Top homeland security officials defend Biden's immigration policy against Republican criticism

Washington — Top Department of Homeland Security officials on Thursday brushed aside Republican criticism of the Biden administration's immigration agenda, defending decisions to process unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border and curtail immigration arrests in the interior of the country.

Republican senators wielding poster boards with apprehension numbers pressed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the Biden administration's refusal to expel unaccompanied children under a Trump-era public health order known as Title 42 that is still being used to turn back migrant adults and families to Mexico without a court hearing. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, said the policy decision encouraged a record number of Central American children to journey north. "Unaccompanied children are being led into a country. Is this not a massive failure that would suggest that the administration needs to take immediate action to remedy what we're seeing here?" Romney inquired.