Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas defended the Biden administration’s stance towards migrants in the face of Title 42 ending, taking a harder line during an ABC interview while trying to toe a humanitarian one on CNN. Mayorkas told ABC‘s Jonathan Karl that a policy prioritizing asylum for those who first sought out lawful pathways didn’t amount to an all-out ban. “It's not a ban on asylum, but they have a higher threshold of proof that they have to meet,” he said. “That is a presumption of ineligibility that can be overcome.” That was necessary, he told CNN’s Dana Bash, to fight off cartels. “They are arriving in the hands of smugglers that wreak such tragedy, such trauma upon their lives,” he said. “The cartels, the smuggling organizations control the land, and so we have not only a security imperative, but a humanitarian responsibility to cut those smugglers out.”
