At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) stumped key Biden Administration officials about key illegal immigration statistics.
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00:00 Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Morant, since President Biden's been president,
00:06 how many non-American citizens have come into our country illegally or on the basis of a claim of
00:14 asylum? Thank you Senator. HSI as an investigative agency is... Do you know the number? No Senator.
00:26 You're a senior member of Homeland Security, are you not? That's correct. Does anybody know the
00:31 number? None of you know the number. Try eight million. Now of that eight million, how many
00:42 were children Mr. Morant? I don't have that number. You don't know. Does anybody know?
00:53 None of you know. Isn't that special? Let's assume half.
00:58 Okay, eight million is four Nebraska's, right?
01:05 Four new states.
01:09 Let's assume, I don't think it's as high, half of them are children.
01:19 How many of those eight million people are still here? Do any of you know?
01:25 Okay, how many of those eight million are claiming asylum?
01:36 You don't know? How many of them claim asylum and don't show up for their hearing?
01:45 Nobody knows? How many of them claim asylum, don't show up for the hearing,
01:56 and President Biden has deported them?
01:58 You don't know? How many of them have claimed asylum, shown up for their asylum hearing,
02:10 and been denied asylum, and been deported?
02:14 You don't know? How many of them were from Mexico?
02:25 You don't know? How about 30 percent? That means 70 percent were not, right? Surely you know the
02:37 answer to that. 30 percent minus 100 percent is 70 percent, am I right?
02:44 Okay, 30 percent came from Mexico. Why don't you implement a safe third country policy
02:57 that says under asylum, under our asylum rules, you have to seek asylum in the first safe country.
03:05 So if you come, say, from Venezuela or Nicaragua or another Central American
03:12 country, you have to seek asylum in the first safe country. Why don't you do that?
03:18 And then that would eliminate 70 percent of the eight million. That's 5.6 million.
03:24 Why don't you do that, Mr. Moran?
03:35 Is that a question, sir? Yes.
03:37 All I've been asking are questions. That's beyond the purview of HSI.
03:42 Okay, how about you, Mr. Salazar, your former advisor to the vice president? How come we don't
03:47 do a safe third country agreement? Sir, we're working with our partners in the region. 21
03:52 countries signed on to the Los Angeles Declaration. Have you done a safe third
03:56 country agreement? You've had, what have you been at it, two years? What we are doing is
04:00 working with them to expand legal pathways. Why doesn't President Biden get up in the
04:04 morning tomorrow and say, we're changing the asylum process and we're doing what most other
04:10 countries do, safe third country policy. You have to seek asylum. We support asylum. We have to seek
04:16 asylum in the first safe country. That would eliminate 5.6 million people, boom, done,
04:25 coming into our country illegally, wouldn't it? Sir, I just want to point out Washington—
04:30 Wouldn't it? It would, sir, but there are activities underway.
04:34 Let me ask you this because I'm going to run out of time.
04:36 President Biden and all of you believe in open borders, don't you?
04:41 Don't you? I mean, I ask really basic questions. I don't mean any disrespect. I appreciate you
04:51 being here. And I know you all love our country as we all do. But I believe in straight answers.
05:00 I like straight answers and breakfast food. And there are only two possibilities here.
05:06 Either President Biden and his team believe in open borders or the people that the president
05:13 has put in charge of the immigration policy with this country are not qualified to manage a food
05:18 truck. And nobody's that incompetent. You folks believe in open borders, don't you?
05:26 Sir, I think we believe in secure borders.
05:29 You believe in—you don't even know how—well, I'm going to take 30 more seconds. You don't
05:36 even know how many people have come in illegally since President Biden has been president. You're
05:42 a former senior adviser to the vice president of the United States, Mr. Salazar.
05:47 And you can't even give me a number.
05:49 No, sir.
05:52 That's like going to an oncologist and asking him, "What's cancer?" And he says, "I don't know."
05:57 Give me a break.
06:03 Senator Welch?
06:09 Thank you. I thank the witnesses. You know, just speaking to my friend, Senator Kennedy,