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Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas celebrated the White House’s alleged success in securing the US-Mexico border on Tuesday.

“Look, the border is secure,” Mayorkas declared while speaking to the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. “We are working to make the border more secure. That has been a historic challenge.”

The DHS Secretary did note that in his mind there is a difference between “safe” and “secure”. Based on the general tone and direction of his speech, it would seem that the difference in his mind was that “secure” but not “safe” means it’s still dangerous for undocumented migrants to cross it illegally.

The declaration by Mayorkas about the Southern border comes after over 200,000 illegal border crossings were recorded every month in the last 4 months alone.

The White House’s top enforcer of US immigration policy also used his speech to attack Republican lawmakers who have refused to pass the White House’s immigration reform bill.

“I have said to a number of legislators who expressed to me that we need to address the challenge at the border before they pass legislation and I take issue with the math of holding the solution hostage until the problem is resolved,” he said.

Mayorkas then noted that it is not safe to cross the border with cartels, a seemingly obvious statement, “There is work to be done…There are smugglers that operate on the Mexican side of the border and placing one’s life in their hands is not safe.”

Biden has been criticized frequently for his handling of the US-Mexico border. Many Republicans point to his rollback of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) which required immigrants to remain in Mexico for processing. Do you think the border is really secure like Mayorkas said?