebuild it virtually from scratch,” Mayorkas said. “We have, though, already begun.”
The Trump administration also took on a policy called "zero-tolerance" which resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant parents from their children. Hundreds remain separated to date and -- among his first actions on immigration -- Biden created a task force chaired by Mayorkas to reunite the separated families.
"We will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States, and to address the family needs so we are acting as restoratively as possible," Mayorkas said.
Despite what he called these "challenges," he insisted the U.S. was not in the midst of a "crisis" at the southern border.
The number of arrests made each month at the border has been increasing since April 2020, which has posed a central challenge for the Biden administration as itworks to roll backmany of the Trump-era enforcement measures.
“We need individuals to wait,” Mayorkas said. “And I will say that they will wait with a goal in mind. And that is our ability to rebuild as quickly as possible a system so that they don't have to take the dangerous journey, and we can enable them to access humanitarian relief from their countries of origin.”
Mayorkas insisted that the new administration is not treating migrants the same as the Trump administration.
However, Biden has yet to revoke Trump-era protocols brought down after the pandemic began to turn away or "expel" the vast majority of migrants at the border. This use of this section of public health code known as "Title 42" has been condemned by human rights observers as immigrant advocates for the limits it places on access to legal avenues for obtaining asylum status.
Dozens of advocacy organizations wrote to the Biden administration earlier this month calling for a swift end to the use of "Title 42," claiming the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been pressured by Trump's immigration hawks into issuing the order.
"During the presidential campaign, you committed to end inhumane Trump administration border policies, uphold U.S. laws and treaty obligations to protectrefugeesand immigrant children, and adopt COVID-19 measures based in science," the organizations wrote. "For your actions to reflect those promises, your administration must end the misuse of Title 42 public health authority at the border."
Mayorkas rejected the comparison to the Trump administration's policies, noting that, under Biden, authorities at the border are not "expelling" unaccompanied children.
