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Press Release Published: Jan 20, 2023

Comer Presses DHS on Sanitizing Border Crisis Prior to President Biden’s Photo-Op

Seeks to understand the role DHS played in clearing homeless illegal border crossers for President Biden’s visit to El Paso.

WASHINGTON — House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today is calling on U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide information about DHS’ potential involvement in covering up the poor conditions at the southern border in El Paso, Texas to benefit President Biden’s recent three hour photo-op. In the letter, Chairman Comer requests documents and communications from DHS regarding any plans to relocate and remove inconveniently positioned illegal aliens from sites in El Paso before the President’s arrival.

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is conducting oversight of the Department of Homeland Security’s potential involvement in covering up the poor conditions at the southern border in El Paso, Texas to benefit President Biden’s recent three hour photo-op. The Biden Administration has created and failed to resolve the worst border crisis in American history. For weeks, large encampments of homeless illegal border crossers—released by the Biden Administration—have encamped on the streets of El Paso. These encampments were cleared immediately prior to President Biden’s visit to the city on January 8, 2023. We write to understand the circumstances surrounding the role DHS played in clearing homeless illegal border crossers for President Biden’s visit to El Paso,” wrote Chairman Comer.

Fiscal Year 2022 set records for encounters of illegal border crossers, migrant deaths, apprehensions of suspected terrorists, and seizures of deadly fentanyl at the southern border. The first three months of Fiscal Year 2023 continued to trend in the wrong direction, with over 600,000 apprehensions—the vast majority, or 430,000 being released into the United States—and over 240,000 known gotaways who evaded apprehension entirely.

“President Biden, who waited nearly two years to witness first-hand the border crisis he created, visited a staged version of the border in El Paso on January 8.  Instead of witnessing the chaotic crisis that plagues border communities every day, the President toured sites ‘sanitized’ before his arrival … The President apparently did not see a single released illegal alien in a border town overwhelmed with illegal border crossers released by his Administration,” continued Chairman Comer. “The American people and their elected representatives must know the circumstances surrounding DHS’s involvement in the removal of inconveniently positioned illegal aliens from sites in El Paso before the President’s arrival.”

Read the letter to DHS here.