In November 2023, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) questioned Secretary Mayorkas on the Biden Administration’s use of immigration parole. In Fiscal Year 2023, there were over 800,000 immigrants paroled into the United States. Senator Graham asked Secretary Mayorkas if there was an individual analysis conducted for every person to determine whether each met at least one of the two criteria for parole, as required by law. Secretary Mayorkas replied that individual analysis was conducted on a case-by-case basis and that the Department “complied with the law.”
On Tuesday, Senator Graham announced that according to DHS, Jose Antonio Ibarra, the man accused of murdering Laken Riley, was granted “parole due to detention capacity at the Central Processing Center in El Paso, Texas.”
Senator Graham today made this statement on Secretary Mayorkas giving false testimony to Congress.
“In November 2023, I questioned Secretary Mayorkas about how the administration is using immigration parole. Under oath, he assured me that DHS complied with the law, and that they were conducting individual analysis and not granting blanket parole.
“Yesterday, when Congressman Dan Bishop asked Secretary Mayorkas why Jose Ibarra, the man accused of murdering Laken Riley, was paroled into the country, Secretary Mayorkas refused to answer and said he would need to review the file.
“Now we have concrete proof that Secretary Mayorkas’ testimony about the parole system is false.
“On the same day that Secretary Mayorkas refused to answer Congressman Bishop, I was able to answer that question with information provided by Secretary Mayorkas’ own agency.
“According to DHS, Jose Ibarra was paroled into the country because of lack of ‘detention capacity at the Central Processing Facility in El Paso, TX.’
“You cannot parole someone into the United States because there is a lack of space at a detention facility. This is a flagrant violation of the law. The statute requires parole to be granted only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian need or significant public benefit to the United States. In Ibarra’s case, there was no individual analysis. He did not have an urgent humanitarian need and he did not provide significant public benefit to the country.
“The abuse of the parole system is one of the main reasons Secretary Mayorkas was impeached by the House of Representatives. Now we know Secretary Mayorkas gave false testimony to Congress, which only strengthens the case against him.
“The trial for Secretary Mayorkas may go away, but the broken border is not going to go away. We are going to tell the American people until we run out of breath that the system in place is broken, it is leading to the death of innocent Americans like Laken Riley, and the person who created the problem is President Joe Biden.”
