The Biden administration has failed to respond to sheriffs’ calls for solutions along the southern border, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels said during a congressional hearing discussing the southern border Wednesday.
Dannels described unsuccessful attempts to reach President Joe Biden directly and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas regarding solutions to the border crisis. Federal authorities recorded more than 2.3 million migrant encounters in fiscal year 2022 alone, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
“We actually have on behalf of the National Sheriffs’ Association … Our National Sheriffs senior leadership has attempted through letters to reach out to President Biden, he’s been invited to our events with major county sheriffs, western sheriffs, southwest border and national. We have never gotten a response back from this president. In fact, I was told just a couple months ago he’s the first president not to meet with sheriffs in this country. He still has not to date to my knowledge,” Dannels said in response to questioning by Republican Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson.
“We did meet with Secretary Mayorkas. We reached out. I assembled about a dozen sheriffs, we met in El Paso. We sat down with the secretary, gave him a 16-point action plan to share what we thought were common sense, humanitarian, public safety and national security objectives built within that. Never heard back, I asked the secretary where that plan was, what they were gonna do with it. He asked me, ‘what plan?’”
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Neither the White House nor DHS responded to requests for comment.
“It’s an absolute dereliction of duty. It’s inexcusable,” Johnson responded to Dannels’ claims.
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