Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem estimated Wednesday that the Biden-Harris administration allowed hundreds of thousands of criminal migrants into the U.S.
As Noem said on Fox News, these numbers include thousands connected to gangs, some of whom were already detained by the Trump administration.
During the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S. southern border reached record high illegal migrant encounters, with Customs and Border Protection data estimating around 8.5 million encounters during the four fiscal years at the U.S.-Mexico border, not including those potentially unrecorded.
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The Trump administration has pushed for mass deportation.
“We have hundreds of thousands of criminals that were let illegally into this country. That means they have criminal records. They’ve perpetuated crimes in this country. They’re members of gangs and cartels that have committed crimes around the world,” Noem said. “This is not a small operation.”
“This is an operation that we’re going to have to work aggressively at for a period of time to make sure that we’re getting all those dangerous individuals out of our country and then go on to those who have overstayed and have final removal orders. We’re going to go forward and make sure that our federal laws are upheld and that every single law is followed in this country,” Noem added. “The Biden administration didn’t do that. They didn’t ensure that the American people were their number one priority. That’s why we’re in the situation that we’re in today.”
Throughout the 2024 presidential election, voters consistently ranked immigration as one of their top concerns when deciding whom to vote for. The murders of 22-year-old Laken Riley, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray and 37-year-old Rachel Morin shocked Americans, leaving many worried after their killers were found to be illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
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Noem went on to say that she could not fully “ensure” Americans’ safety until all “these dangerous individuals” are out of the country, emphasizing that her job as DHS secretary is to fulfill that need. Hannity then asked if she could provide an exact number of total migrants let into the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration.
“Well, you’ve heard the president talk about the fact that there are 20 million people in this country here illegally,” Noem said. “But we literally do have hundreds of thousands of people that are criminal aliens. But we have many, over thousands of them, that are on the suspected or known terrorist watch list. We know that we have thousands of gang members, just TDA [Tren de Aragua] members.”
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On his first day in office, Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order designating “the cartels and other organizations” as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), saying that “international cartels constitute a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.” In addition to having Noem and the border czar carry out Trump’s campaign vow to ensure Americans’ safety from the border crisis, House Republicans plan to designate several major Mexican drug cartels as FTOs to further cement the president’s executive order.
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