Hawley to Mayorkas: ‘You Should’ve Resigned Long Ago...You Should Be Removed from Office’

HAWLEY: “I could go on and on. ‘The Times’ details over a multi month investigation, kid after kid, child after child, one — one 13-year old forced to Wash hotel sheets in Virginia. Kids running milkshake machine — milking machines rather in Vermont, delivering meals in New York City, scrubbing dishes late at night, all in violation of our country’s laws, all facilitated by your policies. Are you proud of this record?”
MAYORKAS: “Senator, the horrific exploitation of children is something that we do not condone. You are incorrectly attributing it to our policies. Let me share with you —”
HAWLEY: “Wait a minute, wait a minute. It began — look at — look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. It began, this massive surge began when you came to office. In your first year in office, first year, there was a 342 percent surge of unaccompanied children across the border. You know, CBS reported that Mr. — I’m going to quote them now. Mr. Biden’s election as well as policy changes announced by his administration — those would be your changes led smugglers to tell migrant youth, they had a better chance of being allowed to stay in the United States than they had under Trump. Meanwhile, you’ve lost track of tens of thousands of them. ‘The Times’ also review data that showed the government couldn’t reach more than 85,000 of these children, who they just turned over into the hands of — of smugglers of modern — these are modern day slave traders. And you’re just giving these children to them. What is going on? Why are you doing this?”
MAYORKAS: “Senator, so, of course, there are a number of factual inaccuracies in your question, but let me — let me address a two lines of effort that we have to combat the scourge of exploitation — [crosstalk]”
HAWLEY: “Why Don’t We just start with why you enabled it? Can we just start with that? Why is it that you have enabled 345,000 children to be — to be smuggled across this border, and then sent into the hands of modern day slave traders. In 2021, you made the decision to change Title 42 to allow unaccompanied children to come into the United States, and then to be sent into the interior of the country. Under the last administration children were reunited with their families in their home country, you change that. And as soon as you changed it, the numbers exploded. That is your responsibility.”
MAYORKAS: “Quite a number of false statements, Senator. So, if I can — [crosstalk]”
HAWLEY: “Which — which — what is false about that statement?”
MAYORKAS: “— so — so if I can state what I’ve been trying to state. One of the significant policy decisions that we have made is to focus our worksite enforcement investigative efforts, our criminal investigative efforts on unscrupulous employers that exploit individuals because of their vulnerabilities. And that includes — that includes under age workers.”
HAWLEY: “That is not what ‘The New York Times’ investigation found. I was — Mr. Chairman, I just ask at this point, I’d like to enter into the record. ‘The New York Times’ article is migrant children were put to work, U.S. ignored warnings. This is from April 17th.”

HAWLEY: You change title 42, you allowed hundreds of thousands of migrant children to come across the border, and then you made it worse when it became a cricket political crisis for you, when that huge surge of kids across the border because you change title 42, when it became an optics crisis, what did you do? You began crushing officials and agencies to skip the vetting process and get these kids out as soon as possible to sponsors who were invented. Here’s the times again, as shelters filled with children, the administration began loosening vetting restrictions and urging case managers to speed the process along. You have at every stage, facilitated this modern day indentured servitude of minor children. Why should you not be impeached for this?

MAYORKAS: Senator, I look forward to discussing this issue further, because you are stating the facts so terribly.

HAWLEY: I’m reading you the facts from articles in the news and your usual modus operandi is what you’re doing again today, is to deny, deny, why have you permitted 345,000 children to come into this country unaccompanied? Why have you permitted thousands of them to be abused and exploited?

MAYORKAS: Senator, what we do is we enforce the law. Let me just say this –

HAWLEY: You are not.

MAYORKAS: It is stunning to me, stunning to hear you say that the prior administration reunited children with their parents.

HAWLEY: Oh I see, so this is our fault. You’re not going to take any responsibility for the indentured servitude an exploitation of children that is happening on your watch. A moment ago, you are crowing about the fact that you treated children so well and yet we find tens of thousands of children who are forced to work as slaves because of your policies and you turn around and blame a prior administration. Mister secretary, this is par for the course for you. You do it every time you appear before this committee, you do it every time you appear before Congress. I for one second tired of it and thousands of children are in physical danger. DANGER. Because of what you are doing. You should have resigned long ago. And if you cannot change course, you should be removed from office."