DHS Chief Unable to Disclose How Many Convicted Criminal Illegal Aliens Arriving at Border

During a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was unable to disclose to Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) just how many convicted criminal illegal aliens are arriving every month at our southern border. Their exchange is below:

LANKFORD: What percentage of the individuals that are encountered at our southern border do we know their criminal history from the country they’re coming from? I’m not talking about if they have an American criminal history or they are on our Terror[ism] Watch List, that we know their criminal history of the country they’re coming from. Do we know that history?

MAYORKAS: I will have to get back to you on that Senator whether we have the capability of identifying the percentage which is what you have…

LANKFORD: It is my understanding that we don’t know the criminal history of the vast majority. Can you give me an estimate on this… give me a guess.

MAYORKAS: I understand. I’m quite hesitant to guess on information that is so important to our mission but I will certainly get back to you with any information we can provide…

LANKFORD: It is incredibly important because I think there’s an assumption that the American people feel that the 2.4 million plus individuals that were encountered just in the last 12 months have been vetted in some way at our southern border and they’ve been checked. And we don’t know if these individuals are fleeing poverty or fleeing from the law. We don’t know. I mean, there’s a check to see if they have an American criminal history record but we don’t know if they have a criminal history record where they are coming from.

MAYORKAS: … we conduct screening and vetting of individuals whom we encounter. We have a robust screening and vetting process. It actually is recurrent vetting and it is not just with respect to criminal history in the United States.

LANKFORD: I’d like to get a good guess as to how many people we know their criminal history when they’re coming in.

MAYORKAS: As I mentioned Senator, I’ll get back to you to see if we have that data, if so, I will certainly provide it to you.

This testimony comes two days after Mayorkas failed to definitively state that none of the roughly two million border crossers and illegal aliens who have entered the U.S. interior since Biden took office are convicted criminals.