Border Reporter Bill Melugin Fact Checks Mayorkas on 'Parole Program' Whopper

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during a Brownsville, TX, press conference on the border crisis, May 5, 2023. Credit: C-SPAN.

Because they think they can get away with it, the Biden White House has in recent weeks been touting the supposed “success” of a border parole program Joe Biden announced back in January as helping them bring down “illegal migration … by more than 90%.”

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On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was blasted for making the claim during the daily press briefing:

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was slammed by critics after boasting Monday about the Biden administration’s humanitarian “parolee” program for asylum seekers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela — as the US preps for a fresh surge of migrants at the southern border.

“You’ve seen the parolee program be so successful,” Jean-Pierre said during her press briefing. “It has, it has, it has, when it comes to illegal migration, you’ve seen it come down by more than 90%, and that’s because of this act — the actions that this president has taken.”

The program, instituted in October for Venezuelans and extended to residents of the other three countries in January, has allowed 30,000 asylum seekers who followed the legal application process to be admitted to the US each month.

Migrants from those countries who showed up at the border without applying for the process were swiftly expelled.

In remarks made Friday afternoon in Brownsville, Texas to reporters after visiting certain areas of the border between the United States and Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas echoed what Jean-Pierre said after he talked about how “difficult” and “challenging” the border crisis has been.

“We are building upon the success of our parole processes that we announced on January 5th for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans,” Mayorkas proclaimed. “We saw a 95 percent drop in the number of encounters of those individuals at our southern border because we built lawful pathways for them to access.

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The problem with Mayorkas claim is, like so many others he’s made, he’s not telling the whole story. In essence, it’s a lie. As Fox News border correspondent Bill Melugin noted in a fact check, the numbers only came down briefly before they started soaring again:

Mayorkas’ trip to the border was made ahead of the coming expiration of Title 42, which is expected to unleash a tidal wave of illegal immigrants rushing across the border. To that point, we also learned today that DHS and FEMA will be providing millions in funding at the local level as a way to try help communities manage the anticipated surge.

Melugin broke that down accordingly:

In a related response, Melugin clapped back at an immigration council lawyer/activist who absurdly tried to suggest in so many words that it was magnanimous of the Biden administration to shell out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to essentially contain the messes their policies have created:

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Just absolutely maddening. And unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse.

Flashback–>> Report: El Paso ‘Sanitized’ Ahead of Joe Biden’s ‘Border Visit’

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