Fire­brand GOP law­mak­er demands May­orkas pre­serve bor­der cri­sis records for Trump admin: ‘Undo the dam­age done’

FIRST ON FOX: A fire­brand Repub­li­can law­mak­er in Con­gress is demand­ing that DHS Sec­re­tary Ale­jan­dro May­orkas pre­serve all infor­ma­tion relat­ed to the bor­der cri­sis that took place over the last four years as part of an ongo­ing records request.

“Dur­ing your tenure as the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) Sec­re­tary, we have seen record­break­ing ille­gal alien encoun­ters at our bor­ders, mil­lions of aliens released into the inte­ri­or, scores of crim­i­nals and oth­er bad actors infil­trat­ing our com­mu­ni­ties, endan­ger­ing Amer­i­cans and aliens alike, and much more. It is imper­a­tive DHS pre­serve any and all infor­ma­tion relat­ed to the bor­der cri­sis and mass influx of aliens into the inte­ri­or so the incom­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion can deliv­er on its man­date to undo the dam­age done,” Rep. Chip Roy, R‑Texas, said in a let­ter to May­orkas, obtained first by Fox News Dig­i­tal.

Repub­li­cans have con­sis­tent­ly com­plained that DHS has not been respon­sive to requests for infor­ma­tion, a claim that DHS has denied – point­ing to a slew of brief­in­gs, respons­es and hear­ing appear­ances that offi­cials have giv­en.

DEM SENATOR URGES BIDEN TO EXTEND PROTECTIONS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BEFORE TRUMP ADMIN: ‘NOBODY IS SAFE’

Roy says his office and oth­ers have received “at best – delayed and insuf­fi­cient respons­es or – at worst – no response from your office at all.”

“As such, I request that you take all rea­son­able steps to pre­vent the destruc­tion of all doc­u­ments, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and oth­er infor­ma­tion, includ­ing elec­tron­ic infor­ma­tion, that are or may be respon­sive to this con­gres­sion­al inquiry, includ­ing mem­o­ran­da, numer­i­cal data, reports, let­ters, and sub­poe­nas received by Con­gress sur­round­ing bor­der secu­ri­ty and immi­gra­tion poli­cies of the Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion from Jan­u­ary 20, 2021, to the present,” he writes.

The let­ter comes as a polit­i­cal sea change on how to han­dle bor­der secu­ri­ty and ille­gal immi­gra­tion is about to hit Wash­ing­ton, D.C. While the Biden admin­is­tra­tion has tak­en a num­ber of hawk­ish moves at the bor­der in recent months, includ­ing a pres­i­den­tial procla­ma­tion in June that dras­ti­cal­ly lim­it­ed asy­lum, the incom­ing Trump admin­is­tra­tion and Repub­li­can Con­gress are eye­ing sig­nif­i­cant over­hauls to how immi­gra­tion and bor­der secu­ri­ty are han­dled.

Giv­en the his­toric cri­sis at the bor­der, which start­ed in ear­ly 2021 and con­tin­ued deep into 2024, Repub­li­cans have ham­mered the admin­is­tra­tion on the bor­der cri­sis, with Roy being a key mem­ber in the impeach­ment of May­orkas ear­li­er this year – although that impeach­ment was not tak­en up by the Sen­ate.

While the Trump admin­is­tra­tion will like­ly bring in sweep­ing changes at the bor­der, Roy’s let­ter indi­cates there will be con­tin­ued inter­est in how the Biden admin­is­tra­tion han­dled the cri­sis.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

Roy’s let­ter requests that DHS pre­serves infor­ma­tion, includ­ing the num­ber of migrants released with court dates, their coun­tries of ori­gins, last known where­abouts, and sim­i­lar infor­ma­tion for those released into the U.S. under human­i­tar­i­an parole and those allowed to stay under pro­grams like Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus.

It also seeks infor­ma­tion on how the con­tro­ver­sial CBP One app – which allows for migrants to sched­ule appoint­ments to be paroled into the U.S. – was being used. Infor­ma­tion request­ed also includes those who are no longer able to be con­tact­ed, those released with crim­i­nal charges or con­vic­tions, those with gang affil­i­a­tions, and those giv­en pro­tec­tion under Tem­po­rary Pro­tect­ed Sta­tus.

Roy also want­ed to see the num­ber of visa over­stays, those admit­ted with visas who are sus­pect­ed of fraud, and the num­ber of coun­tries that are “recal­ci­trant” and who are not tak­ing back ille­gal immi­grants. He also wants to know the num­ber of Chi­nese nation­als released into the U.S. with ties to the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty, the names of orga­ni­za­tions that have received DHS grants for car­ing for migrants and the num­ber of work­site enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tions con­duct­ed by ICE.

The let­ter is the lat­est sign that immi­gra­tion, which was a polit­i­cal hot top­ic in 2024, will like­ly remain a top item for Con­gress as well as the admin­is­tra­tion in 2025. Pres­i­dent-elect Trump has already appoint­ed for­mer ICE Direc­tor Thomas Homan as his bor­der czar, and has nom­i­nat­ed South Dako­ta Gov. Kristi Noem to be May­orkas’ suc­ces­sor at DHS. Repub­li­cans are expect­ed to push for addi­tion­al leg­is­la­tion to aid in that oper­a­tion. That push could take the form of HR 2, the Repub­li­can bor­der bill that passed in the House in 2023, but has not been tak­en up by the Sen­ate.