Former acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Chad Wolf argued that President Biden’s border policies are not much different from those of former President Trump, but he claimed they are not being enforced.
“A lot of those initiatives are the same as the Trump administration, except they’re not actually enforcing a lot of those rules,” Wolf, who served under Trump, said in an interview on Fox News on Thursday.
He contended the Biden administration has had a “failed strategy” in place for managing the situation at the southern border.
Wolf’s criticism comes as the pandemic-era policy Title 42 is set to expire along with the COVID-19 public health emergency on Thursday. The policy allowed the country to more easily expel migrants who came into the United States and prevent them from seeking asylum on public health grounds.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press conference on Wednesday the department was finalizing a rule that would presume those who do not use the legal pathways to enter the country are ineligible to receive asylum.
The migrants can appeal, but critics have slammed the rule as similar to a policy put in place under the Trump administration.
Wolf said the asylum policy will not work because it has “so many exemptions and loopholes in it that it’s not going to be effective.”
Immigration advocates also criticized Biden administration proposals earlier this year to encourage asylum-seekers to try to gain asylum in a country they pass on their way to the U.S. first, before trying here and to limit the locations where asylum-seekers can try to claim it.
The southern border has seen record numbers of immigrants crossing illegally in recent months. The Biden administration has been rebuked both from the GOP for the large number of migrants crossing and from Democrats for the expulsions of migrants and denial of their asylum claims.
Wolf also criticized a Biden administration plan that will reportedly direct Customs and Border Protection to release migrants they find without any set court date or ability to track them.
“This is the game that the administration is playing there. It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors at the moment,” he said. “They’re not being honest with the American people.”
“They’re trying to explain their way out of this crisis instead of actually trying to solve it,” Wolf added.