Tone-deaf Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday shrugged off attempts to blame Biden’s border policy for the horrific slaughter of Americans at the hands of illegal migrants, saying, “The individual who is responsible for a heinous criminal act is the criminal.”
His comment during a press conference from a Border Patrol aircraft hangar in Tucson, Arizona — more than 60 miles from the nearest border crossing — came in response to a question about 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was brutalized and murdered in Houston, allegedly by two Venezuelan migrants who were released into the US earlier this year.
“We screen and vet individuals when we encounter them,” he said.
Border agents quickly responded with skepticism to Mayorkas’ claims that the DHS was sufficiently vetting anybody crossing the US border, saying his comments Wednesday show he’s living in “fairytale land.”
“I don’t know what Mayorkas is smoking because it needs to be legalized,” one Border Patrol source told The Post.
“If by vetting he means fingerprinting and doing some half-a**ed background check that has access to almost nothing outside of the United States, then yeah it’s a great process.”
He defended the border vetting procedures — even while acknowledging at least eight ISIS-linked suspected terrorists managed to slip through US custody and enter the country.
The Post first reported on the ISIS suspects being arrested after traveling as far as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and New York.
“We did not have derogatory information when they were first encountered,” Mayorkas said.
“Concerns were raised subsequently, we used our law enforcement authorities to apprehend and detain them and they are in removal proceedings as we speak,” he added — in the first press conference about the border since Senate Democrats blocked an impeachment trial against him, effectively acquitting him of the charges.
Mayorkas’ statement comes the same day that NBC News also reported DHS has identified more than 400 migrants who were brought to the US from Central Asia by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network — and that the whereabouts of more than 50 of them are unknown.
Sources said that not only are the background checks limited by many countries’ refusal to provide information on their citizens, the source explained, but agents are rarely given enough time to effectively screen people before they have to let them go – usually within three days.
“We run checks but unless they have an actual database hit or have interactions with law enforcement in the US we really don’t know,” one source said.
An ICE source echoed those concerns, adding that background checks often come back with errors or are totally incomplete.
The source said migrants often have to be released before border agents have time to fully see the checks through.
“Not all checks come back completed, or verified due to potential errors, in time before a subject could be released letting a potential criminal into the country prior to being completely vetted,” the source said.
“Obviously he knows that the vetting isn’t working and the American people know that’s a false statement and that he’s just towing a political line,” said a second ICE source.
Shortcomings like those could be responsible for eight ISIS terror suspects being allowed into the country before being arrested earlier this month.
They were only apprehended thanks to an FBI tipoff, ICE sources previously confirmed to The Post.
Two had been in the country for months under surveillance by a Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The ISIS terror suspects crossed the border and were let into the country and were only apprehended thanks to an FBI tipoff, ICE sources previously confirmed to The Post.
Two of the migrants had been in the country for months under surveillance by a Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The migrants hailed from Tajikistan, a central Asian country bordering Afghanistan that’s become a hotbed of extremist activity through ISIS.
In addition to the terror suspects, a string of high-profile crimes against women and girls have been linked to illegal migrants who were released into the US.
Follow along with The Post’s reporting on Jocelyn Nungaray’s murder
- The illegal Venezuelan migrants accused of murdering Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston lured the 12-year-old girl under a bridge, where they stripped her naked to the waist and assaulted her for two hours, disturbing new court documents allege.
- Both Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos were seen on surveillance video entering a 7-Eleven with Jocelyn the night she was killed and before the two walked her to a bridge, where her body was later found half-naked and strangled.
- Peña, 26, and Martinez-Rangel, 21, allegedly bound Jocelyn’s hands behind her back during the brutal assault, then strangled her and dumped her body in a bayou.
- Department of Homeland Security sources said Peña crossed into El Paso, Texas, on May 28. He was released soon after his interaction with border agents.
- Jocelyn fought back against her attackers after she was lured under the bridge and assaulted — leaving scratch and bite marks on one of the illegal migrants who is accused of killing her.
- Peña was given an ankle monitor when he was released into the US after being caught at the border in May, according to Homeland Security sources. He reportedly cut off the monitor after Jocelyn’s body was found.
- Republicans slammed the White House for its “pathetic” and “shameful” statements on the killings of Jocelyn and Maryland mother of five Rachel Morin — which never mentioned they were murdered by illegal immigrants
The suspects charged with killing Nungaray — who was lured under a bridge in Houston and assaulted for two hours and then had her hands and legs bound before being strangled to death and dumped in a Bayou — were stopped by border patrol officers and released just weeks before the crime.
Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 21, entered the US in March and was taken off a GPS monitoring program weeks before Nungaray’s murder after he was not deemed to be a threat, sources said.
Franklin Jose Peña Ramos, 26, entered the country last month and was still being monitored at the time of the crime.
Both men are being held on $10 million bail.