Mayorkas admits 12,000 Haitians released in US — and more could follow

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted on Sunday that more than 12,000 Haitian migrants who had been camped out under a bridge near Del Rio, Texas, have been released into the US and more may follow them.

He told “Fox News Sunday” that there are about 12,400 Haitians in the process of having asylum claims heard by an immigration judge, while around 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security.

About 3,000 are being detained.

“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas responded when asked how many migrants have already been released.

He added that the number could go beyond 5,000 as other cases are processed.

“It could be even higher. The number that are returned could be even higher. What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it,” Mayorkas said.

The secretary said the administration “will make determinations whether they will be returned to Haiti based on our public health and public interest authorities.”

Many of the migrants being released into the US may have coronavirus because the Biden administration is not requiring them to be tested or be vaccinated after they enter the US illegally.

Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked Mayorkas how many of the 30,000 migrants were tested.

He said the administration follows “strict COVID testing protocols.”

“We test, isolate, and quarantine unaccompanied children. We work with nonprofit organizations to test families,” he said.

“Those who are in ICE custody are tested, isolated, and quarantined. Those who are expelled under the Title 42 Public Health Authority are returned immediately. They are not placed in immigration court proceedings, and those we do not test, because they are returned immediately,” Mayorkas said.

The makeshift camp under the International Bridge was cleared at the end of last week, but at one point it contained as many as 30,000 migrants who lived in squalid conditions and created a humanitarian crisis for the White House.

The US deported about 2,000 of the migrants in flights to Haiti and roughly 8,000 voluntarily returned to Mexico.

Wallace pressed Mayorkas on how many of the migrants being freed in the US will remain and pointed out that the Justice Department estimates that about 44 percent of those released will miss their immigration court appearances.

“We have enforcement guidelines in place that provide the individuals who are recent borde... (Read more)

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