CHARLESTON – West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey recently signed a letter with 13 other attorneys general calling for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ immediate resignation.
Morrisey originally called for Mayorkas’ resignation during a visit to the nation’s border with Mexico in Texas in January.
“You were sworn in as Secretary of DHS on February 2, 2021,” the letter states. “On that day, you solemnly swore to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
“You have violated that oath every day since you took office. Americans have died because of your failure to obey the law and do your solemn duty. More Americans will unnecessarily die and suffer for as long as you remain as Secretary.”
Morrisey visited the Mexican border to get a first-hand look at the situation. He was joined by 12 other attorneys general.
During that visit in January, Attorney General Morrisey called for Mayorkas’ resignation for having “failed miserably at the highest level of government” in his duty to control the flow of drugs across the nation’s southern border.
He also denounced the Biden administration and said the federal government needs to stop abdicating its responsibility to protect people from scourges such as fentanyl, which is killing record numbers of West Virginians.
“Words really can’t adequately describe what all of us experienced the last couple of days and the horrific catastrophe we’re seeing down here at the border,” Morrisey said in January. “Not only undocumented aliens streaming across the border, human trafficking, but fentanyl.
“These drugs are flowing into the heartland from across the southern border. Bodies are starting to pile up as a result of the utter failure of this administration. And it’s time they do something about it. In West Virginia, we experience the illegal immigration problem most acutely through the explosion of fentanyl into our state. We’re seeing it all the time. Deaths are rising, doubling in many of our counties.”
Last year, Morrisey filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over the termination of the “Remain in Mexico” policy which required certain asylum seekers arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border to return to Mexico while awaiting their asylum hearing in U.S. immigration court.
Most fentanyl available in the United States begins as raw ingredients made in China which are then shipped to Mexico and used by the cartels in that country to manufacture the dangerous opioids. From there, the drug is trafficked into the U.S. across the southwest border. Seizures of fentanyl at the border increased from about 1,187 kilograms in 2019 to about 2,939 kilograms in 2020.
