DHS Sec. Mayorkas grilled by House GOP over report of inoperable cameras at southern border
Just when one thought the crisis at the southern U.S. border couldn't get any worse under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, it did.
Bombshell reports last week revealed that about one-third of the security cameras at the border do not work, prompting some lawmakers to take action.
According to JustTheNews, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding to know why so many cameras are down at the border.
The report last week came via an internal U.S. Border Patrol memo noting the major security issue.
What's going on?
In his letter, Green demanded to know more about the ongoing issue and gave Mayorkas until next week, Oct. 23, to explain what's happening and why it hasn't been rectified.
JustTheNews noted:
Green's office said his committee "recently spoke to sources within DHS" who confirmed that "roughly two-thirds of those cameras have gone completely off-line and not been repaired, preventing Border Patrol agents from making use of these important capabilities, limiting agents’ ability to detect and respond to illegal entries, and likely contributing to an undercounting of known gotaways."
Reportedly, an internal source told the House committee that a "review conducted by CBP discovered that dozens of contractors who were working on these cameras were not even in CBP’s system, and were thus not cleared to work on these law-enforcement sensitive assets."
The internal memo added, "CBP was unable to verify that several workers, in particular, were even U.S. citizens."
NBC has uncovered an internal border patrol memo leaked to them exclusively that states 30% of the cameras currently operating at the border do not work. Border patrol agents have no idea who is crossing in those areas of the border and they also say that this has been the case… pic.twitter.com/7FZmVB4JgL
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) October 17, 2024
The issue is one of the latest on the topic of the border crisis, which is expected to play an influential role in how many voters decide in November.
Social media reacts
Users across social media were not shy in expressing their opinions regarding the situation.
"And the billions we’ve paid for border security is being used to process immigrants," one X user wrote.
Another X user wrote, "These cameras went down the same way that Epstein's camera went down."
Only time will tell if the American taxpayer receives the answers they deserve on why these paid-for cameras are inoperable.